You’re gonna love this.

—ORIGINAL MESSAGE—

Hi Jake,

See attached.

—Mike

ATTACHED: contact.docenc (3MB)

CLASSIFIED: TOP SECRET - AUTHORIZED ACCESS ONLY
REPORT FROM USS PERRY TO UNINAVCOM CENTRAL

AT 2520:03:16:18:14:22 NAVIGATIONAL SCANS DETECTED UNKNOWN OBJECT IN THE GJ 1227 SYSTEM. 
CLOSE APPROACH REVEALED IT TO BE TECHNOLOGICAL IN NATURE

AT 2520:03:18:11:22:08 USS PERRY MARINES SET FOOT ABOARD. 
OBJECT RESPONDED WITH DARK ENERGY WAVE

AT 2520:03:18:14:41:50 MARINES RETURNED FROM DARK ENERGY WAVE COLLAPSE 
WITH SAMPLES OF BIOLOGICAL MATERIAL, SOUND RECORDINGS, AND BURN MARKS ON THEIR ARMOR.

THEIR REPORT DESCRIBED THEIR BEING TRANSPORTED TO AN UNKNOWN LOCATION 
FILLED WITH UNIDENTIFIED LIFEFORMS. THEY ENCOUNTERED AND CLEARED A HOSTILE GROUP.

COMPUTER ANALYSIS CONFIRMS THAT THEIR RECORDINGS REPRESENT UNKNOWN LANGUAGE.

COLLECTED EVIDENCE SUGGESTS THE UN MAY BE THREATENED BY ALIEN POWER.

SPECOPS TAC TEAM T͟A͟N͟G͟O͟ G͟R͟E͟E͟N͟ REMAINS ON SITE.

Sound Dramatic? We think so, and we think it's just kind of drama the 
12-23 demographic doesn't know they're desperate for. C͟O͟N͟T͟A͟C͟T͟ is an exciting new episodic 
adventure series that blends the best of vintage sci-fi like STAR TREK and 23rd century 
space opera with modern mildrama like KINETIC IMPACT. The star team, TANGO GREEN, 
have found themselves in a world that is big enough for us to fit almost any drama 
imaginable. It is also a world at a tipping point, where a single character's choices 
can make all the difference.



T͟H͟E͟ A͟L͟I͟E͟N͟S͟

The galaxy wasn't always under the thumb of the TYREXI IMPERIUM. 
These nasty customers were once the footsoldiers of the galaxy's mercantile consortiums, 
but decided they liked the violence and riches that came with their work more than they 
liked their clients. Now, they traverse the galaxy putting down whatever resistance they 
find, and bring back the mightiest of their foes for the brutal gladiatorial pits where 
their elders are entertained and their young hone their skills.

We won't see the leaders of the Imperium, not yet. Humanity is far too small and 
primitive to attract their notice, for the first season. Instead we might encounter 
roving hunting bands and regional governors with furious bloodlust.

The victims of the Tyrexi are a motley bunch, scattered across the stars, first by the 
trading economy of the good old days and now by the terror of the Tyrexi. We can't expect 
to meet a new, fleshed out species every episode, but for the first few we will on a 
regular basis. We have a couple ideas to start out with, but we're leaving the door open 
for other writers as they contribute to the series.

The GLAIN'M were once noble warriors and rivals of the Tyrexi. Nowadays most of them 
spend their time frozen in pods, awaiting the day the Tyrexi need something more 
entertaining than their usual fare. When the Tango Green crew encounter one, it's a 
serious threat, but also an opportunity for a useful alliance. Still one is always left 
wondering whether their nobility masks more dangerous intentions for when the Tyrexi are 
out of the way. They eventually are represented on the team by BRAK'GA, an older Glain'm 
who comes to show a more maternal side to her character as she becomes acquainted with 
the marines.

The most powerful computers of the Imperium aren't computers at all, but the 
imprisoned brain-like ROUTHAIN. Formerly the intellectual titans of galactic 
civilization, the Tyrexi have elected to putthem to more practical use implanted into 
their systems. The crew will encounter a few Routhain but cannot save them. The first 
they encounter with any agency is an individual aboard a spaceship necessary for their 
return home (see sample episodes), a purpose for which he willingly aids them. Sometime 
in the future, they will learn that he was responsible long ago for genetically 
engineering the Tyrexi, and must decide how he must face his culpability.



T͟H͟E͟ ͟T͟A͟N͟G͟O͟ ͟G͟R͟E͟E͟N͟ ͟C͟R͟E͟W͟

These are our heroes, and a better band of internationalists you'll never meet. 

COLONEL WINTERS: One hell of a Marine. Winters has earned enough accolades over years 
of service (with enough darkness in that past) to know that war is not something to strive 
towards. Nonetheless, he cannot possibly be mistaken for someone unwilling to use force 
when necessary. He commands the loyalty of his team with bravado, guile, and unwavering 
confidence.

CAPTAIN CRAIG: Synth Second-In Command, A boxy, tall combat frame. Stark, unflappable, 
natural leader. This is the persona he projects to shield his deep insecurities regarding 
his donor brain- who he knows comes from a notoriously narcissistic talk radio host of the 
Maybe War era. He does all he can to distance himself from that shadow, but even in 
his best moments he wonders if he goes above and beyond for his teammates or for himself.

STAFF SERGEANT CARRADINE: The team's old-as-dirt corpsman, and Winter's personal mentor 
through much of his career. It was her wisdom learned in the Maybe War that set him on 
the right path, and he still trusts her beyond anyone else in the worlds. Her warmth and 
affection can be the glue that keeps the team together, but in a crisis she also shows a 
coldly practical side that can only come from far too many nights in the triage center.

LIEUTENANT ABAZI: Quick-witted, adaptable tech specialist. The team knows they can rely 
on him in a pinch, but haven't ever managed to get him to open up personally. 
What he doesn't want anyone to know is that he joined the marines under a false identity 
after defecting from Minervan service for personal reasons. As they become more a factor 
in the plot, he becomes even more isolated, until he reaches his breaking point and must 
decide where he stands.

LIEUTENANT BARREAU: The baby of the group, she descends from a centuries-old military 
family and wants nothing more than to prove herself worthy of that lineage. 
Winters's occasionally harsh tutelage has only hardened that resolve, much to his 
chagrin. Come a worthy fight, she'll be the first one in and the last one out if given 
the chance.


S͟A͟M͟P͟L͟E͟ ͟E͟P͟I͟S͟O͟D͟E͟S͟

PILOT: A good bit of it we described at the beginning of this document; we're finding out 
alien life exists and a lot of it wants to blow us up. This episode will live and die on ]
the effects and the sense of mystery - we want people wondering what else could 
be out there. By the end they'll know there are good aliens and bad ones, and 
how important it is to get this sorted. We finish it off with a big kaboom and 
a cliffhanger: the portal is blown up, USS Perry destroyed, and Tango Green alone on 
the wrong side of space.

ONLY ONE WAY: Alone on the far side of the galaxy, Tango Green gets the lay of the land 
in time to commandeer a Tyrexi ship to take the first step towards home and warning 
humanity.

TEST OF MIGHT: Impressed by Colonel Winters' prowess, the Tyrexi commander Sekat 
(from the pilot) lays a trap to kidnap him and bring him to the gladiator pits, 
where he meets and is trained by Brak'Ga. Meanwhile, the rest of Tango Green rally 
to save their leader. 
Could make a good two-parter.

THE WAR AT HOME: Tango Green finally arrives back at GJ 1227. There's only one problem: 
The Minervans got there first.

FOREVER VENGEANCE: Season finale. Sekat has seen disgrace and humiliation all season long,
 and is now isolated from his own kind. The Imperium offers him one final option, take a 
weapon capable of devastating humanity into our space. There he will kill Colonel Winters,
 or die trying.


With the expansive production design and variety of aliens and soldiers, 
we believe CONTACT could meet its maximum potential as a multi-season storyline 
with a big marketing and merch push. We want our designs to be iconic and can 
easily imagine them filling the toy aisles for Christmas 2520. Continuing 
the story for multiple seasons will also offset much of the up-front expenses for sets 
and special effects. However, the minimum viable version of CONTACT can be achieved 
with a single season run.

What do you think? Bit hokey, and I think the title’s already taken, but it could definitely help with recruitment if done right. One thing’s for sure though, if it is gonna be done right, they’re gonna need our help. Just look at that thing. Juicy stuff.

V/R,
Jake

Hey guys. April Fools!
More importantly, though, wishing you all a fruitful Holy Week and a joyful Easter (or a blessed Pascha for our Easterners).

Thanks for journeying with us so far on WAYBOUND, and stay tuned for RED CHECKS OVER RHODES: PART 2. It’s well underway, and while nj’s taking a break for a bit on it, it should be here pretty soon.

—Kirk & nj

“You know this is suicide, right?” Goodfella settled down into the backseat of the ASF-17E, the red checkmark of the Fighting Renegades splashed across the side of the Tactical Systems Officer’s helmet. “You do know that, right, Wick?”

“Yeah,” she nodded. “Damn good reason nobody's ever done this.” She rubbed the back of her neck, the large, empty port at the base of her skull feeling a bit heavier than usual. It was, ultimately, a bad day to die. It was her best friend’s wedding today, and she was devastated to miss it. If it hadn't been for the war, she would have felt like a real asshole, even if they had called her in. She wondered what a good day would look like, before coming to the conclusion that there perhaps was no such thing, just days where it might not be the worst.

She stared down into the cockpit of the E-model Panther, the twin sticks of the Front Office rising up from the armrests in a silent greeting. “Well, Wick?” Goodfella looked up at her, pulling the exterior sunvisor of his helmet down. “You coming, or do I gotta fly the damn thing, too?”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “No worries. Just got an itch on my back or something.” She pulled her arm back over her shoulder. She couldn't reach it. Her flight suit was too thick, anyways. That was gonna drive her nuts.

He raised an eyebrow in concern. “Alright then. Jack in and let's roll.”

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The canopy glinted in the harsh light of the flight pod, cracked open and slid back to the aft. The fighter sat among the stacks, myriad siblings perched amongst a forest of manipulator arms and loading rails. Ordnance teams scattered below, loader drones led by crewmen; they carted along weapons the likes of which had only been seen the last time nations had clashed with such force and fury. Lieutenant Rafka ‘Wicked’ Smart of the US Navy stepped down, one foot on the seat, one on the gantry, before sinking into the embrace of the high-g acceleration chair. A long, thick cable, terminating in a black, curved box with connector terminals at its ends, sat at the nape of her neckrest. She scooched forward, fumbling around behind her back, and pulled the data umbilical over her lap. That one went last. Onboard oxygen and water came first. Then the heating/cooling umbilical. Everything hooked up nice and tight, green status lights on the flight suit’s wrist display.

The black box sitting on her leg wasn't pretty. It was a grim necessity of a brutal age; gone were the sleek and small neural laces of the 2200s— they had gone the way of paper cigarettes and the sudden, firy death of technogroove. In had come the cyberplague, and in its wake it had left bulky binary module interfaces as the only viable option for those who preferred their nerve endings intact. She checked her helmet’s seal against the locking collar of her flight suit and the dock surface on the neural connector on the back of her skull. They were airtight. She was good. She gulped down one last, shaky breath and lifted the plug to the jack.

Data came up the implanted synthnerve, an anasthetic numbing her to herself— starting in a trickle, mixing and weaving with the sights and sounds of her own eyes and ears, a sharp-edged, hot tingle buzzing inside her nerves. Soon she would dream in infrared visions from eyes on the back of her head, soon she would howl in every frequency of the spectrum and eat off the flames of a captive star. Now, though, she simply had to figure out where her eyeballs ended and the sensors started— too tight of a meld was dangerous.

She took a breath and curled a fist. She closed her eyes. She thought of home. It hurt.

Good.

She opened up the intercom and ran through the preflight in her head, flipping switches and checking gauges, disconnecting the offboard power, switching the reactor to POWER START mode before flipping over the cover and punching the button.

The uprated F757-SC fusion reactor’s startup was always more violent than the C-model’s 753— a thumping howl that faded into a gentle purr. It made sense. It was a bigger engine, and the heart of an artificial star had just taken up a magnetically-confined residence inside her plane. It always felt harrowing. This was a living, breathing creature. It was a part of herself, and she was part of it, and it was trying to kill her. The fighter-interdictor was a mixed breed, sure, but it begged to be let off the leash and hunt all the same as its purebred C-model cousins.

Today, the Panther would get its wish.

“Reactor hot,” Wicked nodded. “Copy,” came the reply from the backseat. “Final round back here. All green so far. Ready to button up?”

“All clear, send it.” Goodfella flipped the switch to seal them under the duraglass as she watched the shimmering gold of the bubble canopy slide forward into place. She flipped a switch on the side of her helmet, a largely redundant HUD flickering into existence as laser beams danced across her retinas. She glanced down at the screens ringing the front of the composite bathtub of a cockpit. This, too, was largely a symbolic, grounding gesture. Wicked knew the fighter was ready like she knew her tank top was too itchy at the lumbar, tucked away snugly under her airtight flight suit. She really was hoping that would go away. The glance reminded her that she was her own being, a soul that continued to exist when she stepped out of the cockpit and pulled the black box from her skull.

“Ready, Goodfella.” The aviator lofted a thumbs-up towards the roof of the canopy. “Let's get rolling.”

“Copy that, Wick.” He nodded. “CHO, this is RAGE 207, ready setdown.”

“Copy, RAGE 207.” The Craft Handling Officer’s team was fast today. “You're next in the rotation for your stack. Setting you down shortly.”

The gantry system pushed them off their catwalk bay, a lifting crane on standby to lower the fighter-interdictor to the deck. As another airframe ahead of them made contact with the deckplate, it drove away on the power of a small tractor cart waiting for it below. An icon on the main display turned green as the Craft Handling Officer called in. “RAGE 207, go for setdown and rolloff.”

The plane, wheels on the gravity-plated deck, rolled over to the arming stations as munitions drones pulled in alongside and into the trench underneath the plane. She went over the munitions loadout, a nerve ending gaining a new neighbor as the flight computer sent the knowledge of each and every weapon to the back of her head, as instinctual as breathing. Boxes of tungsten slugs slotted in up top with four hundred and twenty six rounds of 25mm each for the articulated guns sitting over each shoulder. She ran the test without thinking, glancing around in front to watch the reticles keep pace with her view, the gimballed magcannons tracking flawlessly.

She felt three BBM-241 heat-seekers lock into the starboard bay before the image even popped onto the Stores Management display. The Mamba was the Panther family's purpose-built fangs, a compact, conventionally armed missile that could serve as either a sprint-configured space to space missile or a short-ranged dogfighting missile in the skies, both with a great degree of maneuverability. The loader drones finished their jobs, and now she had six-shooters on each hip, a full twelve Mambas on their internal triple ejectors. Underneath, pallets of bombs, tipped with multimode anti-radiation seekers and kitted for a boosted glide, slid under the fuselage as “GBU-501R” blinked onto the display.

She glanced around as up and down the flight pod a row of Panthers stretched out as far as the eye could see, an air wing’s worth of aerospace fighters getting ready to leave the nest. The scale was almost incomprehensible. Even at the largest ‘elephant walk’ exercises, where they'd cram every last jet they could find down a single runway, she didn't think she'd seen so many warplanes so tightly packed together that weren't being stored. She'd already gotten the brief; twenty-eight carrier aerospace wings had been offloaded at Sol, and in their place, the USS RANGER and her sisters had been crammed to the gills with atmospheric capable fighters and strike planes. There wasn't a spare bunk aboard; the massive seven hundred meter Landing Platform, Atmospheric was standing room only. This was her ship, so she'd been able to have some time to sleep in her own rack— thank God, she thought, even if I have to share— but she knew VFA(E)-33’s skipper— and many others— had been forced to lash their sleeping bags to the wall out in the corridor. How are we going to fight, she wondered, with shitty sleep?

It didn't really matter, at this point. Operation DEADLINE’s opening gambit would be over and done with in four hours, nineteen minutes, and seven seconds, one way or another. That's what her HUD counter read. The battle would continue for weeks, of course, but it would be won or lost in that one opening move. They were supposed to be rolling in with a numerical advantage, the planners calling for three to one at the absolute worst. Minervans had SAMs on the ground, though, and a joint engagement zone. That, she thought, was going to be a bloodbath. She didn't know for who. Even with modern signature matching technology, it wasn't unheard of for a surface to air missile to go off-script and kill one of your own guys. Rare, sure. Impossible, no. Besides, the Minnie drivers were damn good, and armed with some very, very capable missiles. She'd lost a good few of her old friends to their heatseeker, a short-ranged, quick missile with a launch signature that didn't always trip missile approach warning systems. The Minervans called it the IRM-45 Falcon. The reporting name for it was the MN-AA-31 Aurora. Everyone called it the Widowmaker, and the name was no exaggeration.

As they were cleared to roll forwards, a yellow-vested crewman walking her plane along the deckplate, she came to a grim realization. In the skies of Marathon, four hours would decide who lived and who died. Four hours of steel, silicon, and blood, four hours of cold necessities or raw hatreds. Four hours would winnow the wheat from the chaff, thousands of souls swept up in the cruel harvest.

She wasn't sure what she felt for the Minervans. She used to feel pity. There had been a great deal of it amongst the ranks, back in the day. That was before they had invaded Sol, and far before the latest reports from Marathon had gotten to the fleet and been splashed across every screen in the Sol system. Minnie soldiers had uprooted entire cities to set exclusion zones around anything they considered militarily valuable, and were now drawing the demarcation lines in blood. She had always used to think there wasn't much difference between them and her, but now Goodfella would be the first to correct her on that, and she was beginning to agree. They're not just some impressionable kids enticed into service by patriotism or paychecks, his voice echoed. They're impressionable kids with innocent blood on their hands.

In all honesty, she still felt a little bit of pity for them. Some of it was genuine, from a place of common humanity. The rest of it was a different kind of pity. As she looked upon the line of strike fighters abreast, wings unfurling and contorting every which way in test patterns, the outstretched arm of the United Nations made manifest, she pitied the poor souls on the receiving end of all this.

She reached out her right hand and grabbed the primary control stick, a vestigial formality most days, but an essential fallback today. Heaven only knew what kind of cyberweapons and SCREW interference they'd face once they hit realspace. She'd heard rumors— nasty rumors— about the Minervans having some kind of mindflayer brain worm that could get in through adversarial patterning on the radar. She glanced down at the NEURAL EJECT switch. If flipped, it would trigger the system to physically punch the neural lace out of her skull. They'd all rehearsed it a million times. She hoped it would be as second-nature when there was a viral package rampaging around through her brainstem. She grimaced. It was much like an escape raft on a submarine— more there for peace of mind than any actual functionality. Hopefully Goodfella would be able to punch her out if he noticed. The Built-In Test screen flashed to life on her MFD, instructing her to unfurl the wings. She pushed forward a hat switch on the left stick and the two slim protrusions at the side of the plane jumped into action, sliding forth from the fuselage as the fore and aft wing panels followed, a single cohesive trapezoidal wing forming by virtue of addition. The MFD commanded the ruddervators be moved to their flight position, and she dutifully complied, the smaller stabilizers to the aft swinging down to an acute angle with the wings. The atmospheric control surfaces danced in the flight pod’s hard vacuum for lack of a wind; the wings soon swept in— Reaction Control System wingtips remaining fixed in their place— and the ruddervators split into their X-formation as the radiators were brought to bear. Everything checked out, with green lights across the display. It chirped a jingle of acknowledgement and she held aloft a thumbs-up to a yellow-vested aircraft handler.

The synth nodded; a tube assignment flashed across her HUD. “RAGE, CHO.” The Craft Handling Officer called in to her squadron. “Acknowledge tube assignments.”

“RAGE 200, confirm Tube Papa-Delta-One-Six.”

“RAGE 201, confirm Tube Papa-Delta-One-Seven.”

The squadron counted off, one airframe after another, and a shiver crept up her spine. It was finally becoming real. Something panicked within her. The sentence was being pronounced. The hangman’s noose hung gently on the shoulders of each and every one here. She shook her head and smothered the thought. She could feel the impression of Goodfella’s mind hovering just behind her shoulder, reaching out to a laminated prayer card taped to his cockpit rail, calling on the hand of the Archangel Michael to carry him through the day. So he was scared too. He always did this, but she didn't usually feel it this strongly. That wasn't good. C’mon, Tony, she thought. No time for that now. She hoped he didn't hear the words. She hoped he felt their shape.

The fade getting them this early was bad.

Her turn. She breathed in deep.

“RAGE 207, confirm Tube Papa-Delta-Two-Three.” Her tone was calm, professional, collected. She closed her eyes, and by the time she opened them, so was she. There were people down there counting on her. She watched the seconds tick away. Four hours, sixteen minutes, eleven seconds. Fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters all wondering why they were stuck in a flashkrete prison. If she could shave off even one second from their captivity at the barrel of a gun, she had a duty to do so. She wasn't going to let them down.

“RAGE, all tube assignments confirmed. Proceed to launch tubes and engage cat-lock. Good hunting.”

She gripped the stick, and at the urging of the yellow-vest, guided the plane, wings retracted, stabilizers folded, onto the launch armature. The front wheel locked in as the enveloping darkness of the launch tube overtook their vision, blast door sealing behind them. There was nothing beyond the lights of the cockpit before a streak overtook her vision, edge-recognition software highlighting the contours of the surroundings as the night vision on her fighter’s systems subconsciously kicked in.

“RAGE 207, Launch Control. Cat-lock engaged, alignment is green. Tube is cold, coming online. Stand by for launch clearance.” LCO’s voice was buttery and calm over the radio. She nodded as Goodfella answered in acknowledgement.

At T- four hours, seven minutes, and forty-three seconds, realspace hit her like a truck. Her stomach dropped through itself, through her gut, even. She felt like she was drowning under the weight of the void. Her fighter’s gravitometer went ballistic, throwing every number from 0 to 926 out within seconds of each other, and none were even correct, even if it felt like all of them were at once. It was the worst she had ever felt in her life, an instant, perhaps, but an unending instant of compressive, squeezing pain. She hoped nothing broke. Glancing down at a stomach that was in fact intact and a gravitometer reading the deckplates’ 0.7g downwards, she thought it was probably fine. A quick system check confirmed her suspicions. Four hours, five minutes, and thirty five seconds.

“RAGE, set launch clock for two minutes, staggered sequence.”

Four hours, five minutes.

It was only two minutes, but she wished the wait didn't take so long. She knew it wouldn't be the worst part of the day, but it certainly felt like it in the moment. She fought to keep her mind in her own head. She liked Goodfella, he was a good guy and a damn good TAC-O. She didn't want to scrape her consciousness up against his. She could tell he was rapt in wordless prayer, a silent cry for divine protection of a kind she didn't really believe in. She didn't resent him that, it was just something she didn't understand. Her parents had been faithful, but she had never really taken to it. She appreciated Chaplain O’Brien’s concern, at least. Maybe one day. She sincerely doubted that she would be finding God today, though. Meeting Him, perhaps, if they were right and she was unlucky. L-00:00:20. Go time.

The doors to the tube cracked open, blinding light spilling through the edge-highlighted void. Her neural link lit up with thousands of contacts, and she instinctively knew where each and every one of them was. She grit her teeth, flipped down her sun visor, and clutched the brace handles for dear life.

“RAGE 207, LCO.” Here it was. “Cat-lock secure. Charge sequence interval check… charge sequence go, capacitors online. Checkers green, tube is hot. I say again, tube is hot. Clear forward, charge positive. RAGE 207, you are go for launch. I say again, GO FLIGHT. Good hunting.”

“RAGE 207 confirms GO FLIGHT.” Goodfella nodded from the back. If there was any fear in his voice, Wick couldn't hear it. “Launching.”

“Punch it,” he nodded from the back. She obliged, and the world became a tunnel-vision blur for but a moment, the euphoria of pure adrenaline coursing into every muscle in her body. The sleek grey spaceframe shot out of the tube, a bolt from the blue. Chaos enveloped them.

Anti-orbital missile tracks streaked upwards from the ground as the fleet’s batteries opened up in reply, cracking off shots against a Minervan defense flotilla that was very much surprised to see them so close and so soon. Escort drones formed up around the squadron of Echo Panthers, her hand instinctively reaching for the controls to push the RCS booms out and swing open the radiators. “Space mode engaged, reactor at unrestricted output.” She took a breath. “Goodfella, you hanging in back there?”

“Yeah, all good, Wick. My jammers look good.”

“Alright.” She nodded, letting herself ease back into the Tactical Neural Datalink as she switched the Master Arm on and went down the prep checklist. The next phase was one that RAGE 207 needed to be firing on all cylinders for. The decoy drones, slim tubes not much unlike a missile but with large fold-out radiators, clustered loosely around their fighters, signature augmenters burning away in the night hoping to draw a missile, point-defense autocannons in the nose searching for inbound targets to shred. She looked out at the decoys with a shred of that sentimental pity typically reserved for particularly well-loved pencils. Sure, I don't need you, she thought, and I'm going to use you up. But everything’s just that bit easier while I've got you here.

Next came the loyal wingman drones. The Lima-Whiskeys were a fighter pilot’s best friend, a missile magazine with wings that served her two purposes: to extend her reach and to hopefully die before she did. This variety, the MQ-111 Lynx, was designed to operate with the Panther, a heat shield and small orbital maneuvering thrusters giving the unmanned microfighter the reach necessary to hit the sky running. The Lynxes were packed with AIM-173 Advanced Active Radar Ordnance missiles, scramjet-powered medium-to-long range missiles so named because the good people at Huntwell Systems rather liked the sound of “AARO”. She did too. It flowed off the tongue nicely. They looked rather like a bent sled with wings and a V-tail, not much like an aircraft at all. The shape was meant to hold as much ordnance as possible inside while concealing its presence on groundside search radars; the strange, inverted beak-tipped brick certainly got no points for looking pretty. Ugly or not, she was glad to have them near. They would be helpful, she mused. At the very least, as long as she could see that ugly thing, she was still alive.

The formations, loose as they were, coasted along their orbital tracks. They strafed as the collision or proximity alarms called for, watching as torpedo volleys shot off into the black at the defending fleet. The enemy formation was more visible from the flash of their missiles than anything else at this distance— to the naked eye, at least. Close by space combat’s standards was very far indeed, but with the aid of their airframes the Panther drivers could see every terrifying bit of it. Her CO Bubbles’ voice crackled over the radio. “RAGE, standby for deorbit burn on my mark.” She watched as the maneuver node approached on her navigation screen, and pirouetted the fighter ass-backwards before gripping the left stick tighter still. The maneuver node ticked down, calling for just a few kilometers per second of delta-V, at just the right time. The clock hit zero, Bubbles called the mark, and she punched it, letting the drives burn for a few paltry seconds before yanking back on the left stick, throttling down the main engines. The trajectory looked good, and she spun the nose prograde again, staring down the gas giant’s moon that would be the ruin of so many.

Hundreds of slate-grey spaceframes dove for the moon below, radiators set to minimum viable emissions as missiles blossomed above and below, trails of plasma carving eerie purple gashes in the sky. Hundreds turned to thousands. There were nearly fourteen thousand aerospacecraft committed to this operation, she knew. The horizon stared up at her, a thin blue blanket wrapped around a marble of a world. Exoatmospheric kill vehicles broke through the clouds, splitting from their ASAT boosters below as they rose to meet their new guests. All around her, the bollard-sized ‘kinetic effectors’— such an elegant name for a particularly fast rock— turned signature-augmented drones into vapor and debris. She switched to reentry mode just as the first tendrils of flame started to lick at the corners of her fighter’s fuselage, and as she glanced around the canopy she watched in horror as in the span of half a second another Panther became an almost perfectly spherical field of dust and smoke. There was no blood, there was no bone, there was nothing even to suggest that a young man had been there but a moment earlier. It was almost merciful in its clinical brutality. The shroud of reentry heating began to overtake her canopy’s view, and it washed away that unknown aviator’s unmarked grave as everything was consumed in flames.

The data streamed in, picking up where her vision left off. Her eyes were now hundreds of miles away, and she saw in radar waves and thermal signatures. The datalink antenna on the Panther’s tail ‘stinger’, the only part of the jet not enveloped by flame, streamed all the awareness she would get for the next five minutes as the sheath of plasma cut her off from the outside world. The picture was not good. The Skyshield decoy drones had no heat shield, so they were not expecting them to survive, but they had been estimated to last slightly longer. She didn’t have any math behind it, but based on how quickly they were coming apart she gave them a minute and a half, two if they were lucky. That was even worse. She watched the IFF blips of several other Panthers tick off her display as another wave of ASAT missiles shot off their launchers, archers below emptying their quivers. She was very thankful that the countermeasure launchers had thermal protection. She felt the faint outline of a prayer brush up against her mind, the suppressed panic of two souls in a hurtling metal box each finding solace in the other over the fighter’s neural link. She felt a wave of calm wash over the bridge, her backseater nodding as if she could see him.

Reentry decoys dropped out the back of the fighter, designed to roughly mimic the thermal signature of a Panther by inflating a large heat shield in front. They were fairly large for a countermeasure, though, and the Panthers could only stow so many. Worse still, the Echo model had cut out much of the internal space for the decoys in favor of a large conformal jammer array spaced just behind the heat shield. She cursed the engineers at Convair. Perhaps they didn’t understand that a jammer was only useful if the plane it was attached to continued to exist after you launched it. Even still, the defensive avionics system kicked the last few decoys they did have out the aft of the plane. They ballooned to life next to the jet as yet more friendly tags disappeared. The whole thing would have worked marvelously if the Minervans had simply not thought to bring so many missiles.

The MN-SO-10 Oryx was a capable hunter, and like any predator of its caliber it hunted in packs. As the waves of missiles approached, they communicated with each other, each choosing their own target, the system highlighting less probable intercepts to be covered by multiple kill vehicles. She knew there was nothing she could do, beyond a few paltry course corrections. The jinking, she thought, didn’t really matter, more for her comfort than for any real result. If an Oryx had her instead of the legion of decoys, the end would at least be quick. She felt Goodfella’s training take hold, interrupting the serenity of a mind at prayer. He reached out with his thoughts, commanding one of the Lynxes to strafe ever so slightly left. She couldn’t tell if it was dumb luck or rehearsed skill; mere moments later the missile approach warning went haywire and the drone was shredded by an impactor doubtless meant for them. “Alignment,” he said. “Missile was terminal, I put it between us and the missile. We’re good. Two and a half minutes left.”

He didn’t have to speak. She appreciated the courtesy. She was shaken by the realization that the computerized MAWS was slower than her flesh-and-blood TAC-O. She knew it was going to be running degraded; the data being streamed to her brainstem had a slight lag to it, the onboard sensors were blinded by a wall of fire, and the battlespace was so saturated that at any given moment the safe bet was to assume that there was a missile heading for you. It was a chilling feeling, and one that she didn’t know how to articulate. She trusted Goodfella, though, and that would be enough for now. It had to be.

The Skyshields had burned up just over a minute ago, slightly sooner than her more pessimistic estimate. She didn’t have the time to wonder why, but it would certainly make an interesting debrief. They were barreling down towards the surface now, the oppressive g-forces assaulting them showing no signs of relenting. Accelican™ coursed through their veins in place of blood. She knew the chemical cocktail was the only thing keeping her thoughts fast enough to stay alive, an unintended but welcome side effect of the miracle drug that would no doubt collect the Reaper’s interest one day. Even still, the g’s bit at her stomach, yanked at her bones; the rattling of her seat a comforting reminder that they were still flying. A marker, uncapped and left behind by a previous occupant, flew forward and smacked Goodfella’s visor, a streak carving a perverse red smile below blue-lit eyes. Below, she watched as rapidly scrambled fighters rose from their bases, off launchpads and airstrips, rising to meet the gauntlet thrown down ahead of them. Even with the losses they had taken, they had numerical superiority; she knew they were not done taking those losses, and even now the real battle had not yet begun. This was merely the price of admission, paid in empty graves under solemn little crosses.

The fighters on the scope were many and varied, and would not come into full view until the veil of flame had been lifted. They swarmed and swarmed and swarmed. The clock bore down, somewhere below a decision being made if she would live or die every second. She hated that it was so far out of their hands. They’d always had their fate in their hands until now. That’s how it was. They were naval aviators, the best of the best. Now they were just another star falling from a night sky erupting with nuclear auroras. It was a scene that would have been beautiful to anyone who didn’t know what it was.

She hadn’t been listening to the radio for a while. That was Goodfella’s job, usually. If it was important, he would tell her, or she would feel it over the neural bridge. Perverse curiosity got the better of her. She regretted it almost immediately. She had isolated herself from the bloody, primal chaos of it all, choosing instead to see modern war as the sterile, technical exercise it advertised.

“WANG HAI 1-4, going evasive—”

“OUTLAW 1-3— Shit, shit, shi—”

“DAKOTA 3-1, Defending! Defendi—” There were no screams, but the silence sufficed.

One after another, friendly tags dropped off the scope.

It was a hypersonic cacophany, a bitter mix where even the best disciplined aviators in the worlds struggled to keep to the brevity and sterile calm that had been mostly drilled into them. There hadn’t been anything like this in twenty generations, and even then this was only a paltry prologue. They would find their cool again once they’d made it into the skies proper, unfurled their wings, and fought like proper fighter pilots. They weren’t that, now. Now they were a bunch of scared, helpless twenty-somethings pre-packed in their own coffins, lit up like billboards in the flames of entry heating. Thirty seconds. The airbrakes popped up and the retro-thruster vanes roared.

The curtain of fire rose as slowly the fighter began to decelerate, a large, red warning zone pushed to her HUD just in time. “ALCON, ALCON, this is PECKY, danger close! Danger close, sandshot at Angels 40!”

“Mother-fucker,” Goodfella trailed. “No way.”

“How the hell are they gonna do that?” She raised an eyebrow.

“Doesn’t matter. Just get out of the damn way!”

The wings unfurled, and as shots silently rang out from the ICS FRED HAISE, the first notions of a real atmosphere suddenly but gently took hold of her plane. They were nimble now. Sorta, she thought. There still wasn’t really enough sky up here to let them do their thing, but now as she pushed the throttle forward, she knew her path was in her own hands and hers alone.

“RAGE, proceed to initial point.” Her CO had survived, evidently. “Let’s get out of the way for the folks upstairs, huh?”

“I still don’t think it’s gonna work,” RAGE 205’s TSO, FISH, shook her head.

“Okay, bet?” That was Nasty, 212’s pilot. “A hundred of your American. Real bones.”

“You wanna make a wager now, Nasty? Didn’t Secgen Portnoy teach you anything?”

“No sir.” He grinned. “And I plan to collect.”

Finally, she mused. Someone who thought they were gonna make it.

“You’re on.” FISH smirked. “And Plastic says he’s in a hundred too.”

“No I feckin don’t!—” Below, the volley of sandshot shredded a wave of rising missiles.

“Cut the chatter,” Bubbles’ demeanor shifted. Seismically, suddenly. The squadron had for a moment relaxed; letting the accumulated stress loose for the precious few seconds they had. It was a weight off their shoulders, but now they were heading down to the domain of their air-breathing cousins and their surface-dwelling friends. The whole squadron locked themselves back into their previous, deadly seriousness. Personally, she'd have rather not had the break. “We’re heading downstairs.”

The aviators split into their strike packages, two-ship formations breaking off from the squadron. She was now RAGE 4-2, and Motion and Scooter’s bird, 206, was RAGE 4-1. The Renegades were on the hunt. One by one, sleek grey shapes dove through the night sky, their lightless frames blurring against the deep, dark blue above. Wispy clouds waited many miles below as they punched down through the stratosphere. Below them, other squadrons sent in as part of the advance push opened their central bay doors for but a moment. Out came boosted glide bombs; the bombs’ rockets wouldn't ignite until they had long departed their carriers. Until then, their seeker heads searched, watching for any radar below brave enough to send up a signal. The bombs moved as a swarm, triangulating weak radar pulses between them, and made the call themselves. Flares shot up in the night as the falling bombs suddenly became missiles, shooting in on their targets and eliminating them with ruthless efficiency. She was watching on the EOTS turret, popped out from the plane’s heat shield underneath. One of the feared ‘Big Ben’ radars lit up into flames as the modified civilian truck carrying it became a spectacular burst of burning hydrogen. Then another. Then another. A streak of explosions rippled off as unchained thunder clapped across the hillside. Lightning struck twice as the launcher vehicles were next to go, on the offchance they could hit her strike package with their own sensors.

Fire hung in the sky as new boosters lit off almost as soon as the last ones faded. Streaks of light cut through the clouds as the trailing carriers, cutting a swath across the upper atmosphere, shot their missile batteries off to cover their pilots in the hope that one day soon they would be reunited with the hulls they called home. Lasers shot up from the city, invisible to most, reaching out into the sky in waving bands of deadly light. In a brief moment of curiosity, she switched off the night vision on her helmet. The winter night, steeped in darkness, flashed into brilliant fluorescence with every missile shot, bathed in sickly orange as fires blazed off below and above. Tracers snaked along the winds as they connected to their targets, the serpent’s eyes made with terrible fiery stars. She wondered what it all sounded like, and switched the synthetic audio suite on. It screeched at her ears with the furious grief of a hundred thousand freshly damned souls. It was Death’s very own rave.

She could stomach no more.

She switched the audio off, returned to the comforting blue-green aura of the night vision, and followed her mission plan to rendezvous with a pair of Charlie Panthers from the EU’s VFA(E)-801. SHARKEY 3-1 and 3-2 fell into formation next to them shortly after, a winged trident emblazoned across the twin-V stabilizers of the English jets. “SHARKEY 3-1, RAGE 4-1.” Scooter, 206’s backseater, made their introductions for the whole formation. “Good to see you guys made it.”

“Should say the same, Buffalo drivers.” 3-1’s voice was masked in a horrifically Glaswegian accent— an ironic twist of fate for an English squadron— but she could at least understand her. “You lot didn’t make out well, the fat ones.”

“We noticed.” Scooter’s tone was terse, clipped.

“Ach, sorry, lad.”

“Come, now, we have, ah, business.” 3-2 called in. The Loner crowd, ironically, was typically more boisterous than the Party Bus Crew. She was happy to hear this Frenchman— she assumed by the accent, anyway— buck the trend. His datalink reported his callsign as Renard. The Scotswoman was Nitrous.

“RAGE 4, SHARKEY 3, ah, you've already formed up! This is your A/SWACS operator, Bluejay. Do you read?” A new voice joined the fray, slick, suave, and reassured.

“RAGE 4-1, We have you, Bluejay.”

“Good. Thanks for getting on that, that makes my life a lot easier. You are under my control, by the way.” The Aerospace Battle Manager sat behind a sensor console in an EV-74 Watchdog, a spaceplane crammed to the gills with high-tech radars, EOTSes, and IRSTs galore. It saw everything, and could make sense of most of it— on a good day. Today was not a good day. She reckoned Bluejay had only a slightly better picture than she did, and hers was mostly jamming and saturation overload. “Okay. Not quite as fragged. Due to casualties, your new assigned area of responsibility is the approach run over Westbrook to the Old City, initial point DAGGER. You'll be sharing this attack run with a lot of other strike packages, so we have you at Angels 18 to deconflict with the others. First, terrain mask on approach and then pop up into an alternating, creeping racetrack, same as before. I still gotta brief a few others, so hold off and orbit until you get the go signal, it's the same as fragged. Copy?”

“RAGE 4 copies Angels one-eight, Westbrook approach.”

“SHARKEY 3 copies Angels one-eight, Westbrook approach.”

“Roger. Good hunting, you guys. Make it back and I’ll tell you a funny story when we land.”

“Knowing your sense of humor, Bluejay, I’d rather get shot down.” Goodfella’s reply was instinctual, delivered without a shred of hesitation.

“Ah, fair. I’m here if you need me. Hang tight. Bluejay out.”

The wait was excruciating. If it weren't for the neural link feeding her all the information the plane could see, every missile, every plane, every tank and car and truck— she would have been utterly terrified. The world burned, the skies alight with flashes of terrible radiance, lives blinking away with the passing second. Goodfella clacked away at his controls, updating the tasking orders for their standoff jammers to match their new targets. Her MFD refreshed, everything between Initial Point DAGGER and the end of their run marked in neat little Tactical Situation symbology, a parade of little red squares laid out along the way to the Old City. It was a shame, she thought. All those teenagers had no idea they were just waiting to die.

In fairness, she wasn’t far removed. All that separated her from the poor souls on the ground was a college degree, an officer’s commission, and about forty thousand feet, give or take. It was the luck of the draw, at this point. She knew Goodfella would have something to say about that, and maybe it was something more—

“ALCON, ALCON,” Bluejay broke her train of thought. “HAMMERFALL. I say again, HAMMERFALL.”

Shit, she blinked. Faster than I expected. She felt their minds creep closer as the flow of information between pilot and backseater started as a trickle, widening into a stream. That radio call was 3-1 and 4-1’s cue. They were the first ones in. Her job was to be the two-punch. The good news was that there wasn’t that much more waiting. They would pause only about forty-five more seconds before they went too, only forty-five more seconds to be alone with their thoughts and at home with their fears. The first loop was short, after all. Goodfella’s stopwatch was running in the corner of her HUD and the back of their shared mind, and that damn itch on her back was acting up again. She grumbled. She breathed.

It was a good day. The lava tube’s archwork ceiling loomed above like the vaults of a great cathedral. The transplanted grass swayed against his feet in the artificial breeze. He smiled.

The clock hit zero. She snapped back to her own mind without a second thought. The itch was still there.

“Ready?” She had already rolled the plane into a snap dive. “Ready.” Goodfella nodded from the backseat. She felt the IFF tags of a legion of fighters descend on the city, a wake of vultures in the making. A million gears had just begun to turn. They had been on the clock for a while now, but they had finally punched in. Her fingers moved without thought, raw, animal instinct filtered through carbon filaments and fiber optics.

They passed below twenty thousand feet, and the unshackled power of a fusion reactor dug her further into her acceleration seat, shaking and rattling the chair ever so slightly. Even that, it seemed, had failed to alleviate that damn scratching feeling from just under her tank top. Oh well. If that was her biggest problem, it was a good day at the office. They dropped like a brick, if a brick was being assisted on its way by rocket engines. She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t scared of this part. Sure, they’d practiced it a billion times. Even still, there seemed to be some part of the human psyche that resisted the notion that hurtling facefirst towards the ground was a good thing. She yanked back on the stick and the fighter carved a sloping curve until it nearly clipped the rural highway’s streetlights as the fighter’s onboard flight computer shrieked at her. PULL UP, Betty said. PULL UP. She would not comply. They and the prowl of Panthers would follow the road’s route until it went through the mountain ahead— she had no intent of finding out if anyone had left their car in the tunnel. There was a small part of her brainstem that was sounding the alarm bells about flying Mach 2 towards the side of a mountain. It was a good thing her hands didn’t seem to be listening. The cliffside grew closer, closer still, and mere moments before the Panther was about to turn pancake, she yanked back, and the fusion-powered beast and her pack roared up the side of the Greyridge Mountains, a cacophony of warning alarms now falling silent. A wave of grey-blue fighters and their escorting drones washed across the peak below, her airframe and her wingman’s lost in countless many as they popped up to their attack runs. “RAGE 4-2, SHARKEY 3-1,” Renard spoke over the comms. “I am on your wing. You have the lead.”

Blood-red symbols crept ever closer on her Tactical Situation Display as they rocketed towards the city. Two blue hemispheres caught her attention, prioritized and marked, as Bluejay’s voice cut over the silence. “RAGE 4-2, Bluejay. POPUP group bullseye one-seven-zero for eight-zero, Angels four and climbing, flanking, tally two plus six. Threat to RAGE 4-2, leaning on RAGE 4-1. Prosecute.” Two fighters with six drones, chasing down their friends. They were the closest. It was always going to be their problem, but that meant it was also their solution.

It had been a long time since mankind had first tried to hide flying objects from each other. Sensors and stealth had long been in an ever-evolving arms race, synthesizing new technologies and techniques to either deceive or deduce the identity and location of an aircraft. It turned out, today, that the best solution was just to have so damn many of them, and jam the absolute shit out of the other guy. Sometimes, she mused, the classics worked. By now, the cockpit comms had fallen silent but for the occasional sound of Goodfella’s breathing breaking a noise gate. They would speak to each other through their link, and leave more primitive methods alone.

Don’t think they see us, Goodfella thought. Still hot on 4-1. We gotta make sure they don’t see us launch.

How much track do we have from 4-1? She seized on the red chevrons marching across the screen. Thinking what I’m thinking?

Yeah.

Okay. Let’s do it.

“3-2, we have a plan.”

“Send it,” The Frenchman’s accent smacked at the fuzzy edges of the radio transmission.

“Fuse sensor tracks from A/SWACS and our Lima-Wiskeys. We’re gonna ask 4-1 to go active just before we launch, and fuse that in too. We’ll snap to course zero-six-zero, have two Lynxes roll hard left, and shoot. Clean up their drones with a volley after.”

“I like it.” Renard nodded as the two fighters and their escorts turned to their new direction. “Very clever. They will not see it coming.”

One radio burst later and Motion and Nitrous’ birds went active, their aft stinger arrays bathing the manned fighters in microwave radiation. The Minnie fighters, it revealed, were Frantics— the Minervans called them F22Ks, she recalled. Beowulf, was it? It wouldn’t much matter in a second, anyways. The UN formation spun to hide their weapons bays from their prey— Wick took special care to try to get directly between the Minnies’ line of vision and the drone that’d been cued to shoot— as Goodfella squeezed the trigger. A volley of missiles, concealed by the weight and bulk of a MQ-111 Lynx, peeled off their rails in the drone’s underside weapons bay. “Fox 3,” the Lynx’s onboard VI said in a cold, synthesized voice.

Thirty seconds or it’s free, Wick thought.

Thirty seconds or we’re fucked, you mean.

The missile streaked out ahead of the formation, aping a shot at somebody else, before careening towards the actual target.

We’ll be able to take them—

It’ll fuck up our timing. We're on the clock.

The Minervans presumably had heard their warning systems start screeching in their ears. They had begun a series of wild maneuvers, spewing radar-reflectant chaff behind them, reeling out their towed decoys as far as they would go.

“Pitbull,” the drone’s sensor suite said. The missiles were on their own now.

She watched through the plane’s sensors as the Minervans were throwing every trick in the book at the AAROs, dodging, juking, and diving. She watched as they came up short. Two fighters, two annular fragmentation warheads. Two minus two was zero. There were no chutes. Some part of her still found a way to be shocked. Goodfella, briefly, felt so very distant. The smoke hung in the sky. The fighters did not.

“Splash two.” The drones always had a way of seeming so cheerful. Perhaps it was the speech engine. Killin’ Kenny, as they called him, was much more aggressive than Betty, and the most chipper companion a combat aviator could ask for. She grimaced. The upbeat tone of the computer had been humorous before. It didn't seem funny anymore.

The aged masonry of Fanueil Hall, a jewel of garnet brick among a metropolis of glass, concrete, and steel had long been a place of refuge for her. There was a comfort in a crowd, a strange and misunderstood comfort. The world was so much larger than her problems, and listening to the hubbub of the cobbled stone square helped her tune them out. Yet there was no such consolation here. A gentle wind blew across her feet, the square abandoned and empty. The hairs on her neck went on end.

She tried to bring herself back to reality, away from the draw of the link. She was not afraid she'd get lost for too long. It all happened in an instant anyways. She wasn't afraid of staying too long. She was afraid of straying too deep. Since the inception of the Aviator Neural Link, there had been more than a few fighter pilots who, broken by the intensity of the moment, would find themselves retreating into their thoughts.

In the business, they called it a fadeout. It didn't always end pretty.

She turned around. Quincy Market, the old mall with Old Glory’s fifty-six star donut hanging between the columns of its grand facade, sat under an arched sky, great white spines rising up from formless nothing on the horizon. The whole cityscape, she realized, had retreated into a shapeless void; there was nothing and no one beyond the square’s pavers. She took an uneasy breath. She closed her eyes. She thought of home. It hurt. Good. As she opened her eyes, she realized the stonework by the entrance was haphazardly strewn, parted to make room for flashkrete and composite. She took a step up the stairs, breath shaky and ragged. The familiar red composite door taunted her. 454B, it read. She blinked.

The cockpit of the ASF-17E was comfortable, if not comforting. The familiar sight of the heads-up display, the twin sticks rising from padded armrests, and a Tactical Situation Display alight with contacts, waypoints, and timers was, however, a welcome sight. The memory of the fadeout vanished as quickly as it had come, but some part of her animal brain did not forget, a lingering unease creeping down her spine.

“RAGE 4-2, Bluejay,” the A/SWACS operator chirped in. “4-1 sends their regards. Now get back to it, we got a schedule to keep.”

The clock on her HUD wound down. One minute, twelve seconds before she needed to be at Waypoint 261, the precise altitude she needed to be at— Angels 18, 18,000 feet. She didn't like the look of this. The first run, done by 3-1 and 4-1, may have had more targets to launch on, but they also had more terrain to hide behind. As the two Panthers streaked over Westbrook, the cityscape below was a forest of concrete, composite, and glass in the middle of being razed. She looked down and the Distributed Aperture cameras gave her a view through the bottom of the plane as blue triangles zipped by, each one highlighting an incoming glide bomb about to find their forever home. Warheads kicked up debris and flame, an eerie glow rising from the streets as the tracks faded out and the bombs struck home. One by one, red rectangles flickered off her display. She had selected seven of them, the ones she had been briefed to take on before any of them had left the nest. The targeting data cascaded down the left side of the screen. Everything was coming into play now. The computer linked target to bomb, with mobile launchers getting one bomb assigned to their last known location and one to orbit and chase down any missile truck that had the good sense to pick up roots and see how things were on the other side of town. A dashed line on the Situation Display went solid, and Goodfella beat Betty to the punch. “Spike SA-14, left 10! They got us locked up!” The computer warning blared. “Music on, music on!” At Goodfella’s command, a pencil-thin beam of radiation peeled off the skin array of the fighter, a lance of radio waves dancing across the missile launcher’s radar. “They've lost lock, estimate six-five seconds to burnthrough. Wick, stay on target!”

“Rog, Goodfella, committing!” She watched her HUD as the diamond indicating the first group of bombs’ release point inched closer to the inner ring. Twenty seconds. She was running out of time. She pushed the throttle to the end of the stops, radiator panels peeling off the engine shroud, waste heat pouring out the aft. “If they didn't know we were here already, they do now!”

“Nails 22, right 4! Spike 22, right 4!” Goodfella reached for his controls. CHAFF, FLARE, Betty screamed. CHAFF, FLARE,

“Music on, music on!”

The world beeped and blared around her. Her breath sped. There was one word she needed to hear right now, the target diamond teetering on the edge of the inner ring. “Stay on target, we're almost there!” The diamond dropped below. The clock hit zero.

SHOOT, Betty shouted.

She pulled the trigger, and felt the vibration as a cascade of Scalpel-ARB glide bombs dropped from their retaining racks inside the cavernous weapons bay. Just under her canopy’s view, rocket engines lit as wings unfolded, and the weapons streaked off to find their seven new friends. “MISSILE,” the MAWS chirped. “MISSILE,” She was thankful to be ten bombs lighter as the bay doors swung shut. “Two launches, Wick! Both hot!”

“RAGE 4-2, pickle, pickle, pickle, going defensive!”

She eased off the throttle and swung the fighter around, running as fast as she could while the rear-aspect thermals were still masked by the countermeasures in the fighter’s trenchlike exhaust vanes. She glanced around, the night sky torn asunder by the flash and thunder of warheads, flames, and exhausts, the hazy lights of the city below gradually fading; the bright white of streetlights, the vibrant colors of jumbotrons and holograms, all consumed by the sickly orange glow of fire.

The missiles inbound curled off from the fighters. A flight of two Frantics turned to hound them down, the Minervan fighters firmly off the leash of intercept control. There was nothing on the sheet for moments like this. This was jazz. You could rehearse all you like, but in moments like these, you played from the heart.

The missiles, two red circles with a velocity vector on the TSD, were slowly carving their path towards them. It almost looked like a lollipop, with the stick pointed out towards them. At the end of the day, you didn't want to be holding the lollipop. If they were air-launched, they were probably radar-guided AA-26 Anglers. Anglers were bad news. Any missile was, but these were the front-page headline. Their air-breathing rocket engine let them do some crazy things, and they had excellent performance in the terminal phase. She had seen the yellow ring appear on her TSD when the fighters had launched. They were within no-escape range. She could run all she wanted, but they'd catch her eventually. One minute, thirty seconds, if the TSD was right.

The Anglers bore down from over their right shoulder, far off in the distance, trajectory constant and flat. The Anglers didn’t play their hand until they were close. She had better acceleration than the missiles, but they had raw speed on her. She took a second, breathed in, and let her neural link do the talking. Goodfella, you here?

Yeah.

They’re radar guided. She looked down at the TSD. They had time, if briefly, on their side. We got a second before we gotta do something drastic. You think the threat briefing is any good?

What else do we got? He clacked at his display controls. Towed decoy out. Be careful with my baby.

Let’s see if we can avoid the theatrics.

Sounds good to me. I’m calling the Lynxes back, too.

A hatch on the underside of the jet popped open, and a long cable streamed out, tipped with a radar-emitting endcap, gliding in the winds. According to any radar in their immediate vicinity, two more Panthers had joined the formation as the French aviator did the same. She looked at her TSD and wondered how many of those red diamonds, triangles, and boxes were fake. She only needed to look up, the fires multiplying in the distance, to know that more than enough were very, very real. The scale of it all hadn't quite set in yet. It likely wouldn't, today.

As the loyal wingman drones closed in on them, she wondered which Panther the missiles would bite on. The fake ones, streamed out behind their jets or broadcast from their drone companions, or the real ones, packed in the center of a cloud of decoys. Statistically, the odds were good. They didn’t feel it. The engineers on Minerva knew any UN aviator would do this. It didn’t take a degree to know that having decoys was better than not. She wondered if the decoys were really doing anything at all.

The missiles didn’t let her wonder long. They jumped into a sharp cut, streaking hard left. The track on the TSD started arcing, the velocity vector ticking down the seconds on their lives. The missiles were burning flat out now, cutting the distance as the measured speed in the infobox grew. Mach 4.5. Mach 4.7. Mach 5.

The Radar Warning Receiver went haywire.

“One of em’s got us!” Goodfella’s voice dripped with panic. CHAFF, FLARE. “Torch on, I’m gonna try to burn it, other one’s got Renard!”

“Shit!” The fuckers didn’t bite. She cursed her luck and gripped the stick. “Going for sensor defeat!”

“Rog, Wick!”

The fighter flung its heft and weight into a staggeringly sharp turn, the towed decoy cut loose, and cut a path until the missile was head-on. Years ago, she would think it suicide. Now, she realized that it might be the best of admittedly bad options. The missile was radar guided, and it had switched to its own onboard radar. That conformal array, nestled nicely to the inside of the nose cone, would be perfectly sufficient to overcome their stealth from behind— but the front aspect of the Panther was a different story. There, the metamaterial coatings and perfectly-aligned edges would scatter the radar waves away from the missile or absorb them outright. Hopefully, that would be enough. If not, Goodfella had a laser pointed at it. It may not be able to burn through the new generation of missiles’ heat-resistant coating, but it would be enough to hopefully keep it spinning— which meant it wouldn’t be turning. Not enough, anyway.

“RAGE 4-2, defending!”

The missile bore down on them from just off their nose, the glow of its booster silhouetting it in the enhanced night-vision, a donut of death. It closed, and closed. She thumbed the selector to guns, the left gunport ready to pop open at a moment’s notice. She pulled against the weight of the sky, hoping to line the reticle up with the missile as a last-ditch self-defense in case the gambit didn’t work. Coilgun rounds flew into the night, the arc flash casting an eerie glow across the dark. None struck true.

The missile’s motor cut as the metal dart passed under their plane, the radar warning falling silent.

“Woo!” Goodfella shook his head. “Fuck, man, I can breathe again!”

She chuckled. “Fuckin’ close one. So did you just cook it?”

“Think so!”

“Thought that didn’t work these days.”

“I guess the old tricks still hold true.” Goodfella grinned, and keyed the comms. “RAGE 4-2, missile trashed.”

Her helmet’s headset crackled. “SHARKEY 3-2, missile defeated.”

“RAGE 4-2, Bluejay. Nice moves, let’s get you back on track.”

“Roger—” MISSILE, the MAWS said.

“Shit! Shit!” Goodfella shouted. “Wick, go defensive, now!” CHAFF, FLARE. CHAFF, FLARE. CHAFF, FLARE.

There the Angler was, back from the dead, circling on their tail from below. “Torch on! Music on! I hate this damn thing!” CHAFF, FLARE. CHAFF, FLARE. She threw the fighter into a rolling dive, the g’s pushing against them, strips of metal mingling with chemical flame as the countermeasures peeled away from the fuselage. The missile chased after a cloud of metallic ribbons and a sudden blast kicked her head even further back into its headrest, a jolt running through her teeth.

She would remember the sound of his breath until the day she died. It stuttered, ragged and choked, the sputter of a gasoline engine in need of a stronger rip-start. It evened as they blinked. Neither wanted to say the first word. Both knew what it would be.

Shit, they thought in unison.

“You good?”

“Enough.”

“Let’s get back to it. Everyone’s getting close calls today.”

She eased the fighter back onto their racetrack course, and punched the throttle forward.

Goodfella thumbed the button for the radio. “Bluejay, RAGE 4-2, what the fuck!— was that? This Angler just came back on!”

“RAGE 4-2, say again your last!” Bluejay’s breath was ragged. “And be specific! I’m getting reports up and down the AO!”

“We trashed an Angler, went nose-on and beat its radar. It flamed out, we thought we had it beat. It went around while we weren’t looking… I think it reacquired us from behind. Then it restarted its motor and tried to hit us from below! Closed on us like a fucking shot!” She could feel his hands trembling over the neural link. “Tell me you got that, Bluejay!”

“Shit,” the A/SWACS operator paused. “Copy all. I’m hearing that from a lot of others. We think it’s a reserve mode. They’ve also got about fifteen percent more fuel than we thought they did.” Bluejay gulped. “Lotta people found that out the hard way. Count yourself lucky. Let’s get you back in it. Updated target packages are on the way. You guys did a good job thinning ‘em out. Get back to it.”

“Roger, Bluejay. Receiving package.” The new packet of strike orders had some changes from the briefing. The profile looked more aggressive. Deeper strike, less cover, more targets. They both knew what that meant.

How many do you think bought it? She couldn’t help but wonder.

Not a good time, he answered. We’ll talk later. Let’s just get the motherfuckers.

I wanna talk about it.

I know.

The formation, two fighters flanked by six drones, had turned towards the mountains. They were running home, streaking along in a supersonic scramble to get away from a freshly kicked hornets’ nest. She set her night vision to color mode. Missiles blossomed out from the city, an urban jungle at this point lit in equal parts by the glow of rocket exhaust as by the streetlamps that lined the roads. Outshining them both was a firestorm ripping through Midtown. She wondered if a hydrogen tank had gone up. What seemed like blazing fingers curled out into the sky, the hand of an infernal giant grasping a hold on the surface, aching to climb out into the realm of mortal men. She was glad to put it all in her rearview, the last suburbs of Westbrook starting to slip into the mountainside.

Goodfella keyed the radio. “RAGE 4-2, flowing cold.”

She tapped the screen, and the world was once again cast into high-contrast monochrome.

The radio crackled. “RAGE 4-1, flowing hot.” Her squadmates were flying right back into the fray, a speck in her night vision’s overwhelming blue-green expanse, far too distant to see. Her only indication they were there at all was a dark blue circle silhouetted by the horizon.

“Good luck, guys.” Rafka breathed an uneasy sigh.

“Good hunting,” Goodfella spat. She felt a spite press against her sorrow. She didn’t push further.

“Merde!” The radio jumped as the sky had turned just that bit brighter. “Floodlight, floodlight, floodlight! SHARKEY 3-1, Going defensive, Sunlance below! Taking fire! Say again! Sunlance below!”

An alarm blared from the backseat. “Fuck!” Goodfella had already snapped back into action. “Wick, scatter!”

“Shit, they’ve got lasers all the way out here?”

“Don’t know how they got here, they were all deeper in the city!”

To her right, the other Panther was being lit by a spotlight from below, invisible if not for the infrared cameras fused into her vision by the neural link. The Frenchman juked his plane up, down, left, and right, a cloud of beam-scattering chemical smoke starting to trail from his tail. She flicked a button on her left stick, and a smokescreen began to billow from behind her jet as well. “RAGE 4-2, Renard. I had it on my EOTS. He’s alone. Sending last known position.” The French pilot datalinked his plane to Goodfella. “Fait chier, this smoke works both ways.”

“Renard, 4-2, are you damaged?” Goodfella’s breath sped.

The other aviator was calm. “I have lost coating integrity on the left wing.”

“Bastard!” Goodfella grit his teeth. Lasers couldn't get through the stealth-treated heatshield on the underside, but the delicate, slender metamaterial wings were a different story. “Wick, let's find the motherfucker.”

“Do we have time—”

“If we run, they could still hit us. Worse, they could hit Motion. You wanna let these motherfuckers kill them?” Goodfella keyed the radio, voice dripping in the urgent flatness of outright fury. “Bluejay, RAGE 4-2, prosecuting popup Floodlight threat.”

“RAGE 4-2, copy, watch the clock!”

“We'll make it!” Goodfella barked.

As they circled around, the two searched the ground below, the plane’s cockpit becoming invisible to them with a mere glance downward. Streets bathed in night vision’s blue-green hue crisscrossed the suburban sprawl, houses and low-rises all providing a convenient cover the laser truck could hide behind. Yellow edge-detecting outlines carved across the neighborhood, their helmeted glares darting back and forth in search patterns.

“FLOODLIGHT,” one of the drones called. A beam of brilliant white overtook her vision, bathing her blended vision in the radiant glare of infrared light. She squinted, her eyes and neural link adjusting to the glare. “Goodfella, behind that lowrise!”

“Got it!” The bomb reticle on her HUD updated, the new target’s estimated location dialed in. “RAGE 4-2, Sunlance located, prosecuting!”

She grabbed her right stick and swung the plane into a sloping curve, hoping to get altitude and angle on the laser truck. Goodfella had directed one Lynx across their new path, getting ready to set a layer of protective smoke to isolate them from the laser truck. The bomb reticle crept towards the launch circle.

The computer chirped. SHOOT.

She looked down the road, little houses bathed in blue-green. In the distance, one of the Lynxes exploded, set alight by the truck that the EOTS warned her was now beginning to spin its turret around to them.

What the fuck are you waiting for? Her backseater’s eyes bore into the back of her skull. Shoot the damn bomb! HE’S LOOKING AT US!

The second drone streaked across their vision, black, suffocating smoke cutting off the truck’s view. The center of the cloud lit up a pearlescent grey.

“RAGE 4-2, pickle!” The bomb dropped away.

They pulled off their approach, the camera tracking the laser truck, an oddly-shaped contraption with a micro-fusion reactor not too much larger than their own and a large extendable arm with a laser ball turret perched on top. The doors swung open and the crew rushed out as the bomb flew towards the vehicle.

She grasped the door’s handle, and gently pushed against it, her eyes closed, her breath heavy. It pivoted ever so slightly. Unlocked, she thought.

She hesitated.

She choked on a ragged breath, retreating, pressing her back against the wall where the painted-over flashkrete cinderblock of the apartment corridor met the stone masonry of the old market. She could see starlight twinkling from the distance, points of light staring out from the distant nothing that had replaced Boston’s skyline. The stone and brick sidewalk peeled around the side of Faneuil Hall, curling out to some far-flung end.

She wondered if this was how she was going to die. It happened, every once in a while. Aviators would fadeout, brain-dead in an imperceptible moment, trapped in some artifice of the interaction between their subconscious and the computer. The system was designed to disconnect automatically before that happened, but it all happened so quickly. Few, if any, had any faith that the auto-eject would work. She knew she didn't. She knew there was nothing she could do to affect the outside world. She knew she couldn't fall back up the rabbit hole. She stared out at the great arches she now recognized from pictures of the megacities of the Moon, and she started to understand that it was going to be a long way down.

Either way, live or die, it was all out of her hands anyways. It was all an eternity trapped in a moment, and it was not hers to know the day or the hour when she would be pulled back to the land of the living. Optimistically, anyways. Most fadeouts, pilots didn't even know they happened until they checked their logs. You'd usually have about ten or fifteen of them by the time you hung up your wings. She walked along a patchwork path of cobblestone pavers and gold-hued grass, looking out at a world broken, shattered, and stitched back together. Most fadeouts were not this.

She closed her eyes. She thought of home. It hurt. Good.

She struggled to open her eyes, to wake and hold her fate in her hands once more. She knew it was more for the sake of the struggle than any real hope.

The path went on and on and on and she looked back and there was nothing. She looked ahead and there was nothing. The pavers blended into a dirt pathway lined with golden grass, brick and stone jutting out haphazardly as if it had been through a blender. She staggered back, an uneasy, stuttering breath forced from her lips as she knelt down and reached out, hand probing the endless dark to the side of the path. It was void, plain and simple nothing, her hand gliding through the emptiness just as she knew it would but hoped it wouldn't. She reached into her squadron jacket’s pockets and found them empty. All her pockets were, actually.

She shouted into the void, her exasperated voice’s echo greeting her in return.

She had an idea.

She fumbled about, hands running over the pathway until they produced a rock of appreciable size from the packed dirt. She dropped it on one of the cobblestones uprooted from the Boston sidewalk, and it dinked off the rock with a satisfying plink.

Moment of truth.

She dropped the rock over the side, waiting for the sound of the crash.

Maybe this place was bigger in the vertical dimension? Maybe the echo was really delayed? Maybe I just missed?

Her mind, she admitted, was doing a very poor job of distracting her from the very obvious reality of the situation. She couldn't see anything else because it wasn't there. The square she had been in had vanished, and all that remained was her chunk of sidewalk. The city lights of the Moon loomed off in beyond the edge of her pathway, too distant to reach. She wondered why her subconscious had drawn on the Moon. She'd never been. The lights flickered and twinkled under a great gray vault, constellations dancing on faraway walls. If this was how I am going to die, she thought, at least it's pretty.

She blinked, and tears rolled down into the dark, the wailing cries of a million fears all crashing down at once reflected off the simulated visage of ancient rock.

A decade and a half’s worth of hopes, desires, and dreams crushed, deferred, and abandoned flowed from her eyes, a river flowing forth in the field of golden grass, the blades of frozen sunlight gently swaying against her knees as she knelt in her sorrow.

She blinked and jumped to her feet, breath quickening as a remembered wind brushed a lock of bronze-brown hair from her vision. A slight fog sat on the horizon, the spires of buildings rising from the mist below. All around her, white composite terraces carved out neat, orderly boundaries for the idyllic Eden-scene they had built for themselves, a shard of the old homeland on the new world, all the more beautiful and more haunting for how clean and structured the park was. To her back, the sheer face of the ancient cave, carved long ago by the lava flows of the young Moon, loomed under its clear sealant coat.

She glanced to her feet, and she gasped.

A familiar face laid in the grass, arms splayed out, feet gently crossed, bathing in a sun that wasn't there. The green eyes looking up at her were filled with fear and apprehension, brimming with the intense desire to hold on to every breath that curled from his from bloodied, clenched lips. Blades of the yellow grass dipped into his side, swaying in the wind, dyed crimson red by their contact.

“Wait a second,” a voice from above said. “Why are you here?”

Their bomb ever so slightly missed. Chunks of asphalt flew in the night, a large fragment smacking into the side of the truck’s reactor, and a jet of pure white light shot out the flank of the truck, rocking the vehicle off its outriggers and lighting the neighborhood ablaze. She raised a hand to her eyes in instinctual shock, the plasma jet a signal flare in the eerie teal night. She gasped.

Hope this place really was evacuated. She surveyed the neighborhood, now behind and below them. Shit, man. All up in flames.

Yeah, he nodded. Still, one less.

Fuck me, man.

Yeah, and we lost Eddie. Poor lil’ drone.

“RAGE 4-2, Renard. Appreciate the assist. Coating’s nicked, but the wing will hold.”

“Roger. You’re cut off, bud. No more for you tonight.” Goodfella responded. He cued up the A/SWACS’ radio frequency. “Bluejay, RAGE 4-2,” his voice sped. “Floodlight threat neutralized, one Lynx lost. SHARKEY 3-2’s stealth is compromised, cannot recommend further action. Can you assign a new wingman?”

“RAGE 4-2, Bluejay. Unabl— Just what the fuck do you think I’m working with here? The whole plan’s almost behind schedule because of this little diversion, and I don’t even have any other wingmen for you.” He hissed. “Fuck, man, I’m sorry to go off on you. Lot going on. No. I don’t have anyone else. You gotta make it work, and you gotta step on it. How many weapons did you expend?”

“One, Scalpel.”

“Dammit!” The A/SWACS operator sighed. “I’ll reallocate target packages. Just get back in it. We have contingencies for this. Use the Lynxes. I gotta go. Get back to it.”

The line hung silent for a few moments, leaving them with enough time to think. Confusion and unease rested on her shoulders, a coldness dripping up her brainstem from who-knew-what. Had watching that plasma arc stuck with her? Part of her was glad it did. She didn’t know what she’d be if she could just shake off a neighborhood catching fire, let alone by her own hands. She knew that that wasn’t going to be the only part of this city burning tonight, but down there was somebody’s home.

Home. She shook her head. Something about home. She hadn’t been in a while. Home was where her hurt was.

Enough of that.

She was glad the radio buzzed to break her away from all that mess.

“RAGE 4-2, Bluejay. How cool are you with doing something really stupid?”

“Do I get a choice?” Goodfella sighed from the back.

“No. I just wanted to know.”

“I think we’re game.” Goodfella gulped. They had both put on their bravado as best they could, but deep down they knew it was an act. Fuck, she thought.

“Good. I need you to fly treetop-level through the Old City.”

“You gotta be shitting me.”

She blinked. Goodfella was right. What the—? That’s suicidal!

“I know, I know. We’ll put the drones ahead of you.” He paused. “Most of the drones. Most of the drones ahead of you.”

“What about Renard?”

“Yeah, him too.”

“Just lay out the plan.”

“Sorry, we’re still sort of figuring it out.”

“What?”

“Well, about five minutes ago, we were briefing our second choice for this, but they’re dead. Our first choice, with the bunker buster, had a ground fault and got stuck on the tarmac on the other side of the continent. You, my friends, are flexing to Package Delta.”

“Package Delta was fucking dumb.”

“Yeah, that’s why we trained it.”

“Fuck me, man. You want us to shove a cruise missile down a subway escalator?”

“I need you to shove a cruise missile down a subway escalator.”

Goodfella sighed. “Understood. Let’s go do it.” He grimaced. “Wick, your thoughts?”

“I think I’d like to see the approach path.” She gulped. “Bluejay, when’s the latest radar scans of the city from? They’ve been setting off a lot of heavy shit downtown.”

“It’s current. Mostly. We had a recon flight going over. Here’s the ingress. We’re working on a way to get you out.”

Goodfella thumbed the intercom. “Working on? You’re kidding me.”

“It’s all really gone to shit, huh?” She nodded, before switching back to the radio. “Alright then, send it over.”

“Sending. Confirm receipt.”

A download bar popped up on her TSD as she tapped ACCEPT. “Got it, Bluejay. How does the MANPADS threat look?”

“We haven’t had any reports. That doesn’t rule it out. Expect them. They won’t be expecting you, and you might even be below them.”

She muted her radio, turning up the intercom. “Goodfella, you ready?”

“No,” he chuckled.

“‘Cuz, we’re going.”

“Yeah,” he chuckled.

“Glad we’re on the same page.”

“Yeah.” He sighed. “Look. Best of a bad hand, right?” He turned back to the radio. “Copy all. We have the ingress path, fly below the MANPADS, Package Delta, four Scalpels open up the subway for a 5-0-4. Exfil to come.”

“Readback correct, good hunting. Proceed to initial point MADHOUSE. Bluejay out.”

Her backseater radioed the Frenchman. “Renard, Goodfella. You getting this?”

“I... I do not like that.” The worry in his voice transcended accent or language. “Merde.”

“You a praying man?” Goodfella needled his brother-in-arms.

“Yesterday, ahhh, not so. Today, I am.”

“Good, let’s hope the good Lord’s happy to see you back. I’ll keep the bulk of the drones with you, to cover for your wing coating. We’re gonna be blasting ECM the whole way in.”

“Copy. I am on your wing, RAGE.”

The two fighters pushed their throttles ahead and shot off towards the city. Fires burned below, bright teal on a backdrop of sterile aqua, the night vision painting an outline in bright yellow around the skyline and vivid red around the myriad specks in the night, each a Minervan fighter seeking to say a very violent hello. Blue and red danced in the air, great birds of death tangling with each other. The Minervan pilots in the distance found themselves in an eerie inversion of their typical charge; as they had always expected, they were the city’s shield. They had never expected to be this city’s shield. Even still, Marathonian-marked planes, atmospheric fighters and strikers alike, sent waves of high-explosive rippling across their homes, their streets, and their monuments. It made her stomach churn. Aren’t we here to save this city? She wondered, looking out at the smoke and ash rising anew with every passing moment. What’s going to be left?

Initial Point MADHOUSE was hard to miss. She didn’t think she’d ever seen an intersection that ugly. She had almost called it a cloverleaf, but clovers didn’t have five leaves. They also didn’t have strangely elevated portions just cutting across over the top. It was a work of art, in the weird, performance art kind of way. It seemed to manage traffic between Heliwa, the Old City, and Westbrook, across the river. She had no idea exactly how, and by the cars strewn empty across it, apparently neither did they. Down the street into the Old City, the forest of skyscrapers dipped down into a bowl, a small park at the center. Their target was there, actually. Garibay Park Station was one of the older, more buried stations in the subway network, built with looser tolerances and a bigger budget that generally amounted to ‘just keep pouring concrete’. As a result, it was handily one of the most dug in places in the entire city. Initially, plans had expected the Minervans to use it to house civilians— the mass evacuation of the city hadn’t been predicted by anyone this side of the Ceti Line, and as a result of the exodus, the Minnies now had a ready-made bunker waiting for an enterprising military formation to snap it right up. The 201st Air Defense Brigade had done just that, and some enterprising Marathonian partisans had tipped their UN brethren off to it months ago. Her squadron had trained on a mockup of this target at Naval Air Station Heller— ‘Dreamworld’— with all the other package options for three weeks. She had never been optimistic that this strike would actually work. She still wasn’t. Time to find out.

She lined up the nose with the highway, rolled on her back, and dove, spinning flat and pulling out of the maneuver just before the buildings started to creep up on the sides of her wings. Renard and most of the drones had gone ahead of her; two of the drones, Johnny and Hal, were sticking back with them. “RAGE 4-2, committing.”

As the skyscrapers started streaking by, her breath began to quicken. She tightened her grip on the controls. She was thankful for the neural link to her backseater— at the g’s they'd be pulling, the intercom would be a useless soup of ragged breath and pained groans. The power, it seemed, was still on in the Old City. Billboard screens and holoprojections hung between the buildings, painting her jet in red and white, the advertisements overtaken with calls from the Minervan military authority to evacuate and the dire penalties of disobedience. She had to fight herself not to look. The streets started to curve, and she banked the fighter, following the pack of Lynxes ahead of her, pulling gently back on the stick, the accelerometer’s g-indicator gently rising as the turn grew sharper and sharper as they finally entered the circular streets of the Old City.

Only a moment after they had entered the drum of concrete, composite, and glass, bathed in the candy-cane light of the evacuation notices, the world went dark. She felt a gasp roll off her lips, and had to stop herself from twitching as her eyes adjusted, the stick locked in place by sheer iron willpower. Looks like they finally got the last substations, he mused.

She nodded. Fuck, man, that got me jumpy.

They felt their stomachs drop back into their chests as the g’s kept climbing, the anti-accelerant blood-replacement coursing through their veins, the chemically-doped sweat clinging to their torsos and their legs. She heard her breath echo from inside the helmet’s integrated oxygen mask. The convoy of planes rattled the glass facades of the skyscrapers to their sides; a thundering roar resonating down the streets. She wondered how they’d have any shred of surprise left— the fighter’s pinprick-sized radar returns meant little when you could hear it.

Turn coming up, Goodfella’s mental voice was laser-focused, any panic or fear long since stowed and secured. Her backseater’s visor hung in the rear-view, the glow of night-vision silhouetting his eyes above that smudged smile the marker had left earlier. It seemed altogether inappropriate. She got everything she needed to know in one glance at his eyes— Goodfella had never been more focused in his life. Adrenaline and Accelican™ had him firing on all cylinders. Ninety seconds.

She gave him a wordless acknowledgement, a feeling of understanding running down her brainstem into the avionics of the plane. She watched the turn indicator count down, and down, and down, eighty and seventy-five and fifty and the wind whipped at her wings from the gaps between the buildings as the cold air of an alien February cut across her mind, a feeling she wasn’t feeling at all, a pastiche of temperature readings and windspeed indications, and forty and thirty and the call from her backseater that she knew before he even thought it and— ten, and five, and she spun her wings parallel to the buildings and soared, g’s abusing every inch of her gastrointestinal tract as she felt her body’s weight suddenly nonuple, a word that she found her higher reasoning grappling with before remembering that her higher reasoning was supposed to be having a day off. She felt metal and composite flex under the load, wingtips ever so slightly twisting, the glass of the skyscraper rippling under the force of the gust she left in her wake. Goodfella’s hands flew across his controls, a selection of weapons, coordinates, and taskings readied for their precise moment.

The convoy of planes leapt up towards the rooftops, and the entrance to the subway station came nicely into view, a magnified image of the Red Line’s beautiful gem in her last moments. A Minervan Marine sat at a prefab guard post outside it, scrambling down the ladder as soon as they caught sight of the jets, running for dear life. The bomb reticle fell right into place. Her finger moved gently over the trigger—

Renard broke the radio silence. “MANPADS on the roof!” No sooner had he said it than her missile launch warning blared into action, a streak of orange light erupting from a building just to her side. She dropped flares on instinct, a column of blinding light streaking through the straight avenue to Garibay Park as the Graveyard missile went wide. As her plane passed over the rooftop, one of the flares from a drone behind her fell onto the patio, a terrified Minervan dropping their missile launcher and running, blinded. Shoot, Wick!

She pulled the trigger, and four of her nine remaining bombs fell away. The wings unfurled, the boosters lit, and one after another the four Scalpels found their way home, a circle of explosions erupting around the escalator shaft turning a small hole into a much larger one. One of the trailing drones dove, popping open its missile bay, and mere moments before it was about to hit the ground, let its payload fly. A dark, chisel-shaped form slid out of the bay, disappearing down the freshly-excavated molehill before the very ground jumped, earth and stone disturbed, but generally settling back down to where they were as a massive geyser of flame and rubble erupted from the fare turnstiles.

Shack!

Fuck me, man. We hit that? Her jaw dropped.

It fuckin’ worked!

Never a doubt! Never a doubt! She shook her head. Package Delta, not once did I ever doubt!

You know, Goodfella mused. Now we actually gotta get out of here.

Garibay Park may have been large to an average pedestrian, but in a fighter moving at the rates they were, it was much, much smaller. The boulevard right off their noses was a welcome sight. The pilots and their drones continued on, lighting off flares in case any other MANPADS missileers had gotten any ideas. The streets were awash in strobing light, the metallic glow of burning chemicals dropping from the planes. Her g-meter crept upwards once more as they curved along the outside ring road, searching, seeking, for their way out of the cylindrical maze. The planned course had highlighted a highway offramp that sat below a clearing in the skyline, and as Goodfella navigated her towards it, she rolled the fighter so her canopy was facing the outer ring, the reflection of a slate-blue stealth fighter glittering in the glass under a midnight-teal ocean. Pulling the fighter around the corner, their exit and the long way home loomed in the night, stars new and old glittering above.

Goodfella keyed the radio for the first time in what felt like ages. “Bluejay, RAGE 4-2. Miller time.”

A silence hung over the radio, cut short by an incredulous laugh. “Fuck, you guys actually pulled it off? Shit, Goodfella, you just made my day. RTB, we’ve got a lot left on our plate and not a lot of time to do it.” The waypoint for Fairhope Air Guard Base, about twenty minutes away at full burner, flashed into view off their port nose.

“Woah, man.” She just wanted to say something. “We made it.” She looked down at her TSD, scrolling and zooming to try to figure out just what fresh hell had broken out in the skies over Rhodes. It was chaos. The display was designed to convey as much information as fast as possible to her, but even then and even with the help of the neural link, she wasn’t sure quite what she was looking at. “You getting any of this?”

“It’s mostly working out,” Goodfella paused. “Mostly.”

“RAGE 4-2, Bluejay,” The A/SWACS grit his teeth. “POPUP group bullseye nine-zero for one-two-zero, Angels one-six, hot, tally eight, leaning on you, RAGE 4-2. They really don’t fuckin’ like you.”

Not even a chance to get our bearings, Goodfella thought.

Hey, she mused. If I were them, I’d want to kill us too.

“Trying to get an identification, no promises. Barely picked ‘em up on radar. I’m vectoring some fighters from PALE HORSE to get you covered. Just run. You guys have done enough.”

She punched the throttle forwards. “Roger, Bluejay,” Goodfella nodded from the backseat. “No need to tell us twice.” She could feel a tinge of disappointment— not from his voice, but secreted away in his mind, rippling across their shared link. Is he just mad it isn’t him?

She sighed, content with not knowing, and sent the fighter home.

Fairhope Air Guard Base was a bit of a misnomer. Everyone there was hanging on to a fair bit of hope, but it was hardly an Air Guard Base. Marathonian highway planners had, some time ago, been instructed by the government that certain sections of road needed to be straight and level for a given length, and preferably be closely located to other stretches of road in varying shapes and sizes. The highways were short for a runway, and she had to wonder if that was why the deception worked at all— the Minervans had to know that it was there. They had satellites over the whole planet. They had years to plan this. Fairhope had gone operational in a span of a single day.

A medley of combat aircraft laid their weary wheels to rest on the asphalt of Highway 8, connecting the city of Fairhope with her outlying suburbs and further on to Rhodes itself. Others lit the burners and peeled off the ground, banking and climbing for a distant, lightless horizon, the faintest glow of fire and darkest trace of choking ashes long since faded away.

Interceptors peeled off their batteries below as Minervan cruise missiles tried to rectify their earlier mistake, glowing trails of rocket fuel climbing, climbing, climbing to meet their foes. It was a battle no man had any hand in except to instruct it to happen. Algorithms and VI systems made the final call here; the air defenses and the inbound ordnance would both be beyond the control of their ostensible masters. She watched as, some distance away, a Bulwark missile slammed home into a Minervan Kingwood that promptly broke into a puff of firey smoke. All around her, the scene repeated.

She could only muster a gasp.

“It’s different in person, huh?” His eyes, silhouetted in teal-blue glow, glinted off the stealth-treated canopy. “Just think about it. Last time anyone saw anything like this…”

“World War Four.” She stared down at her instruments. She wanted to know the approach path, and she didn’t want to think about this.

“Yup. Fuckin’ gen-u-ine 21st-century bloodbath.” He shook his head. “C’mon, that flag on your shoulder— don’t you take any pride in it? The Marianas Turkey Shoot? Fat Amy’s Revenge? See, I can only imagine. We got no history on the Moon.”

“Ask the Marathonians how much they like history.”

“Fair enough.” He shrugged. “Just trying to lighten the mood.”

“You really want to get back into this, don’t you?”

“They killed a lot of my friends, Wick. I know you don’t take this shit personal, but I do.”

If you don’t think I do too… She grit her teeth. Didn’t he feel enough of her emotional baggage on the neural link to know better?

“So no, I’m not runnin’ from it. Fuck that.”

“I’m not—” She was glad he couldn’t see her face, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it.

“RAGE 4-2,” A nervous voice came in over the radio. “Fairhope Tower. Cleared for… runway two-zero. C’mon down.”

Goodfella nodded, locking his attention on the map splashed across his screen. “Roger, two-zero.”

She brought the fighter in a low pass over the runway, a converted strip of highway whose streetlights had been hastily collapsed on their sides. A truck stop nicely served as the apron for this hasty setup, and the entire complex looked about as improvised as it was. She wondered if the food court was still open. She could go for a burger about now. She hadn’t really realized how hungry she was. The last four hours had done a real number on her.

She broke the jet into her landing pattern, something she had honed over years of practice. In the fighter business, air or space, everyone started with wings. She was glad she had kept hers. Her experience from flying on the atmospheric side of the Navy had honed her instincts for this day, and while Goodfella may have had all his expertise— until now— up the well, he had proven to be a quick study. It was easier for him, anyways. He didn’t have to fly the damn thing.

She put the wheels down, and took the bird with them. The rubberized compound of the landing gears was well prepared for the controlled crash of a Navy landing. It was a habit that hadn’t gone away even when the seagoing flattops mostly had. The tires screeched, the brakes went on, and the plane slowly came to a halting stop.

“Welcome to Marathon, everybody,” a National Guardsman shouted up to them as their canopy popped open, the jet making its way in an easy trundle to the apron. “Enjoy your stay.” She snapped off a weary salute in return.

The apron, originally marked out as a rest stop for truckers was awash in a veritable menagerie of combat aircraft. From Charlie Panthers and their larger Echo-model cousins chocked up on the pavement, to the sleek, light Laoying fighters and brawny Mustang interceptors that sat hooked up to the fueling trucks, they had assembled a small sampler platter of the fruits of the United Nations’ defense-industrial complex. Across the way on one of the side roads, a line of Lynx and Agbon drones were receiving their new weapons as technicians scurried across the asphalt, missile carts in tow, exo-rigs glinting under the glow of spotlights the National Guard had brought with them. On the other side of the flashkrete barrier, heavy Air Guard strike planes in their camouflage paint— Kraits, she reminded herself— rolled down the highway single-file, the enormous deltas rising into the night sky off to make new craters on their own homeworld. It was all so surreal. This happens in video games and the movies, not in real life. She wondered if it would be true if she told herself that enough times. She rolled the wings into the fuselage and brought the plane into its spot, diagonally triple-parked across spaces intended for semi-trucks. The chocks went in. A hatch swung open on the side of the cockpit, and the boarding ladder crept down towards the ground.

Safe and sound. She grinned.

She glanced up and took in a sudden, uneasy breath as she realized just how dead they both were. A man not too unlike the one lying at her feet stood on a mirror reflection of the world, a stretching expanse of terraced grass perfectly parallel to the one her feet stood on, strands of jet black hair crashing and rolling in the wind as if ocean waves. Green eyes stared aghast, looking overhead to his own revelation of doom below.

“Goodfella? That really you?”

“Yeah, it's me.” She knew she had no way to know if he was real or memory’s cruel artifice. She believed him anyways. “Wick?”

She glanced down. The body was gone, the grass once again its artificially-engineered gold. “I'm scared.”

“Yeah, me too.”

She let the silence stand between them, their two planes close together but worlds apart. It was pleasant, here, or it would have been if she wasn’t aware of what it really was.

“Is that home?” She looked out at the mirrored cityscape, a false wind gently sweeping across her jacket. “It's gorgeous.”

“Not as pretty up close.” He sighed. “But you know, it is a nice view.” He paused. “Do you think you can make it down here?”

“Uh, you sure that’s safe?”

He shook his head. “Is any of this gonna be?”

“Hang on,” She beamed. “Pebble test.”

“Pebble test?”

“Yeah, one sec. I'm going to chuck something up at you.” She fumbled around on the ground where his body once laid. “This one feels good.” She lifted up a rock roughly the size of her palm. “See it?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Okay, coming your way!” She wound up and pitched the rock as straight upwards as she could. Not quite dead upwards, she thought, but close enough.

The rock soared, slowing as it headed towards the apex of a parabolic arc, the stone’s trajectory curving ever so slightly towards the ground until, as if grabbed by some unseen hand, it began rising faster and faster, curving back like a serpent, dropping suddenly to his feet.

“Huh,” He nodded. “Pebble test. I like that.”

She sighed. “I don’t know if I can jump that high.”

“You’re— you're on the Moon, remember?”

“I haven’t… felt like it.” She shook her head. “I’ve never been there!”

“This is in your head, dude. Or mine. Not really… sure anymore.” He shook his head. “Okay, your subconscious doesn’t want to play ball. I got an idea.” He took off his squadron jacket and his sweatshirt, tying them together in a loose chain, tossing the whole line down. “Tie yours on too. They should be able to reach me. I’ll pull.”

“Will that even work?”

“Just give it a shot, man, I’m graspin’ for straws.”

“Fuck it, sure.” She tied her jacket on to the end, lasso-throwing one end of the makeshift rope down to him. “Got it?”

He leapt to catch her lifeline, and she felt the tension running down the knots. “Got it!” He nodded. “Jump!”

She ran, leaping into the air, falling short. “Fuck!” She scrambled back. “I’m gonna give you a count. Pull then!”

“Okay!”

She counted down and jumped, hoping beyond hope he could reel her in. She felt a sharp tug on the rope, and her stomach somersaulted as she came tumbling down. Her landing was not soft. She rubbed a bruised leg, limping to her feet as Goodfella leaned down to offer a hand. “You want your jacket back?”

“Yeah, it’s kind of breezy in here. Is it like that in real life?”

“Yeah, they got, like, big fans.” He shrugged. “Part of the ventilation system, I think, but I wonder if they just missed being outside.” He grimaced. “The weatherman’s at least reliable.”

She laughed. “Oh, Goodfella, what are we gonna fuckin’ do?”

They took a step forward and the grass parted for concrete, the wind fading away behind the forest of skyscrapers. The streets were awash with voices, the world flush with life once more. She jumped back as a man seemingly came into existence right in front of her, gave her a sharp rebuke for having the gall to walk ahead of him, and shook his head as he walked away. The hairs on her neck stood straight.

“None of these people are real, right?” She shot a quizzical glance at Goodfella. “Why does it feel like…” She trailed off.

“I don't think so.” He shook his head. “If they were, that'd be like… the entire battlenet fading out at once.”

“That’d be horrible.” She paused. “I didn't even know two people could.”

“…You learn something new every day.” He stared down the street before jumping behind the doorway of a coffee shop. “What the fuck are the Minnies doing here?”

She stared at him, a blank “Huh?” slipping from her mouth.

“Down the fucking boulevard, Wick!”

She caught a glimpse of the Minervan Occupation Forces, the reflective stripes on their bright orange MP armbands hanging like warning lights in the distance, the urban camouflage on their helmets and plate carriers melding into the contours of the street. They parted the crowd ahead of them, the good citizens of Imbrium knowing it was a bad idea to get mixed up in this.

She ducked into the inset entrance to the cafe where Goodfella was hiding. Silence fell over the street, the harsh tapping of boots on concrete the only sound for blocks. “About six, moving in echelon.”

“Fuck.”

“I… I didn’t see rifles.”

“Huh?” He paused. “Look again.”

“You look!”

“Oh, for—” He sighed. “Fine.” He poked his head out to see what the quiet was all about. People were running away in every direction, dead silence on their lips. “Wait, no. No, no, no…” his breath quickened as he flattened his back to the wall, an intense, childlike fear in his eyes.

“Goodfella, what the hell is going on?” She poked her head out to see. The six Minervans had bunched up outside the dental offices of Jansen, Rippy, and Barton, bats and pipes in the hands of most, a four-millimeter pistol in the hands of the sixth. The Minervans let themselves in, walking on their clubs like canes. The last man, pistol in his hand, looked back over his shoulder as he locked green eyes onto her gaze. Her breath stuttered. He rolled his shoulders, cracking his neck as he turned his glare back to the task at hand.

“Goodfella,” she backed into the doorway, an apprehensive shake in her hands. “They’re just kids.”

“Yeah,” he sighed. “We were.”

The world collapsed around them, and nothingness reigned in its place. Below, a collection of six young— too young— Minervan Marines hassled with a man behind a reception counter, void overtaking everything else. A black-haired kid shrugged, raising the gun in his hands. The man jumped back, reaching for the sky. He shook his head. You’re gonna fawkin regret this, he said. Walk away while you can, kids. I won’t tell no one. Nah, the kid with the gun said. I think we want our money.

Goodfella fell to his knees, staring down through an unseen floor, fingers curling and scraping as if trying to claw his way through the nothingness.

Fine, you want the sky crashin’ down on you? The man grit his teeth. One of the kids opened his pack, the man at gunpoint shoveling Imbrian dollars from the safe into the bag. You fawkin kids get a gun and you think you’re fawkin Whitey Bulger.

She stood above him, bewildered. “Goodfella, what’s going on?”

“We didn’t know. We didn’t know. We were young, dumb, and angry. And… and… we wanted a way up—” He choked on his words, fear churning with anger, raw emotion spiraling into utter deadlock.

“You robbed a dentist?”

“We shook down a dentist. A… another family’s dentist. We didn’t know.”

“I… I’m sorry, man.”

“You know how hard it is to hide something from somebody who’s in your head? Do you? Do you know how much it took to keep you from this?”

“No…” She felt the metal handle of a red door, a seeping cold under curling fingers, a transient panic sweeping over and past her lying mind.

They had left CAG’s office with grave faces, scowls only breaking into smiles once they had made it down the passageway. “I thought you were gonna shit yourself.” He held up a little pinch. “No…”

“This isn't me, and it didn’t quite go down like this. I never wanted you to see this. I… I wanted this dead, gone, and buried, and that's where it's been, until now! It's never been on a record, and you're going to make sure it stays off the records, okay? I have a life now. I have a purpose now. Don't fuck me here, okay?”

The lights of San Diego glinted off Tony’s eyes as they stumbled out of the basement bar in Gaslamp, the gravity weighing down on his lanky build. He was absolutely bubbly tonight, a goofy smile splayed across his face. “How the fuck... do you guys, like, walk here? It's so heavy!”

“What's gotten into you?”

“You! You've gotten into me! You got your… fingers, all up into the lowest point of my life, something that… doesn't even feel like it happened to me anymore.”

The grand exhibit hall of the U.S.S. Enterprise Sea-Air-Space Museum held a commanding view of the Earth, but all the gaggle of children were focused on was the flight-suited aviators of the Renegades standing between a red-checked F-14F Super Tomcat and a J-20 Fagin, facing off as they had centuries before. A kid jumped up ahead of them, running to Tony and tugging on his flight suit’s leg. “Hey, mister, mister fighter pilot? Have you ever… fought an alien? That'd be really cool!” He glanced over to Rafka, eyes bulging from their sockets with a stone-faced nervousness. She nodded, egging him on, holding back a chuckle. He had a moment of epiphany, and leaned down to the kid, dropping into a whisper. “Well… I gotta tell ya. I'm an extraterrestrial.”

“Was that you, in the park?”

“What the hell do you know about the park?” He grit his teeth.

“So it was real, the body.”

A heavy huffing pulsed from his nose, anger sizzling off his breath. “You… don't know shit about me.”

She blinked, and the streets returned. A mob of Marathonian National Guardsmen, their battle rattle stripped down for mobility, plate rigs worn over rolled sleeves instead of environment skins, helmets broken down to their barest bones for protection and sensor coverage, stood at the end of the sidewalk, rifles in hand. You boys are in big trouble, the man at the head of the pack said. Went stickin’ your nose where it don’t belong.

At the other end of the street, more Minervans scattered, running for cover. Hey, we didn’t do anything!

The man with the rifle laughed. Maybe not you, but one of youse did!

Images flashed before them, beatings, shootings, a back and forth battle for about two blocks’ worth of mid-rises, as the two gangs traded retaliation for retaliation.

The kid with the black hair watched as glass shattered and shockwaves rocked the street. Soot and smoke billowed from inside a nightclub, the CLOSED sign rocketing off the front door and embedding itself in the wall of the building across the way.

He dropped the gun and turned, a panic welling in his eyes, running for a shelter in the far distance, the MP armband slipping off his shoulder.

“I hate that you’re here.” His hands shook, breath heavy.

“Why? Why hide this? I mean, you said it, it’s not you anymore.”

“I don’t want you telling anyone… and I don’t want you seeing this when you look at me.”

“How’d you get out of this?”

“Follow him,” Tony’s thumb shot towards the fleeing youth, and together, they ran.

The streets of Imbrium sprawled out, a manicured grid pattern curving through the channel where ancient lava had once flown, a natural pressure vessel for a city of several million. She couldn’t tell how far each step took her, the world contracting and extending ahead and behind, one step ten paces back, the next step taking her twenty ahead. Her vision glittered as if through a glassy rain and stuttered as if bathed under a strobe light. Was this it? She didn’t want to die here. Ahead of them both, in the distant glow of a WIRED!™ billboard, a blazing white silhouette cocked his head and vanished. She stopped where she stood, glancing around. “Goodfella?”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t think we’re alone.”

“What?” He paused. “It’s just our memories.”

“That didn’t…” She put her hands on her knees, breath racing. “Fuck, man, am I going insane?”

“Hope not.” He tapped the back of his skull. “Remember, we’re both in here now.”

She looked up, and panic crawled into her throat. The phantom of Goodfella’s past had vanished into the urban jungle, and as she began to look closer the red-brick shops of Newbury Street sprung out of her memory into what was then passing for reality in front of her. The edges of the buildings and the streets danced, fluid and deceitful, changing the moment she had figured out where they were. “Goodfella, what do we do now?” Despair rolled off her lips.

“I know where he's going, but…”

She looked back over his shoulder to make eye contact with him, and fell. The buildings caved in around them, a teardrop of concrete and ancient rock enveloping the two of them as they plummeted through the unseen. As the ground became the sky, she found herself flattened against the sudden embrace of a cassava field. Night hung heavy over the young plants, as the blue moonlight of an ocean world danced across a radiant band crossing through the heavens. She sat up, glancing around as her vision was drawn to a lone figure amidst the field, a silhouette of raw sunrise. She glanced away, eyes searing, as the light faded. Goodfella sat up at her left, shooting a panicked, panting glance her way. “What the fuck just happened?”

A wind rippled across the leaves, and the golden grass of the Imbrian park flowed across the ground in its wake. The glowing figure ahead of her had been eclipsed and vanished. She scrambled back, away from the Minervan Marine who now stood in its place, the reflection of ringlight’s silvered glow glancing off a faceless visor. Goodfella fumbled along the ground, fingers catching on the outline of a 2411 pistol, raising the coilgun in the glinting light of the moons.

A gentle breeze swayed against the grass, and the moment clicked. “Tony, no!” She shrieked as a cracking jolt rolled across stepped terraces, and jumped to her feet, running for the collapsing Marine. Hot blood spilled across the chest of the figure as they convulsed, dropping onto their back, and she frantically searched for the helmet release as she scrambled towards the Minervan.

“He was gonna fucking kill us, Wick!” Goodfella ran after her, pointing the handgun down at the stranger. She laid her hands on the emergency release, yanking the tab as the helmet twisted and clicked off. Green eyes stared back, blood curdling from his lips. Tony stared, his spitting image staring back. His eyes went wide.

“What did you just do?” She looked up at her friend.

“I…” Tony’s hands trembled. The gun clattered from his grip. “I don't know.” The walls of the Imbrian lava tube flashed around them and faded as quickly. “I… you know, this. Really happened.”

“I… saw it earlier. I had no idea what it was.”

“The park was bad cover, but it was so far away from there. I thought I could… if I could put enough distance between me and them, they'd…” Tony stopped, panting, eyes welling with tears. “There was a man who came for me. It grazed my lung. I would have suffocated if a doctor wasn't in the park that day.” Goodfella choked back a gasp. “I can't believe all this… whatever is doing this… put me in that fucking thing.” He gestured to the Minervan Marine battle rattle, the blood bubbling up from beneath her hands.

“Tony, nevermind that. We need to save this kid. This could kill you. We have no idea how this works.”

She glanced up to his anguished expression. “It's not fucking real. Besides. The doctor will come for him any second now. Just, what the fuck? I’m nothing like those bastards!” He shouted into the night. The streets of Imbrium rolled into focus around them, lined with quarantine notices and warnings of military authority. “They'd do the exact same fucking thing they're doing now to our home if they ever got the chance!”

“Goodfella!” Her breath sped. The scene around them melted away once again as the terraced garden of the city park bled into a monumental avenue, the shapes of one of the Pavonis Current War’s conscript squads carved into pitch-black rock, the looming stadium of Minerva’s Consensus Building only a stone’s throw away.

“This fucking nightmare!"

“Goodfella, have you ever been to Minerva?”

“What? Fuck no!”

“Then we're not alone in here! The system can’t pull something you haven't seen. I saw something earlier, I had no idea what it was—” She jumped. “Where did your body go?” The apparition of the younger Goodfella had disappeared.

“I don't know.” He stared up at the memorial. “I don't know.” He huffed. TO THE VALOR OF THOSE CALLED TO SERVE, the plinth read, the figures hewn out of towering stone as if emerging from a gateway to the warzones of the last century, rifles dangling from slings, oxygen masks tightened beneath their helmets, exoskeleton wrapping the leader’s outstretched arm, marshalling his troops against some unseen adversary. “What bullshit! Pavonis? They started that fucking war! All these people fucking think about is war, is killing us! Can't they just leave us alone?” He spat at the statue.

“Tony, calm down! You said it yourself, it's not real, we’re not here! I need you to be okay right now!”

“No! None of this is fucking okay! They started Pavonis, and can you believe they have the fucking gall to tell us that they didn't start this one?” A shower of stars fell from the sky behind him as he grimaced, his breath speeding. “I hope they burn in hell.”

In the far distance, a falling star larger than the rest cracked a mountain in two with a flash of violent light, the snowcapped peak crumbling to dust and tumbling down. She gasped. The ground trembled and split. Dust choked the world. The sickly glow of fire reigned in place of blue skies.

Goodfella was gone, the shape of his shadow seared into her retina. The bowl of the Consensus split, the titanic mosaic across its side torn at the silhouette of the Minervan flagbearer, the once triumphal fresco of Minervan liberty turned to a monument to hubris.

Pillars of fire erupted from the ground below, hallway walls closing in, a sense of panic forcing her forward, driving her through the chasm in the Consensus Building’s wall. She leapt through the opening as the world beyond turned to ruin, the once-proud streets of New Ruacnoc behind her aflame and in chaos. The vision ahead of her, too, was death— the slow, cold death of decay rather than the furious inferno behind her. Mosiac tiles crunched underneath, bootprints left in the soot. She took in a breath, and surveyed her surroundings. As politically apathetic as she was, she had never felt kindly about what this building stood for, nor had she ever particularly liked any of the people who had gathered here. Still, a part of her felt sick. Was she sick because she stood in the halls of the enemy, a place where esteemed men and women had signed the death warrants for her friends, or was she sick because she was now witnessing the destruction so many of her comrades had wished upon their enemy? She didn't know. A tile fell from a mosaic before her, a grand affair; before her an Independence Forces soldier beat his rifle’s barrel with the smith’s hammer, the shape of a plowshare slowly taking form in his hands. Beside him, his compatriots had taken to working the land, others had doffed their helmets for hard hats, others had left the tools of war behind for the pen, the gavel, and the scales, the man at the front of the pack burying a bloodied spear, his compatriot handing him a branch from a nearby olive tree.

What beautiful intentions, she thought. Why hold on to all this if you're just going to throw them all away?

A clicking echoed from the central bowl, the tunnel connecting to the monumentally decorated hallway beckoning her out as soft light cast from the opening, a sharp departure from the harsh flame outside. She turned the corner, the massive arena of the building drawing an awed breath, even if it was ruined. As she walked in towards the middle of the bowl, she felt sand parting under her tread; rubble, desks, cables and chairs emerging from the waste. To her right, an avalanche of stone and concrete had sheared down through the stands where legislators would have been sat. At the center of the arena, it seemed an office had been peeled like an orange atop a hill of sand; its walls strewn haphazardly to the sides in all directions. She knew this one from seventh grade astrography. The Office at the End of the Hall.

“There you are.” Tony’s voice resounded behind the Martyrs’ Desk, that rough concrete block. She'd seen it in movies. She'd always thought it was a little weird. A chunk of a nuked-out building, jagged edges included, the Seal of the Minervan Republics made from radioactive glass contaminated by the ashes of this country’s forefathers. It was a bit macabre for her tastes. She ran for her friend, sand kicking up behind her feet as she climbed the mound, grabbing bookshelves for handholds and swatting aside portraits, and she stopped dead in her tracks when she could see the blood.

“Oh, good.” A fountain pen lay to her right atop the desk, the nib bubbling. “I've been wondering where you were.” It was too thick to be ink, the blood spilling from the pen in an endless reserve, the desk awash from end to end in an ocean broken only by Goodfella’s heels. “I was afraid I’d lost you.” Her jaw hung open in a crimson mirror, papers floating incomprehensibly atop, “No, I couldn't lose you, could I?” handwritten by nobody as names on names on names scrawled across the page, written in scarlet from below, “We're bound at the hip, aren't we?” the list kept growing and growing and “Wick?” the blood kept spilling and the cracks kept spreading and

“Wick. Wick.” Goodfella’s eyes widened, his voice raspier than usual. “Wiiicked.”

“What.” She pointed to the desk. “Tony, what the fuck is going on— what are you doing?”

The room fell around her, the sand caved in, and the world went dark as she started to drown.

⠀

⠀

⠀

She batted aside bodies with her hands as she kicked her way to the surface. She gasped, coughing out muck and grime as she felt her feet reach solid ground below her and a sliver of foggy sky greeted her eyes, canyon walls framing a portrait of alien trees. The bog’s waterline fell slightly beneath her waist, rifle barrels and outstretched arms poking from beneath the muck as if shoots among wheat fields. The familiar ‘unicorn’s horn’ EOTS of the Hoplite-VII helmet bobbing beside her pointed down the run of the bog, and as she trudged forward she scanned the muck below. It was a cemetery immersed, UN and Minervan helmets alike frozen side by side in neat little rows. Her breath stuttered. As she looked up, fog rolled in around her.

Some distance away, a form erupted from the bog, flailing, shouting. “Rafka! Help!” The shape of her friend disappeared as soon as it had come.

She gasped, and ran as quickly as the muck would allow. Mud pulled at her legs. The cold seeped through her sweatpants into her bones. She came to a halt as Goodfella rose from the mire in front of her.

“It's okay. It's okay.” She felt something tug at the corner of her eye. She started to let her gaze fall, and he reached out a hand. “It's okay. It's me.”

She looked down with a sigh, and met her gaze in her reflection. She gasped as she saw his.

In the water’s rippling sheen, she saw double as Goodfella’s reflection held Tony’s head below water. It went no deeper than the surface of the muck but a tingling feeling at the back of her mind made its reality oh so very clear.

“Shouldn't have done that.” Venom seeped through his voice.

She backed up, pacing a circle around her friend’s mirage. The inky black muck of the bog crept up Goodfella’s back, worming its way up from his shirt collar, running right into the port for his neural lace.

She lunged, grabbing at the liquid tendril plugged into Goodfella’s brain. It felt somewhat cohesive in her hand; she yanked it partway out as black bile poured from the port, and he turned his head to face her. Obsidian pooled in his eye sockets and dribbled from his mouth, his nose, his ears. “Come on, Wick. This is what we're here for.”

She grit her teeth. Her footing slipped as she pulled the cable again, and he laughed as she fell into the water.

Just as suddenly, she fell out, her breath speeding, her hands shaking. Goodfella stood in the distance down the bog, and she found herself surrounded by bodies, the bodies from the sunken graveyard now hanging limp in the air around her, rifles and pistols dangling in the fog, adrift on an unseen wind.

“Honestly, I'm surprised.” The silhouette in the distance was cloaked in Stygian murk, the scum of the bog mixing with something much darker. “You're the trigger puller, Wick. I used to think you'd understand better than anybody. In this industry, you just can't tolerate weakness.” She shuffled forward against current and muck, fighting for every step. Her breathing sped. “What are you talking about? What are you doing to him?”

“This is for his own good, really. I mean, look at this.” Tony— or that thing wearing his face— reached a hand into the water and dragged Tony out of it by the neck. She could see her friend struggling, kicking and choking, inky blackness sputtering from his mouth as he coughed and thrashed. “Look out there, Wick! It's kill or be killed, and don't you know these motherfuckers got it coming?” The red and white candy-caning of the evacuation notices flashed from the canyon walls, jumbotron lights cutting through the fog. “You know, he almost shook me loose, but the last eight months of news… brought him right back to what really matters.” She felt her breath quicken and the walls of the canyon start closing in. The grip of a discarded 2411 pistol beckoned her from just below the surface. “I didn't even have to plead my case, the Minnies did it all for me! Not every day the rats beg you to put ‘em down.”

She reached for the gun. The cold plastic was slick. Her hands were shaking. The world narrowed. She glared down the sights at that monster. Her heart pounded.

The trigger pull was smooth and crisp, but the signature crack of a coilgun discharge was nowhere to be found. Her eyes widened. She clawed at the trigger again. And again. She turned the gun to its side as that vile darkness poured out of its barrel.

“Bad call,” Goodfella snarled. His voice sounded close. She turned the pistol to its other side and dropped it with a primal shriek as bile spilled from the chamber, inky blackness running up her hand, pulling her arm down towards the bog.

The day broke before her as the bog flash-boiled around her, evaporating in an instant. A neat circle had been carved in the muck by a figure of solid light, radiant sunrise given form, the stream held back by invisible walls encircling them. The stranger nodded.

“What?” She felt a tingling buzz across her scalp. “Who are you? Why are you following me?”

The figure gave no reply.

She felt a tugging at her vision and glanced down. The hilt of a double-edged sword rose from the ground, rusted and dented from neglect and misuse. There were many weapons scattered in the bog, she’d noticed, but this one seemed to her to be of much older make.

She grabbed hold and shook it free, the strange figure gliding hands over the blade, the visible signs of decay burning away as the weapon caught fire. The stranger pointed to Tony. She nodded. Just as quickly, the figure vanished, but the fire remained.

The walls of the bog crashed once again in on her, waves threatening to throw her off her footing; she stumbled and trudged, each next step easier and easier as she watched the bog jump away from the heat of the blade.

Tony’s assailant had fallen silent. She watched as the subconscious monster swept waves of obsidian sludge across the surface towards her, and watched as an invisible hand just as quickly batted them away.

Closing the distance, she swung at Goodfella, but the weapon felt unbearably heavy in her hands, her opponent leaping back and readying a reply as her slash froze overhead. Tony struggled against restraints of pure darkness to her right, opening his hand as he choked against the muck of the bog. She backpedaled and brought the sword’s heat close to Tony, watching as the darkness consuming him began to slowly recede.

“Rafka…” he stammered. “You… you can't do this for me.”

She nodded, and laid the sword in his hand.

The bog jumped to life around her, clawing her back and drawing her away. “Tony—!” Her shriek turned to burbling as she started to feel the water crashing in on her, her heart pounding as she thrashed against the creek, her vision narrowing as a bitter, metallic taste took her senses hostage. She poked her head above for but a moment as she watched Tony slash the sword across the monster’s shoulders before the current dragged her down into a kaleidoscopic vision. Her breath sped and her eyes widened as she was force-fed every slight, every argument, and every annoyance she'd ever known, filtered through a prism of malice. She kicked at the impossibly deep water, the feeling of muck closing in all around. Her hand broke the surface, grabbing hold of a tree’s root, when she met the gaze of her father.

How could he have done that to me?

The stray thought stabbed into her mind. Her teeth grit as her breath quickened. Only the sense of drowning broke its hold. She tugged on the root, an anchor line to a surface awash in an eerie glow. She broke through the top of the bog with a frenzied gasp, the fog rolling in around her dyed an eerie red by the memory of evacuation billboards.

She clung to the tree at the side of the bog as Tony brought the blade down over his head with a shout, the flames dancing across the sword roaring as they finally consumed their victim. Goodfella was lit ablaze and the color and definition of its features burned away until the shade was a mass of darkness. The blob of Wrath folded in on itself as if packed away by unseen hands, a wound in unreality hanging in the air, until it finally vanished.

The bog released its grip.

She trudged over to Tony as her friend was hacking up a lung, grime and sludge spit back from whence it came. “Tony?”

“Yeah.” He coughed. “Yeah.”

She nodded. That blood red fog still surrounded them in the distance, the faint outline of a canyon wall luring the two towards the shore. They walked in relieved silence.

As they clambered to the shore, the first thing Tony did was sit down. He was panting, groaning as if trying to express something beyond words. He set the sword to his side.

“Where did you get this?”

“Something gave it to me.” She scanned her surroundings. “It just… just vanished. It was that glowing man.”

“Glowing man?”

“Yeah, you… you didn't see it, did you?”

“No, I was a bit busy getting killed.” He sighed. “But, you know what? Sure. Third weirdest thing that’s happened today.”

“Do you think we're okay?” She looked up to trees and the towering wall of a canyon peering through the fog. She didn't know what she was expecting.

“What I think? I think they're sending the janitor to our cockpit right now to scrape our brains off our laps.”

She took a seat herself and hung her head. “At least they have our bodies.”

“That'd be the first time your folks see you in… what, a decade?”

She stared into the distance.

“Sorry. Sore spot.” He shook his head. “I've been through a lot today.”

“We've.”

“Yeah.”

“You haven't heard of anyone getting back from a fade this deep, have you?”

“I've never heard of anybody getting into one, let alone two people. That's not supposed to be able to happen.”

“I'm going to take it they don't have swamps like this in Boston.”

“No.”

“Not on the Moon, either.” He sighed. “And none of us have been to Minerva. I think you said earlier, we're not alone. Maybe this is where the glowing guy lives. Swamp Canyon.”

“We don't even know what that was.”

Down the bank of the creek, she could see smoke rising, mingling with the crimson fog before dissipating into the the sky above them. She stood and gestured for Tony to follow. “Be ready,” she nodded.

The soil under their tread squelched with each step, the fog beside them occasionally broken by the woodland camouflage of dead men floating on a gentle breeze, faces obscured by blackened visors, their helmets’ sensor cameras invariably turned on the two of them. The soft amber glow of dying flames began to mingle with the fog’s scarlet as they trudged along, until blackened composite and torn alloys erupted from the ground. A horseshoe of debris ringed the broken form of a man, flight helmet discarded to his side, back propped against a rock. The grey camouflage of a Vaquero fighter spread its wings above him, stuck nose-end into the ground. He raised his eyes to meet them. He coughed.

The man was tired. The eyes that met her gaze held the weight of sorrows she had not lived long enough to know. He turned his attention to Tony, eyeing the sword in his hand. “Are you here for me?”

“What?”

“No? Too bad.” He shook his head. The three stripes of the Minervan standard hung on his shoulders as velcro patches.

Rafka heard a tremor in Tony’s voice. “What are you doing here?”

“Can a man die in peace?” The stranger grumbled.

The breeze ran gently through her hair, yet an eerie heaviness weighed on the wind. A voice carried on the gust, a gentle insistence: Do you remember Titan?

The patch on his shoulder, a dragon wrapped around a spear, looked just like the tail art from the debrief. She saw Tony grip the sword’s hilt ever tighter.

Eight members of the Twenty-Fourth died on Titan, the wind whispered. Eight little Renegades, burning on the breeze. They didn't have a chance. Do you know what happens when a disconnected life support system mixes pure oxygen and methane?

Tony’s eyes widened. Rafka took a step closer. “Tony. Tony. Talk to me,”

“This guy killed our friends,” Tony snarled. The breeze felt just that little bit colder.

She glanced over to the stranger. The words fell from his mouth, crashing to the ground under the weight of regret. “Let him,” he said. She looked back to Tony, watching as the fire that had once enveloped the blade in his hands died down, the metal crumbling to dust and drifting on the wind.

“Tony, think about this.” She took another step towards him. “What were you just fighting?”

“Rafka!” His eyes widened. “Just… just…” The sword had withered into the shape of a combat knife. She watched as the bank of that bog crept ever closer to where they stood.

Tony looked down at the blade, hand trembling, and looked up at Rafka, panic in his face. Something caught the corner of his eye, and Tony spun to glare across the creek. The fog had parted, and across the bog a tall man with glasses carried a young boy in his hands, bloodied, bandaged with a torn shirt. He gasped.

“Who is that?”

“Me,” Tony said, dropping the knife in the dirt.

The bog recessed to its natural waterline, and the whisper on the wind fell silent as the breeze ran across her ears.

Tony walked over to the man. “Can you stand?”

“Please just leave me here.”

“No, I'm not going to.”

“I’m not fit for second chances.”

“Too bad.” Tony knelt down. “Rafka, his leg is screwed up. I’m going to have to carry him.”

“Where are we going?” She raised an eyebrow.

“Across. I don't know what, but there's something there.” He scooped the stranger up. The man didn't struggle. “Everything you said is true. Why would you do this for me?”

“Someone did it for me,” he trudged forward into the bog, lifting the man above the surface.

She followed them across, the bodies of the dead seemingly staring at them the whole time. As they made landfall on the other bank, a crowd of dead aviators had massed to greet them, shattered visors revealing burned faces as mangled limbs fell to their sides. Tony crept forward, the stranger in his arms heavier with each step, whispers begging for vengeance filling his ears as he came to the threshold of somewhere far more familiar.

The stranger in his arms looked up at the sign over the door and began to cry.

The whole building before them seemed to be recessed into the rock of the canyon wall. She could see the edges of memory bleeding into the scene, places where brick mingled with stone and canyon blurred into the church in front of them. It was thin, squeezed by the space constraints of Imbrian real estate pricing, likely one of the few buildings on its block that wasn't a skyscraper. Icons hung above the entrance on its second story— St. Mary and St. Joseph each cradling Baby Jesus on either side of that picture of Jesus shooting the light rays out of His chest she had seen in her mother’s wallet. She never understood that one, but the stranger in Tony’s arms seemed to be bawling his eyes out looking at it.

She turned around, and the crowd of corpses was gone. The whole bog was gone. They were perched on a ledge higher up the canyon, the nightmare they'd endured buried under the fog below.

“We're going in, then?” She glanced over to Tony.

He nodded.

The interior of St. Maximilian Kolbe’s Church was, to put it plainly, very Italian. Neo-Baroque paintings depicting the martyrdom of the parish’s patron saint hung in place of windows, the building's towering neighbors both cramping the church and making a window a moot point. The door to the confessional was a red composite, marked with the number 454B. She gasped, and the intrusion vanished as soon as it had appeared. The church seemed longer than it should have been, and the space between the pews and the altar rail had been taken over by an invasion of other memories. The burning wreckage of a crashed fighter bled into the church’s right side, a furious blaze threatening to consume the whole building. Tony walked ahead of her, the battered Minervan in his arms. He turned back towards his pilot. “He's coughing up blood.”

Goodfella’s voice echoed from the lectern behind the flames, and the two jumped.

“HE HAS PLACED BEFORE YOU FIRE AND WATER,”

She glanced to the ambo. Tony’s phantom seemed to be tearing itself apart as it spoke. The deep black of the bog seeped from its left eye as light broke from its right.

“STRETCH OUT YOUR HAND FOR WHICHEVER YOU WISH.”

Tony gasped. The wind rushed through his hair, a cold chill fighting a gentle warmth as she swore she heard the chattering of voices.

Tony trembled, and looked to his right. The pews had been filled by the bloodied corpses of his fellow aviators, a silent chorus all shouting one thing.

To the left of them both, a stone pool, glassy and calm, had gently intruded into the floor of the church. She glanced around as the whole scene started to unravel, rendering artifacts crumbling whatever sense of reality had remained in the simulation to dust.

One man sat in the pews to the left, adjusting his glasses as he looked to the tabernacle behind the altar. Tony’s eyes met the back of his head, and he was gone in the flash of a wireframe. Tony stepped forward. His hands shook. He glared over to his phantom, and stared down at the pool.

“You… don't need to.” The man in his arms struggled out the words.

He walked to the pool and crouched down, laying the man in the waters.

“I don't deserve this,” the man shouted, as his wounds started to close.

“I know.”

His phantom screamed. She spun and stared at the lectern. Half of the figure had melted into the muck of the bog as a flash of light seared her eyes and the simulation went haywire.

She was totally alone in a white void, the nothingness beneath her tread turning red, green, and blue like the flicker of a broken screen through her blurry vision. She lifted her eyes and stopped dead in her tracks as she caught sight of the glowing figure from the bog, and fell to her knees in pain and fear as her vision cleared to reveal two of them, conversing in a language she couldn't even fathom.

They turned their sights on her, and the world froze.

The blurry form leaning over her gasped. A light shone brightly in her eyes. “Doc, we got a live one!” The technician glanced over his shoulder. “Two miracles in one day.” He shook his head.

“Shoot, we got the pilot too?” The flight surgeon raised an eyebrow and ran the technician’s pen light across her eyes.

“Manual recovery’s usually a Hail Mary,” the technician blinked, staring down at his tablet’s ruggedized screen. “Guess she’s taking house calls today.”

The flight surgeon leaned in. “Hey el-tee. Tell me, you know what year it is?”

Her head felt like it had been caved in with a fire-ax. “Uhh… 2524?”

“You got it.” He grinned. “Who’s the Secretary-General?”

“TYDTWD,” she had slurred the acronym into an alphabet soup.

The smile faded from Doc’s face. “Huh?”

“Take Your Daughter to Work Day?” Rafka struggled to grin. “Y’know, she’s Admiral Jimoh’s kid.”

Tech snickered. “Some friends SecGen’s got.”

“My head hurts.”

“Sounds about right, el-tee.” The flight surgeon showed her his tablet. Brain scans showing a buzz of activity across every lobe suddenly went blank. “You almost died. You and your TSO, deepest fade I’ve ever seen. Him too, and all he does is neural laces.” Doc pointed to Tech. “Can you move?”

“I… Iunno.”

“Give it a try,” The technician stepped off to her other side, providing a helping hand. “We gotcha, el-tee.”

She groaned, swiveling on her butt to dangle her feet off the stretcher. She winced as she sat up, clutching her temple.

“Do you remember anything from your fade?”

“Not really, no…”

“One last question. What’s your name, Sailor?”

“Wi— uh, Rafka. Rafka Smart.”

Tech gave her a congratulatory slap on the shoulder. “You passed. Your backseater’s up and about. You spent a little longer unresponsive. There was some malware on your plane, but nothing that should have done that much… Both of you cheated death. I don’t know how you did it. Nobody crashes that hard and lives. You two are some very lucky nobodies. Count your blessings, ma’am.”

“Normally,” Doc said, “I’d have you grounded. Today’s not normal. How are you feeling now?”

“Uhh… a little better.”

“Good. You guys go back up in four hours. Go meet up with your squadron, get some rest, and let me know if anything gets worse. There are still a few things I can ground you for.”

“Yes, Doc.” She nodded, out of breath.

She looked out to the horizon, hoping to catch some glimpse that would tell her the battle was going well. Of course, they were too far away to see anything meaningful, and hopefully far enough away that the Minervans wouldn’t hit them. She knew they could, and they were trying.

“Two miracles in one day,” Tech had mused. She felt her breath trickle across her lips, a feeling she had a newfound gratitude for. A creeping dread set in. She wondered how many more she would get.

The distant mist flashed, a burning crimson in the night before the dawn.

She closed her eyes. She thought of home. It hurt.

“Hey, Rafka!” Her backseater’s voice broke through and jolted her back to her senses. “You… you're alive! Oh, man.” He waved her towards the gas station’s door, red composite and numbered 454B.

While the vast majority of humanity lives under the specter of interstellar war and the machinations of Great Power astropolitics, many smaller nations have erupted on the fringe of settled space. These nations range from large industrialized powers to small backwaters, reasonable governments to insane dictatorships, and well connected members of interstellar society to isolated pariahs. This guide serves to introduce the casual WAYBOUND reader to several of these and their history, particularly where that history intersects with the intrigue and politics that drive the story of WAYBOUND.

It is easy to forget, in the age of interstellar human civilization, that space is big. Unfathomably, mind-bogglingly big. Hundreds of millions of humans have begun, lived, and ended their time on this mortal coil without ever coming within a light-year of Sol or Eridani. And space is dark. The tyranny of c and of the inverse-square law dictate that the uncanny realm of slipspace is the only way to get information from Point A to Point B. For those in a system big or important enough, relays are the closest thing to realtime comms out in the High Frontier. For everyone else, snail mail - shipborne data drives or crew word-of-mouth are the only ways to get a message out, to call for help. That is, if help is coming, if help can even arrive in time. And space is deadly. A hab breach that spoils a deep range colony’s food supply. An unexpected disease from local fauna. A chance encounter with one of the many all-too-human monsters that lurk far beyond the watchful eyes and wrathful guns of the United Nations and Federated Republics. That is, if they aren’t already on the payroll of the corporations who partition up their fiefdoms with impunity. The confluence of these three factors is that for those in the High Frontier, even the 26th Century is a dangerous, uncertain time. Colonies “go dark” from time to time. In many cases, the root cause is as mundane as the mail being late, or a relay needing regularly scheduled maintenance. Weeks or months later, the arbitrary, oft-blurred lines we call “Frontier civilization” are reconnected, the stream of data resumes, and that little flicker of light continues to burn. Not always.

For every Altair, Van Maanen, or Calvados, there are countless ghosts. Some are little more than an empty scattering of habitats on an otherwise-desolate world, their occupants having fled the corporate-run frontier life for more prosperous endeavors elsewhere. Others, from the abandoned radio telescope on Akrotiri and the lost souls from the brief conflict there, to the drifting derelict of the generation ship Rakesh Sharma, to the dozens of trade, exploration, and privateer vessels that the United States Coast Guard declares “reported missing, presumed lost with all hands”, will never see that light again. The light of human civilization is bright, but space is a very dark place indeed.

—Foreword, Cutterman: A Memoir, CDR Paul A. MacTaggart, U.S. Coast Guard (Ret.) (2509)

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Why move to the Frontier?

The things that drove mankind beyond the comfortable Old Colonies and their industrialized worlds is largely the same things that drove them off Earth in the twenty-first century and to distant shores of the Earth many centuries prior— however, there is a significant twist. With the current state of interstellar strategic deterrence, hundreds of thousands of nuclear weapons on FTL-equipped missiles are in use to enforce a fragile peace between the UN and Minerva. The slipstream drive has become to many a ticket to escape the tyranny of the bomb. While in previous generations the dispersion to the colonies may have been spearheaded by ideological zealots, there is now a non-insignificant contingent of of planets and systems settled not just by the brave, but by the terrified. This has resulted in many of the most populous nations of the Frontier becoming societies that would be largely familiar to the average citizen of either superpower. On the other hand, many narrow interests have also staked their claim, especially in the High Frontier.

What’s so special about slipstream drives?

While the slipstream drive, humanity’s only successful method of FTL, has existed for hundreds of years, the benchmark for whether a power is truly a great power has remained the design and manufacture of these devices. The technology is immensely complex and scientifically difficult to design on the one hand and on the other requires a skilled workforce and the material resources to construct one. While nuclear weapons and their development remain a barometer to a country’s technological advancement, they are far more commonplace in the 2500s; and the distinction between tactical, which are largely used for ship-to-ship engagements, and strategic, which are used for interstellar deterrence, winds up falling back on a country’s ability to manufacture a miniaturized slipstream drive for its delivery vehicle, an even more difficult endeavor.

On Lost Colonies

Prior to the invention of the slipstream drive, many colony ships were launched under slower-than-light propulsion. The ‘Wave Zero’ colonists still on their way to other systems aboard were largely found en route and reintegrated into organized society after the advent of the slip drive; however in the early waves of FTL colonization, slipstream drives and navigation were both brand-new science that had a great deal of uncertainty and gray areas involved. Reports of long-lost early-slip colonists on the distant Frontier are not unheard of; most, however, have long died out, should they have been so lucky to have reached their destination. Speculation remains.

Primary Regions of Known Space

The Cradle— The region of space encompassing Sol and the first inhabited human colonies. This region is heavily developed and home to the vast majority of the human population. Largely dominated by the superpowers, the Cradle was largely settled in the first wave of FTL colonization following the advent of the slipstream drive.

Low Frontier— The region of space to the “galactic south” of Sol (as defined by the 2289 Zurich Accord on Astrography). Sitting below the Cradle on most 2D maps, the Low Frontier has been generally settled longer and is on average more developed than the High Frontier as a result of more favorable slipstream routes during early FTL expansion and the discovery of significant mineral wealth on many worlds of The Pavonis at the turn of the 25th century.

High Frontier— The region of space to the “galactic north” of Sol (as defined by the 2289 Zurich Accord on Astrography). Sitting above the Cradle on most 2D maps, the High Frontier is generally less developed and is currently in the process of being settled and industrialized by the superpowers and other capable factions. The alignment of the Cygni-Draconian slipstream current with the Eridian and Hyperian Currents in the latter half of the 25th century has made travel and settlement of the more distant portions of the High Frontier a financially lucrative desire. High-bandwidth, high-speed FTL communications infrastructure and reliable systems of law enforcement are few and far between in the High Frontier outside the most developed and populated systems. Above the High Frontier lurks the ‘Big Empty’ of the Draconis Gulf, a region curiously devoid of habitable worlds.

Notable Nations in the UN Sphere of Influence

United Pavonian Commonwealth

POPULATION SIZE: LARGE | LOCATION: PAVONIAN CURRENT (LOW FRONTIER)
SETTLED: 2370s | FOUNDED: 2410s
ALIGNMENT: UNITED NATIONS (LOOSE), OFFICIALLY NON-ALIGNED, INTERSTELLAR SOVEREIGNTY CONCORD
MODE OF GOVERNMENT: PARLIAMENTARY DEMOCRACY
NUCLEAR WEAPONS: STRATEGIC & TACTICAL
SLIPSTREAM DRIVES: CAPABLE OF INDEPENDENT DEVELOPMENT & MANUFACTURE

The United Pavonian Commonwealth (UPC) is one of the three nations that resulted from Djajadi’s Rush, a period of rapid colonization and industrialization begun by the 2399 announcement by the Pavonis Expedition Exploration Commission (PEEC), a cartel of UN corporate entities intent on colonizing the Pavonis Current, that the region had a swath of habitable planets with plentiful deposits of sulfur and rhenium. Originally founded to give credence to the claims of several mining corporations, the UPC has become the largest nation outside the UN and Minerva— spread across seven star systems in Lower Pavonis— and enjoys good relations with both, even if it is frequently partial to the UN. Sandwiched between the UN’s Hydrian Assembly to the north and the FMR’s Malýkrok Republic to the south, the UPC is a trusted middleman for relationships between both the governments and economies of the UN and Minerva, and purchases arms from both while being dependent on neither. A stable parliamentary democracy with a robust economy, the UPC is known as a corporate haven with a decent standard of living. Protected by the Pavonis Self-Defense Forces, the fourth largest military in human space, Pavonis is the military might behind the Interstellar Sovereignty Concord, even if other members of the coalition frequently raise objections to the PSDF’s joint exercises with the UN and FMR’s militaries. UN naval policy bureaucrats have voiced a desire to secure stable support from the Pavonians in the event of a large-scale war with Minerva in order to expand planned deployments of experimental starship manufacturing technology to the less-inhabited worlds in the UPC.

Hydrian Assembly

POPULATION SIZE: MED-LARGE | LOCATION: PAVONIAN CURRENT (LOW FRONTIER)
SETTLED: 2370s | FOUNDED: 2410s
ALIGNMENT: UNITED NATIONS (MEMBER STATE)
MODE OF GOVERNMENT: FEDERAL REPUBLIC
NUCLEAR WEAPONS: TACTICAL, UNDER UN STRATEGIC UMBRELLA
SLIPSTREAM DRIVES: DEPENDENT ON UN

One of the primary combatants of the Pavonis Current War (2448-2459), the Hydrian Assembly (HA) is, like the UPC, a former PEEC corpostate that has had moderate successes in establishing legitimate democratic government. Originally spread across both Upper Pavonis, its current location, and Lower Pavonis, the HA lost much of its territory to the Minervan military and to the ‘temporary protection’ of the ostensibly allied UPC during the Pavonis Current War, when the Hydrians attempted to defend their tenuous claims in Lower Pavonis by force of both their own arms and those of UN based security contractors. Following the war, the HA flocked to the security of the United Nations, as while many in Bradbury had called for the deployment of troops to fight the Minervans, the original charter that had granted the PEEC full autonomy in the region assumed all defensive responsibility into the PEEC’s constituent corporations. Joining the UN, Hydrian politicians assured, would tear up that agreement and surround the Hydrian people in the security blanket of the UNC and COMPMARFORCOM. Since their accession to the UN, the Hydrian Assembly has grown under the Union’s patronage into a modern industrial nation boasting a diversified economy and a robust military. They maintain icy relations with the UPC, as some nationalist elements in their southern neighbor have expressed interest in a united Pavonis as in the early days of the PEEC, but indifference in the formerly Hydrian systems of the UPC has resulted in this being viewed as little more than sabre rattling outside of the Pavonis.

Kingdom of Caerleon

POPULATION SIZE: MID | LOCATION: AQUILAN CURRENT (HIGH FRONTIER)
SETTLED: 2370s | FOUNDED: 2390s
ALIGNMENT: UNITED NATIONS (PROTECTORATE)
MODE OF GOVERNMENT: CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
NUCLEAR WEAPONS: NO
SLIPSTREAM DRIVES: DEPENDENT ON UN

A relatively recent addition to the UN’s sphere of influence, the Kingdom of Caerleon enjoyed a relative stability compared to many other High Frontier colonies until roughly thirty-five years ago. Founded by a savvy administrator later elevated to a ceremonial kingship by the colonists as a token of appreciation for a good job done managing the fledgeling colony, the monarchy originally developed as a joke but the figurehead has since become a staple of Caerleonite society. In the last thirty-five years, political polarization along the question of where the country’s loyalties lie in terms of the Third Cold War has meshed with gang violence and caused a culture of paramilitary standoffs that has undermined the country’s elections and hurt the formerly prosperous colony’s livelihoods. Many allege significant involvement of Minervan and UN intelligence services in the escalation of the country’s political violence, starting from an abortive Minervan political warfare campaign to try and prevent the colony’s accession to UN protectorate status in the late four-eighties. The current landscape of Caerleon’s paramilitary politics has additionally resulted in a growing wave of refugees in both nearby UN-aligned systems and UN systems in the Cradle. In early 2523, then-King Tobias Arcure was assassinated in the street by what appeared to be members of the pro-Minervan (and Minervan-backed) Popular Sovereignty Front, but were later revealed to have been clandestine operators of the Japanese Public Security Intelligence Agency acting on behalf of the UN Intelligence Community. The result has kicked off a new wave of popular furor, with the intended effect of turning the well-beloved Arcure into a martyr for the Blue cause having profoundly backfired. Civil unrest has ruled the country’s public square ever since the revelation by Minervan news in mid-2524, and the more militant of the paramilitaries have sought to solidify their presence as a permanent fixture of the Caerleonite political landscape, arguing that the very powers training and supplying them must be held at bay for the sake of the Caerleonite people.

Altair Holdings and Governance, plc

POPULATION SIZE: SMALL-MEDIUM | LOCATION: AQUILAN CURRENT (HIGH FRONTIER)
SETTLED: 2310s | FOUNDED: 2350s | ACQUIRED: 2444
ALIGNMENT: UNITED NATIONS (PROTECTORATE)
MODE OF GOVERNMENT: CORPORATE REPUBLIC
NUCLEAR WEAPONS: FORMERLY, DIVESTED
SLIPSTREAM DRIVES: DEPENDENT ON UN

As early settlement efforts expanded across what would become the High Frontier, little suggested that it would be any less hospitable and lucrative than those systems to the galactic south of Sol. Naturally, as soon as it was possible for starships to reach one of the brightest stars in Earth’s night sky, pioneers ventured forth to settle it.

The immediate aftermath of the Minervan Revolution entailed an economic shock across the Frontier, as corporate backers scrambled to recover assets that might otherwise be lost to copycat revolutions. So it was that Altair found itself the foremost among many High Frontier systems suddenly left unsupervised, if not outright independent. Facing a crisis as the colony was not quite self-sufficient yet, Altair absorbed several smaller nearby colonies, “reorganizing” their industrial capabilities to ensure self-reliance for them all. When corporate investors tentatively returned in the 2360s, they found a stable society eager to advertise itself as the “Gateway to the High Frontier”. Built on this promise of wealth, Altair forged itself into an independent political and economic powerhouse. At its zenith in 2411, it would transform the modest economic bloc it had formed around itself into the Common Defense Union; an economic, social, and political pact that would bind the Frontier together against pirate and superpower alike.

Unfortunately, the foundations of Altair’s ascendancy were built on sand. High Frontier ventures running through Altair brought paltry returns whilst commanding astronomical prices on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. On August 9, 2428, a secret report to the Development Ministry was leaked to investors as part of a scheme to short sell over 200 separate stocks related to Altair. Within three weeks of the news reaching the system, confidence in the government had dropped from 57% to 2%, according to local polling.

In 2444, still burdened with an unsalvageable debt crisis and a wrecked economy, Altair became the largest state in history to sell its sovereignty to a holding company. This administration has brought a semblance of stability and modest growth to the citizens of Altair. (Prominent investors include Martian defense/consumer electronics giant Huntwell, Chinese entertainment conglomerate Tencent, and Imbrian pharmaceutical/energy drink titan BioDyne.) Nonetheless, in the capital city of Prospect, the shadows of abandoned skyscrapers still hang heavily over a despondent people whose remaining pride has prevented them from joining the CDU’s successor— solely because it does not belong to them.

Notable Nations in the FMR Sphere of Influence

Van Maanen

POPULATION SIZE: MID | LOCATION: BETWEEN THE CYGNI-DRACONIAN AND ERIDIAN CURRENTS (HIGH FRONTIER)
SETTLED: 2410s | FOUNDED: 2460s
ALIGNMENT: MINERVAN (ASPIRING UNITARY REPUBLIC)
MODE OF GOVERNMENT: FEDERAL REPUBLIC
NUCLEAR WEAPONS: NO
SLIPSTREAM DRIVES: DEPENDENT ON FMR

A longtime outpost of Minerva that has only recently expanded beyond its roots as a Navy base, Van Maanen has long been the Minervan Navy’s home away from home. Home to the largest extraterritorial Minervan military base, yet still considerably smaller than the strongholds on Yangtze in Keid and Minerva itself, Van Maanen’s capitol world of Eindhoven is a habitable world with a considerable industrial sector that has sprung up in support of the Navy base. Naval Station Ardelan has been used by Minervan fleets operating in or transiting to the High Frontier as a fueling station, repair depot, and leave destination for decades, and has a reputation only second to Calvados for parting sailors with their paychecks.

While the legal ambiguity of Van Maanen’s status was seen as desirable for some time by local residents, a growing movement desiring full integration into the Minervan system of government— and legal recognition of the jurisdiction of Maanenite courts over frequently unruly sailors— has begun to gain steam over the last twenty years. Despite the popular support and Van Maanen checking all the boxes for Unitary Republichood, Van Maanen’s proximity to the disputed Cetan Triangle has led the Minervan government to see the annexation of the state into the FMR proper as a provocative act towards the United Nations— and has avoided broaching the topic until recently under the Riahi presidency.

Calvados Special Economic Zone

POPULATION SIZE: MID | LOCATION: URSINE-CANINE CURRENT (HIGH FRONTIER)
SETTLED: 2390s | DESIGNATED: 2443
ALIGNMENT: MINERVAN UNITARY REPUBLIC OF QUESTIONABLE LOYALTY
MODE OF GOVERNMENT: SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE REGION
NUCLEAR WEAPONS: UNDER FMR STRATEGIC UMBRELLA
SLIPSTREAM DRIVES: DEPENDENT ON FMR OR UN

Long the black sheep of the Minervan family, Calvados occupies a unique, privileged position in Minervan politics as a forum for economic and cultural exchange with the United Nations— at a comfortable distance, of course. The main gateway for UN goods into the Minervan common market, Calvados is run as a Special Administrative Region with unique economic regulation to enable near-frictionless trade across the border. Originally a resort world colonized by a French-Monegasque venture, the Calvadan government was sold to the Minervan Republics after failing to attract tourists en masse. Early business ventures seeking to restart the Calvadan economy included dangerously unregulated casinos skirting Minervan laws on gambling— if not completely ignoring them— and the export of local seafood as an exotic luxury. (While the latter failed, many of those early casinos remain.) However, the 2440s brought discoveries in slipstream trajectory optimization that made Calvados an astrographically desirable rest and refueling stop on long-duration voyages into the newly discovered wealth of the Ursine-Canine Current. The Calvadan economy subsequently blossomed serving as a trade hub for UN and Minervan colonies in the Ursine-Canine, and its designation as a Special Economic Zone in 2443 brought trade from UN systems in The Cradle, and while UN authorities alleged IP theft, Minervan regulatory bodies made it clear that any such challenge would have to be issued in a Minervan court. This was little deterrent to many Solar companies, though, as the massive and growing market on the Minervan side of the fence was too lucrative an offer to pass up. Calvados steadily evolved into a bastion for Minerva’s more rebellious political thinkers, and by the 2520s Calvados is known as a hotbed of laissez-faire economic policy and blue-internationalism’s only stronghold in Minervan territory. While Calvados is ostensibly treated under the same eligibility law as any other Unitary Republic for full Republican representation in the Consensus, many Calvadan firebrands assert that they will never be afforded such rights by the Minervan government due to their perceived political unreliability. While UN commentators allege that frequent Minervan troop rotations through Calvados is an attempt to prevent “dangerous ideas” from spreading among the ranks, the real reason lies in a much simpler problem: Marines’ paychecks frequently disappear into local casinos’ coffers.

Malýkrok Republic

(Commonly referred to as Minervan Pavonis)

POPULATION SIZE: MID | LOCATION: PAVONIAN CURRENT (LOW FRONTIER)
SETTLED: 2400s | FOUNDED: 2425
ALIGNMENT: MINERVAN MEMBER REPUBLIC
MODE OF GOVERNMENT: PARLIAMENTARY REPUBLIC
NUCLEAR WEAPONS: STRATEGIC & TACTICAL AS PART OF FMR MILITARY
SLIPSTREAM DRIVES: DEPENDENT ON FMR

The first of Minerva’s major colonization projects on the distant Frontier, Malýkrok has a history written in blood. Initially a small collection of three systems in the Pavonis Current at the opening of the 25th century, with their capital Malýkrok on an exceptionally habitable world in Gliese 433, Malýkrok has become a heavily developed bastion of Minervan civilization on the Lower Frontier. Acceding as a Unitary Republic in 2425, Malýkrok clashed with neighboring UN-backed corpostates in the leadup to the Pavonis Current War, first diplomatically in an uneasy peace, and then openly in several flashpoints culminating in the incident at Idrissakunda in Gliese 1123, the aggressors and the nature of which remain contested to this day. What is not contested, though, is that whether started by the extremist Minervan settlers of Montpelier or the aggression of the PEEC’s hired guns, Raven’s Point Security Services, the result of the Outpost A67C skirmish was a brutal war that set fire to the whole Pavonis.

Malýkrok, however, would not break. A launching point for the Minervan counterattack and invasion of the Pavonis, Malýkrok itself remained largely insulated from the most brutal fighting, but sent many of its own to fight in jungles and tundras of faraway worlds. Many did not return. Malýkrok has a fiercely Minervan identity as a result— a claim to the national spirit tried just as much in fire as that of the homeworld. Now a center of Minervan industry, Malýkrok, once living in a bitter peace with their other Pavonian neighbors, has begun to slowly begun to rebuild ties with their northern neighbors as a distinctly pan-Pavonian identity has begun to emerge among the youth of Minervan Pavonis. This is speculated by some Minervan analysts to be the result of concerted influence operations and savvy investment in culture by the United Pavonian Commonwealth. The UPC denies these allegations.

Notable Non-Aligned Nations

Interstellar Sovereignty Concord

POPULATION SIZE: N/A | LOCATION: DISTRIBUTED
FOUNDED: 2480s
ALIGNMENT: NON-ALIGNED
MODE OF GOVERNMENT: TREATY ORGANIZATION
NUCLEAR WEAPONS: UNDER PURVIEW OF MEMBER STATES
SLIPSTREAM DRIVES: UNDER PURVIEW OF MEMBER STATES

The birth of the Federated Minervan Republics and the consolidation of the United Nations has left the vast majority of humanity split between two overwhelming political powers. Over the generations since, millions have ventured forth across the stars hoping to live lives that would never be possible within the borders of those colossal states. The outbreak of war in the Pavonis validated the fears of many that the political powers were a direct threat to those lives. In the trepidatious environment of the war’s closing, the independent nations of the frontier chose to bind themselves together against this threat.

It was initially envisioned that the ISC would be spread across two military regions, with the relatively advanced and battle-hardened armed forces of the UPC providing security in the Low Frontier, and Marusa-Sao likewise holding the High Frontier. Both states would pursue strategic nuclear programs to ensure that both major powers would have to think twice before any attempt against them. Unfortunately, the fall of Marusa-Sao to Johannes Kemmer after only two years left the UPC to uphold systems far beyond its capability to reasonably protect.

Both Bradbury and New Ruacnoc view the ISC as more an annoyance than a true rival, but it nonetheless holds sufficient military power and political influence to keep them out of their backyard. As the security situation across the Frontier deteriorates once more, many have been left to question whether the ISC can back up the lofty promises it has made.

Federated Republics of Orion

POPULATION SIZE: MED-LARGE | LOCATION: URSINE-CANINE REPUBLIC (HIGH FRONTIER)
SETTLED: 2300s | FOUNDED: 20s
ALIGNMENT: INTERSTELLAR SOVEREIGNTY CONCORD
MODE OF GOVERNMENT: MINERVAN-STYLE CONSENSUS DEMOCRACY
NUCLEAR WEAPONS: TACTICAL, UNDER UPC STRATEGIC UMBRELLA
SLIPSTREAM DRIVES: CAPABLE OF INDEPENDENT MANUFACTURE OF LICENSED DESIGNS

Even before the horror of Martyr’s Day, the flames of the Minervan Revolution had spread across the stars to other, similarly disaffected colonies. In the lower Cygni-Draconian Current, the efforts of many inspired by Minerva’s success coalesced into the Federated Republics of Orion. Modeled directly on the ideals and constitution of the new Minervan state, Orion spent the next decades building up its economy and political stability in a bid to be annexed into the FMR. These efforts came to a horrified end when they saw the brutality of the war waged in Pavonis by their Minervan ‘brothers’.

As the war drew to a close, the leadership of the FRO sought its counterparts in the UPC and Marusa-Sao to create an organization to militarily and politically defend the rights of minor states, as a more ideologically sound successor to Altair’s failed Common Defense Union. Since then, though a junior partner to the UPC in terms of military strength, the ISC has looked to Orion as its political guiding light. Domestically, it has retained a constitutional settlement similar to Minerva’s prior to the mid-2400s ascendancy of the Presidency, as its smaller size has enabled a more function Consensus. Its political culture is markedly less militaristic in nature, a point of pride for its citizenry as their government continues to be a voice for peace in an increasingly bellicose astropolitical environment.

The FRO’s diplomatic corps frequently punches above its weight, and while Orion is not particularly well-liked by either Mars or Minerva, it is respected. Orionese diplomats had a large hand— along with counterparts from the UPC— in brokering the chain of meetings that led to convocation of the 2490-91 Landigal Summits on Arms Reduction.

Spitzerian Republic of New Athens

POPULATION SIZE: MID | LOCATION: URSINE-CANINE CURRENT (LOW FRONTIER)
SETTLED: 2370s | FOUNDED: 2453
ALIGNMENT: INTERSTELLAR SOVEREIGNTY CONCORD
MODE OF GOVERNMENT: SPITZERIAN DEMOCRACY
NUCLEAR WEAPONS: TACTICAL PURCHASED FROM UPC, UNDER UPC STRATEGIC UMBRELLA
SLIPSTREAM DRIVES: DEPENDENT ON UPC, UN, OR FMR

The generation of turmoil surrounding the Pavonis Current War led in many parts to a re-evaluation of the economic and political norms under which humanity had labored since the 20th century. Perhaps the most popular of the newly-proposed sociopolitical models was that of Irene Spitzer. Born on Ganymede and building her livelihood in the Tranquility Republic on the Moon, she was left unimpressed with how capitalism and liberal democracy were applied in the 24th century. Her attempts to pitch her new model of democratic governance for the modern age earned her widespread attention but not the ears of any government in either the UN or Minervan Republics.

The rising distress and disgust at both powers’ actions in the Pavonis afforded her the opportunity to implement her model on a grand scale. In 2453, colonists in the lower Ursine-Canine Current declared the galaxy’s first “Spitzerian Republic”, and invited her to aid in its administration. Quickly, she became the foremost leader of the republic, as only she had full insight into the complicated mechanisms of its political economy and economic politics. Today, though functional, the precedent generated by her involvement has resulted in “the most just, direct, modern, and considerate form of government known to mankind” becoming dependent on domineering political sages.

Five Republics of Gibraltar

POPULATION SIZE: SMALL | LOCATION: CYGNI-DRACONIAN CURRENT (HIGH FRONTIER)
SETTLED: 2370s | CURRENT STATES FOUNDED: 2428
ALIGNMENT: 3 STATES ALIGNED TO ISC, MINERVAN AND UN SUPPORT ALLEGED TO OTHER TWO
MODE OF GOVERNMENT: DIVIDED BETWEEN 5 COMPETING STATES
NUCLEAR WEAPONS: NO
SLIPSTREAM DRIVES: DEPENDENT ON UPC, UN, OR FMR

When Altair came into its own as the “Gateway to the Frontier”, it desired to spread its influence beyond the Aquilan into the neighboring Cygni-Draconian Current. The difficulty of navigating this far-flung current had so far prevented any substantive efforts to chart and settle its systems. Gibraltar would, as the 24th century drew to a close, become the Gateway’s gateway to the current, with Altair investing heavily into developing infrastructure at multiple points across the system, including 28 settlements scattered across Zborov, its only habitable world.

Where the collapse of Altair’s frontier scheme had dealt a near-mortal blow to its own state, the government of Gibraltar was vaporized instantaneously. Political power soon devolved to small militia factions, which coalesced into five rival governments, each claiming legitimate descent from the original colonial authorities. The population was likely only spared total destruction by the fact that none of the factions had the military capabilities to effectively oppose the others. As UN and Minervan influences expanded in the high frontier following the Pavonis Current War, their involvement briefly escalated the standoff into outright planetary warfare. In 2471, three of the states managed to achieve a peace agreement in service of obtaining the security of the ISC, and they have since been perpetually a decade away from organizing a more permanent planetary union. The ISC has attempted to isolate the remaining holdout states, but peace continues to elude the system.

Interstellar Association of Resort Worlds

POPULATION SIZE: SMALL | LOCATION: DISTRIBUTED
SETTLED: VARIES | FOUNDED: 2490s
ALIGNMENT: NON-ALIGNED
MODE OF GOVERNMENT: CORPORATE INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION
NUCLEAR WEAPONS: NO
SLIPSTREAM DRIVES: DEPENDENT ON UPC, UN, OR FMR

Perhaps the most odd of the frontier’s corporatocracies, given its age and unique system of “government”, the Interstellar Association of Resort Worlds is, for all intents and purposes, an elaborate and ill-disguised Ponzi scheme. The brain-child of Imbrian ilmenite billionaire (and prince in exile) Faisal Al Saud, the Association is made up of several resort and pleasure worlds that in the early 2480s were on the verge of total collapse, a compound of several issues including shoddy infrastructure, corruption, crime, and sheer distance from the Cradle. Al Saud recognised that the worlds were all but-certain to fail, even with new investors, but the situation presented an opportunity… for those with keen business sense like himself.

Approaching the world’s owners, he proposed a radical plan: Merge into a single “company”, publicly pledge to pool their money to work for the benefit of each other’s operation, and grant every new visitor to a member of this “Association” a share in the company, and a plot of land on each world, which would inevitably rise in value as new members came aboard. The Interstellar Association would be an exclusive club, made up of the richest and most powerful in the UN, Minerva, and beyond, providing the very latest in luxury and pleasurable experience.

Today, the Interstellar Association is one of the bigger companies listed on the Imbrian Stock market, though amidst the woes and rumours of imminent war some investors have sought to pull out, only to discover that the “company” is not in fact a company but a uniquely structured investment fund in which Faisal Al Saud and the original members of the Association control the majority of the funds.

Pariah States

The Most Serene Principality of Marusa-Sao

(Commonly referred to as Kemmeria or the Kemmerian Principality)

POPULATION SIZE: MID | LOCATION: BEYOND THE CYGNI-DRACONIAN CURRENT (HIGH FRONTIER)
SETTLED: 2310s | FOUNDED: 2350s | GOVERNMENT OVERTHROWN: 2460s
ALIGNMENT: PARIAH ENJOYING UNWILLING ECONOMIC TIES TO UN
MODE OF GOVERNMENT: CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY (DE JURE)/PRIVATE MILITARY DICTATORSHIP (DE FACTO)
NUCLEAR WEAPONS: TACTICAL, STRATEGIC UNDER DEVELOPMENT
SLIPSTREAM DRIVES: CAPABLE OF INDEPENDENT DEVELOPMENT & MANUFACTURE

Originally the furthest flung of humanity’s early colonies, Marusa-Sao was settled in a fleeting moment of opportunity where the presently unnamed slipstream current the garden planet sat in was in close conjunction to Sol’s Hyperian Current. A constitutional monarchy in much the same vein as the later Caerleon, the early settlers sided with the UN during the Minervan War of Independence, and subsequently pursued military and political ties with the organization under its New Charter System. When the currents shifted in 2384, Marusa-Sao became a considerably more difficult trek— and the country began a whole-of-society effort to achieve industrial autarky, as the shipments of materials and goods the relatively advanced Marusan economy needed to stay solvent had drastically skyrocketed in price. They achieved their goal, but in the intervening years, a scourge of piracy erupted where rogues with armed civilian ships would exploit this desperation by ransoming inbound shipments for exorbitant sums; military partnerships with the UN folding following a loss of the Marusan populace’s confidence in the ability— or desire— of the Blue forces to protect the distant system. Accordingly, the Marusans began a public-private military buildup, relaxing laws to incentivize offworlding of private military companies while also poaching prominent technologists from Sol and Epsilon Eridani’s military industry with the help of sympathetic investors.

For the next few decades, Marusa-Sao would be the supply backbone of the High Frontier, politically partnering with Altair until their collapse in 2428. Following the Altair Crash, Marusa-Sao was left as the dominant political, economic, and military force in a devastated High Frontier, and the Marusan flag became more a symbol of the private security contractors who wore it than the state itself. During the Pavonis Current War, Marusan royal officials intervened to prevent the involvement of Marusa-based PMCs in the conduct of the war, leading to the loss of several lucrative contracts for numerous security companies. This was the beginning of the end.

Elevated to the throne in 2439, King Ilias II Evangelatos reflected a popular fear of the growing power that the PMCs had in and over Marusan society. A sympathizer to the grassroots movement “Our Security Now! Not One Gun for Hire!”, Ilias consulted with similarly minded friends among the elite of Marusan society, the founding visionaries of the ISC, and the heads of several PMCs before unveiling his Plan for the Nationalization of Marusan Security and his intention to support the creation of the Interstellar Sovereignty Concord in 2458, one year before the end of the Pavonis Current War.

The Pavonis War coming to a close— long a desire of King Ilias— was also his undoing. While the heads of many of the smaller PMCs that not had a chance to solicit bids for contracts in the Pavonis before the crackdown hit were largely in agreement with the Plan, several major PMCs that had been financially harmed by his reign colluded behind the scenes to build support to overthrow the Monarchy. Entreating the leadership of Johannes Kemmer, a notorious Luxembourgish mercenary who left bodies and atrocities in his wake across the Pavonis during the War, the rogue PMCs of Marusa-Sao pretended to cooperate with the Plan until 2462, when they convinced the Royal Army to take over several of their outposts on far-flung colonies that had hired their services to allow them to return their forces for Nationalization and standardization training in the Royal Army. The coup was short, sharp, and bloody. King Ilias and his family were ordered executed by Kemmer’s Raven’s Point PMC when it became apparent that they would not go along with the coup, but a conscientious contractor enabled the king’s wife and children to escape while Ilias himself refused to flee the country. Instead he chose to face his sentence, famously saying to his executioners “…you have taken the state, but you cannot take the people.”

Modern Marusa-Sao, or ‘Kemmeria’ as it is commonly referred to, is a state ruled by fear. Disappearances are common. The Senate, once the heart of political power in the country now largely exists as a theatrical release valve for public unrest. This has not deterred foreign investors, who see the regime’s crypto-fascist autarky as an improvement over the lesser stability of Imbrian laissez-faire capitalism. The New Marusa has, under Johannes’ son Norbert, become a thriving tourist attraction for the ultra-wealthy and those who wish to pretend to be, funding megaprojects like the construction of a Bishop Ring orbital habitat off the backs of oppressed citizenry. The regime has continued to expand its military to ward off both the UN and Minerva, who initially intended to intervene militarily but failed to agree on a workable plan before the status quo solidified. The liberation of Marusa remains popular in both Sol and Epsilon Eridani, but remains a backburner issue in both polities.

While rumors continue to spread about the excesses of Marusan government, including their exploration further into their Current than their original three systems, they have not shared the results of any such surveys with the rest of settled space, if such expeditions have even occured.

The people and the Royals continue to resist as a country, and military, in exile. A small resistance force, comprised of the remnants of the Royal Army onworld, continue to subvert the regime by sabotage. Cultural resistance to the regime is widespread, led by artists and writers tied to the underground Church. They have come to the understanding that help will not be coming from beyond the stars. This has not broken their resolve.

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

POPULATION SIZE: VERY SMALL | LOCATION: URSINE-CANINE CURRENT (HIGH FRONTIER)
SETTLED: 2390s | FOUNDED: 2390s
ALIGNMENT: PARIAH
MODE OF GOVERNMENT: UNITARY SOCIALIST REPUBLIC (DE JURE)/PERSONALIST INFLUENCER AUTOCRACY (DE FACTO)
NUCLEAR WEAPONS: UNDER DEVELOPMENT
SLIPSTREAM DRIVES: DEPENDENT ON UPC, UN, OR FMR

Students of 20th-Century history might understandably have some questions upon finding the red banner of a long-gone socialist superpower flying in the far reaches of settled space, but the answers are just as absurd as they might expect.

The state that would become the USSR was founded by a small sect of disillusioned Minervan communists who, believing all other leftist movements to be corrupted by liberalism, retreated to the edge of the worlds to keep their dream alive. In the decades since, it has garnered a semi-legendary reputation amongst the chronically online left as a home for the truest of the true believers. The reason for the adoption of the name and imagery of the extinct Earth nation stems from decades of infighting which began almost immediately after its founding and ended in 2464, when the Stalinist faction of the government finally succeeded in purging everyone except for themselves from the state. Intending to continue the old Soviet leader’s policy of Socialism In One Country, the people of the USSR have toiled away at grand ambitions of becoming the first truly communist state, to the rest of the galaxy’s occasional amusement and horror alike. Life in the USSR, as one might expect for such a distant and reclusive state, is austere at the best of times. Efforts to achieve autarky have broadly been unsuccessful, with the nation still relying heavily on imported machinery to support crude mining operations. Most of its trade is conducted with the UPC, a consequence of the latter’s general willingness to sell to anybody who can cough up the money, while sanctions imposed by the UN and Minerva force them to engage in a range of illegal ventures to source more advanced products like medicines and industrial algorithms.

While most nearby states are hardly concerned by the USSR’s presence, this is not universally true. Owing to their historical memory of competition against the first USSR, powerful UN member states like the USA and China have expressed deep concern at its reappearance in the Frontier, and have therefore deployed an arguably excessive amount of UNIC resources to try and discover the Soviets’ true intentions.

Other Places of Interest

Eta Cassiopeiae

POPULATION SIZE: SMALL | LOCATION: CYGNI-DRACONIAN CURRENT (HIGH FRONTIER)
SETTLED: 2500s (UN), 2510s (FMR)
ALIGNMENT: SPLIT
MODE OF GOVERNMENT: VARIOUS

Eta Cassiopeiae is a system ‘split down the middle’, with presence from both the UN and the FMR marking an uneasy coexistence in the deep reaches of the High Frontier. Astrographically proximate to Marusa-Sao, and generally used by both sides to keep tabs on their unruly neighbor, the system has seen modest development and uneven competition as the UN settled a planet which initially appeared to be Earthlike but proved to be much more desolate after landing, where the Minervan colony in the system met with opposite fortunes. The system’s peace was briefly disrupted in 2513 when Minervan intelligence checking on the activities of the UN in the backwater system found that the UNC had installed a prototype for the JSPR (Joint Slipstream Prediction and Ranging) Generation II sensor arrays on Eta Cassiopeiae III that could be used to map the movements of Minervan forces in the High Frontier. This led to the establishment of a permanent Minervan Navy presence in the system— presumably to destroy the facility if push comes to shove— and the UNC has responded in kind. So far, the naval buildup has lowered the frequency of Kemmerite raids on the colonies.

The Marble

POPULATION SIZE: UNINHABITED | LOCATION: OPHICHUAN CURRENT (HIGH FRONTIER)
DISCOVERED: 2495 | EXPLOITATION BEGUN: 2509

The Marble is an astrological curiosity in the Ophichuan Current, a perfectly smooth and spherical ball of pure iron that sits in the void between star systems. Since its discovery it has fascinated explorers, scientists, and astrological conspiracy theorists as to its origins. The most popular scientific consensus is that it is the remnants of a planetary core, but, as the conspiracists like to point out, the rest of the planet, its mantle and crust, have long disappeared. Other popular hypotheses include a rogue planetoid that long ago flew too close to a sun, or an as of yet undiscovered astrological phenomena. Since its discovery, it has been turned into a mining site, much to the chagrin of the international scientific community. The site is currently run by the Lushan Minerals Corporation, which has tenuous links to Kemmeria and the UPC.

“ALRIGHT, EVERYONE!” The squad leader held up his rifle next to the airlock. “Masks on, heads on a swivel! Locals are jumpy. Arrests last week got the poor blokes spooked.” Jak rushed to pull the straps of his breathing mask tight, helmet hanging by its strap in his off hand. “Still a perfectly normal patrol, soldiers. Through the marketplace, around by the slums, rendezvous with Second Squad, and around to the square. Make sure everything is nice and sorted, then we head back home. Understood?”

A chorus of affirmation rang out from the assembled troopers in the airlock, and the lights flashed as the chamber equalized. The harsh suns beat down against Jak’s exposed neck as he shrugged his rifle back around to a collapsed ready. He tugged at his earpro, sitting uncomfortably against one of the elastic straps of his polarized facemask. He wouldn't die if he took the mask off, sure, but there were plenty of local diseases he wasn't rushing to catch. Welcome to the Sandtrap, I guess.

He glanced down at the brushed electrum finish on his rifle, the edges of the weapon’s silhouette fading into the dirt and sand below his boots. The gates of the FOB— the first set, anyways— swung open, its outer doors laying in looming wait. Last month a squad had been found in the entertainment district, hung from the side of a pub with their own atmosphere hoses. He didn't want to be next. He tapped at the base of the magazine, the electromagnetic weapon sitting uneasily in his hands. He didn't hate the locals. Most were pretty good people.

If he had to, he'd drop any one of them in a second.

It had been five years since he'd signed up to defend his way of life, just like his father had before him. He'd had the pleasure of traveling the stars, meeting new people, and ensuring good, responsible governance was upheld across the whole frontier. Service was the family legacy, and he'd had a pretty good time of it until they'd sent him here. Everyone back home had made it all out to be great fun. Jak suspected none of them had made it this far out into the Frontier. The people out here were skeptical of the central authorities; De-Integrationism, with the terror and insurgency that came alongside, ran rampant.

Aside from that, the town was kind of nice, honestly. Jak had been to plenty of unpleasant planets, and this latest tour was no exception— but the small city they'd been encamped alongside had some charm. It was home to the only spaceport in the system, and great fueling ships launched out of the astrodrome every other day or so, destined to a mix of civilian freighters and Navy warships in orbit. This planet wouldn't have been of much interest without its helium-3-rich ilmenite deposits; scattered across the sands of the planet’s vast deserts from impacts with the shards of a fallen moon. It was only barely habitable, a sweltering affair on the inside of the star’s habitable zone. Jak had long taken to wearing the sleeveless variant of the uniform, and while it had started when he'd wanted to show off his new tattoos to the rest of the guys, they'd all come around to doing the same once they got here. He was glad he didn't burn easily.

They were marching for the marketplace. Their patrols, as much as they were for the purpose of finding and dissuading any troublemaking, served a second purpose. They showed the flag, and they showed the might of the state behind it, that it was more than a fabric standard, and that it could not be defied.

The squad was well-drilled, well-trained, well-oiled. In a fair fight, they'd outmatch any other fighting force in this part of the Frontier, and everyone here knew it. It was just a matter of getting them to accept what they already knew. Being a part of civilization was non-optional, and the fine soldiers would ensure that any delusions to the contrary would be quashed.

The marketplace was just ahead, and already he could see the streets clearing of locals and the shopkeeps packing away their wares. Even after months here they had yet to dispel the notion that they were robbers and cutthroats rather than the honorable peacekeepers Jak had always believed— and his squad leader had always demanded— his fellow warriors to be. It would come with time. Someday, long after he himself had left, they would forget a time when soldiers had not patrolled their streets, and not long after, they would no longer be needed.

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The marketplace stood in the center of town, and there was never a dull moment. Jak and his team walked along each side of the street, rifles collapsed onto their chests, hands on their guns. “Well, they seem a bit less scared than last time.” Spirit noted.

“Maybe they got over the arrests. That or they got some good news lately. Trouble if they have.” Steeples glared down the street; the troops had all learned to respect the instincts from those two.

Happy, on the other hand, was more nonchalant. As they entered the marketplace proper, his eyes darted back and forth across the stalls. He wasn't looking at the people, looking for threats, he was looking at the merchandise. If they were to mount a charm offensive, he’d be the face of it. Still, it was hard to make people like you from the other side of a polarized oxygen mask.

Jak felt something tug against his leg. He whirled about, rifle ready. Fortunately, when he saw the local child staring up at him, he wasn't aiming it.

“Do you have faces under those?”

“I do.” The child seemed unsatisfied with his curt but comprehensive answer.

“Yeah, we’ve all got faces!” Happy added. He took off his helmet and pulled off his mask. The child stared up at him in abject horror.

Steeples ran up and slapped Happy across the back. “Keep the mask on!” She switched to a whisper. “You have no idea what's going on here. Besides, there’s like twelve different diseases going through this city we have no immunity to. Best to keep safe.”

Jak turned back to the child. “You sure you wanna see more of where that came from? You stay safe here too. Find your mum or something.” The child ran back off into a crowd of snickering youth.

Happy grunted. “Steep, I know you can’t smell this place now, but whatever that is, I want some.” Steeples sighed. “I am not writing the after-action report for your digestive tract’s losing battle.”

Happy strolled around the marketplace, approaching a stall with a sizzling grill. As he came near each, the locals glanced around, the crowd pulling back to the corners of the marketplace, adults staring at his rifle, children staring at his face. Neither seemed welcome here.

Jak began to raise his rifle. Spirit put a hand out. “Well?” She addressed the crowd, trying her best attempt at the local language through the translation device. “You really going to let him cut the line like that? Go about your business!”

“Spirit!” Jak stared at her. “This is a perfect ambush situation.”

“Look at where their eyes are. They’re just scared! Let’s not give them more reason to be.”

The crowd’s unease didn’t fade, but they all filed back into the market. Happy came back to the squad with a husk of a local crop stuffed to the brim with spiced meat. “See? Meat’s the universal language.”

“What’s the word for mistake?” Jak glared.

“Grease?” Some of it had already begun to drip down Happy’s chin as he crunched into the meal. “Huh, pretty good.” He went back to the stall, slapped down some of his cash— another reminder of the government that had sent them— and took a second husk to a child in the crowd. Team N had begun to march in across the way, the other half of their squad watching Happy’s one-man hearts-and-minds effort with skepticism.

“He’s too nice.” Tapper, the other team’s point man, sighed. “That’s gonna get him killed.”

Happy had already finished reattaching the mask by the time he rejoined the formation, though Jak could see the fit was loose from a greasy smear on his cheek. “You guys are way too twitchy. If you find me dying from food poisoning somewhere, let me lie. It was delicious.”

He heard the whine of a convoy coming up the street, and by the time the LaSo trucks arrived, they’d be blocking off the path to the rendezvous point. The squad leader gestured a stop. As the convoy was passing in front, it stopped as well. An officer emerged from one of the lead vehicles, producing a packet with new orders.

“Jump in, soldier. Your patrol has been retasked.”

The squad wasted no time getting in.

“What’s the change for?” Tapper cocked his head.

“One of the patrols was doing a routine search east of the old colony ship. They haven’t reported back since, so we’re putting together a Kinetic Site Assessment leading to hopefully, Enhanced Retrieval Operation.” He opened the packet and pulled out a tablet, clicking to a map. “We’re targeting building 22-18 here, most likely assets of interest are being held in a basement, or in the orchard tool shed here out back.”

The squad leader surveyed the faces of his soldiers. Jak was already throwing his tactical poncho over the standard armor. “Understood and all ready, sir.” He said, readying a cartridge for his rifle.

If Jak could have wished for one more thing, it would have been the element of surprise. That, and and another team providing fire support from across the street. And maybe they could have simply flattened this building instead of trying to take it room by room. There had been plenty of room to improve this plan. Now he was stuck trying to raise an injured Steeples back to safety atop the neighboring building before she bled out, and once that was done he’d have to run back in to the upstairs before Happy and Spirit were cut down like her.

By the time he got back, the room had quieted, and Happy and Spirit were still standing— or rather, crouching, with a flipped table providing modest concealment. As he took a second’s peek into the room, a shot singed the air where his head had been. An instant’s reply from Spirit sent the attacker tumbling down the stairs.

He gathered his squad and ushered them in, stopping at every door to make sure each closet and room was empty. Team N was still fighting downstairs, and hitting the insurgents from both sides could hopefully bring the fight to a swift end. With the upper level cleared, Jak proceeded to the stairway, chucking a stun grenade down the flight of stairs while he clambered over the dead insurgent. He swapped to his thermal sights and started slowly leading his group down. As he rounded the corner, he heard a cry of rage as a maniac charged at him, seemingly holding two knives. He was dead even before he thudded into Jak’s body armor; Spirit had unloaded four rounds into his torso. So much for stun. Happy was already pushing ahead to take out the last visible targets. Spirit took a moment to compose herself. “Dumbass,” she muttered, kicking the body, and followed Happy onwards.

Before the grenade smoke had cleared, a volley of shots sprayed into the building from the orchard. Jak dropped to the floor, making eye contact with Knight from Team N in the process. It only took a second’s worth of gesturing to learn that Lead was immobilized in one of the front rooms, they had already searched the basement and found nothing inside; they’d have to search the orchard. It was on him now.

Jak adjusted his helmet straps to let him better peek around, precariously raising his weapon up to the window. He set it for a wide-angle burst, likely to cut down anyone actively ready to shoot him. Once he pulled the trigger, the sound of a scream and a thud confirmed his work.

The teams congregated in the center. Team N, Knight, Clinch, and Tapper, would take the middle, Happy and Spirit would take the north while Jak took the South. They counted down, 3, 2, 1, and burst out into the orchard. Clinch put a few more shots into the downed gunman’s body, for safety. Jak ran to the wall. No one visible to the fence. Head on a swivel. Tapper, Happy, Spirit all in position. Move ahead past the first row. 3, 2, 1, no hostiles, just Tapper. Second row, 3, 2, 1, no hostiles, just Tapper. Third row, same as before. Fourth row, same as before. Now the shed. Gesture: Tapper, Hold. Clinch, Happy, Spirit pushing to the fence. 3, 2, 1, no hostiles, just Clinch.

Finally they could breathe. Whatever surprises were left, they'd be confined to the tool shed. Jak gestured for Tapper to start on the door, while Knight and Spirit came behind him to provide covering fire. Jak took up station, still watching for threats from behind. He heard Tapper open the door.

“SHIT!”

Jak only had enough time to turn and see the shed wall flying towards him before the world turned to darkness and pain.

Jak slowly came to the awareness that the buzzing sound in the room and the piercing agony in his head were, in fact, two entirely separate sensations. So too, was the smell of cleaning fluids, and the light shining through his eyelids. He took in a weak, wheezing breath.

“Good. You're conscious.” The harsh sound of a synthesized voice rang between his ears. “Exertion now will lead to tissue damage, remain in a comfortable position and breathe gently.”

Time passed. It could have been seconds, minutes, hours. Eventually he felt the strength and courage to open his eyes. Still that awful light. He reached up to shove it aside, but his arm would not move that far upwards.

“Doc!” He groaned. Soon, he saw a shadow pass overhead, and felt cold metal arms prodding at him. “Get… that… light… away…”

“Higher functions returning.” The Doc brushed aside the lamp with another armature. Jak turned to stare at his blank, glassy face. It was hard to care for Doc without the slightest glimpse of a soul behind that face, but from time to time he showed that he cared plenty. “You’ve been the beneficiary of some truly extraordinary medical expertise. Your superiors are informed to expect your full recovery within 637 hours.”

“Spirit?”

“She will live.”

“Tapper?”

“I can only approach the miraculous.”

So, there would be a lot of payback owed.

“That’s ridiculous, we’re not just leaving!” Jak said, slamming his good arm into the table for emphasis. The food tray clattered in response, leading Happy’s eyes to it.

“It may be ridiculous, doesn’t mean it’s not true.” replied Steeples. “You’ve been stuck in sickbay so long you wouldn’t even realize. I just did a shift guarding the comms center. They’re taking units off-planet everywhere. We’ll be next.”

“That looks good, you done with it?” said Happy, pointing at Jak’s tray.

“It’s not, but I’m still going to finish it. You eat enough already. Is that all you can think about?” Happy stared off into the distance, trying to imagine something he thought about more than food. “Don’t you care about staying here? Finishing the job? You can’t see what they did to Tapper and Spirit and decide to just give them what they want!”

“Mountain sends the orders, we just follow them. Where to go, who to shoot at, no difference to me.”

“But why leave here, now, when there’s so much left to do?”

“Something big must be going down, far away from here.” Steeples interjected. “I’m sure we’ll be plenty busy wherever they send us.”

As she finished her sentence, an alert rang out through the mess. All troops, report to briefing officer immediately.

“Look and see, they’re about to make it official.”

It was astonishing that the starport could be so busy and so quiet at the same time. Maybe it couldn’t be any other way, given what was about to happen here. An entire city milled around beyond the gates, seemingly unaware that the fighting men who had been their benefactors and their terrors were about to slip away in the dawning light. As the two suns rose above the horizon, Jak watched beyond the gate. The plastic grip of the gun turret was still cold from the desert night, slowly warming in the grip of his good hand, his injured arm awkwardly propped against the body of the gun. “Do you think they know?”

“Doubt it. Once they find out, though, they'll be rushing the place.” Happy shrugged. “Good news is, we only need to run faster than Jak.”

“It's my arm, not my legs,” Jak rolled his eyes. “And remember when we get to the transport, I can shove perfectly good with one.”

The squad snorted.

For everything that had happened in this city over the last couple weeks— that's how long it had been since he'd blacked out, if Happy wasn't screwing with him, anyways— the crowd seemed calm. Perhaps they'd gotten used to it, these last couple years. How they could just accept living in the middle of a war, let alone a war this important, defied him. A chatter rose up from the crowd, small at first and buzzing into a storm. His hand tightened on the gun’s grip. “I think they just found out!”

He braced himself. If they came for the gates, they'd have about five minutes before they either collapsed or found another way through. The video from his training played in his head, the mob cresting like an angry wave. That video was fifty years ago, and it was clear as day in his mind. He hoped his face wouldn't be on the training video fifty years from now.

Steeples raised a finger. “Quiet down. I think I recognize what they're saying.” Happy raised his rifle. “Do we care?”

Jak watched in horror as the tide of the crowd swelled, and receded.

“What the…” Happy lowered his gun. “They're running away!”

“Shut up! I can't hear them!” Steeples admonished him. “Wait… I can't understand most of it, it's in their language… Wish Spirit was here. But… there is one word. ‘Quarantine’. That's from ours.”

“Quarantine?” Happy’s eyes widened. “Why in blazes wouldn't they tell us?”

“They're gonna put a quarantine down and they send out a guy with a broken arm?” Jak felt his stomach sink. “Why bother with this thing, then?” He tapped the gun with his good arm and jumped down from the turret’s seat. He scanned the spaceport, a column of transports rising up to the sky, and the crates of equipment long gone from their staging areas. “How close to wheels up?”

“Too close.” Steeples was on the verge of hyperventilating. “Gentlemen, I don't believe it would be considered desertion if we made a break for it now.”

The three sprinted for the transport, the last remaining ride out of the Sandtrap. The loading ramp beckoned, the crewman waving them in. “Took you long enough! Belt in, heads down. Cover your eyes in three minutes. Clock starts now.”

As soon as Jak put both feet on the ramp, he felt the plane begin to rise, the hydraulic door closing underneath him as the shuttle lifted to the sky. He scrambled to the last free seat, lowering his head as far as he could drop it, watching as the crewman pulled the filters down over the windows. He did everything he could to cover his eyes, but his injured arm just wouldn't reach.

Muted flashes caught the corner of his vision. What a waste, he thought, What a waste.

The bells were never the same, but they always rang as one.

Colors swirled and hung in the air as light cast down from grand portraits trapped in glass, and for a brief moment, the eyes of a man caught some glimmer of God’s vantage, every hanging speck of dust highlighted, parting and colliding in the shape of a gentle breeze. He shuffled the book in his hands, felt a warmth in his chest, and let the ancient words sound from his lips.

“Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.”

A hazy blue hangs over the sea of mustard-gold methane clouds. It is the most beautiful juxtaposition, but he has no time for admiration. Beside him, behind him, streaks of flame dip into the ocean below as he grips the control sticks ever tighter, a heavy breath rolling off his lips. His visor’s polarization has turned to black as flares in the heavens announce another thousand souls have gone on to eternity. The display below him is awash in blue. “They got Hoplite!” He shouts. “Wyvern, stay with me!”

“Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.” Their voices mingled and resounded against the great vaults of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Sorrows, a symphony calling out for mercy, an ordinary plea taking on new urgency for a world gone mad. Beams of all colors poured over the choir, an exceptionally small bunch outnumbered by chairs and music stands. The man glanced over as the florist was silhouetted in a tranquil sky-blue, his hands waving in direction for the other singers. He glanced down at the notes, his own hands awash in stark crimson.

A flash brought a blip of static to his comms. “Wyvern, Northstar.” He finds a way to be shocked by something he already knew, a falling sensation in his stomach as every instinct in his heart turns to panic. His training does not let him. “Lancer is bent, I say again, Lancer is bent. All Lancer aircraft, you are under my control.” He knows a transition that sharp means only one thing. He knows there is nothing to do but this. He does not know how to do it. He settles for a guess. “Save them, Lord,” his heart calls out. He is not sure he hears a reply.

“Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona nobis pacem.” The florist smiled as the man met his eyes. A look of gratitude was painted across his face before he turned to the altar with the rest of the choir. “Behold the Lamb of God,” the priest proclaimed, “who takes away the sins of the world.” The man looks on the Lamb with the gaze of an old friend made new, troubled but long-suffering. Shaken, but not broken. Hurt, but not defeated. The child next to him looks up and sees the glimmer of a tear on the corner of his eye.

He carves his jet into a sharp spin, the reaction control thrusters pushing the nose around in a drifting curve, the thick atmosphere below having caught just enough purchase to clutch and claw at the airframe, twin fusion torches blazing away in a deadly sky. Tone buzzed in his ears, a duet of aviators and their machines about to reach its crescendo. “Wyvern One, Fox 2,” he gnashes his teeth, voice tripping on the rehearsed call. It feels different now, a guttural bark. It tastes alien in his mouth. The heatseeker rips from its rail, the Fangtooth missile about to make good on its name. He watches as the ring of shrapnel tears open a fiery hole in the Panther’s reactor. “Splash one.” He is glad he cannot see his eyes when he glances to the mirror on the canopy arch.

Four fresh candles flickered under the alabaster statue, a mother’s gentle anguish inviting the man to share his burden. He hesitated, the heat dancing on the end of the stick tickling his fingers. A deep breath stirred the flames, and he leaned down to light one more. The man turned and blinked, face to face with a familiar stranger.

“I’m glad you could come,” the florist nods to the man. “We missed you last week. Your voice adds a lot. And, you know.” He jerked his head towards the empty seats. “Heck of a time to find your way back, but…”

“I’m just happy to get out a little.” He nodded.

“You know, when the soldiers came,” the florist stared out at the tabernacle. “My son was so worried he wouldn't get to sing. Kids worry about the wildest things, right? Are we going to be okay? Not that. Not even, will they let us still go to church? Nope. Will they let us sing, at church? That was his question.”

“Was that really his greatest fear?”

“Maybe not his greatest. I guess he just figured the rest would be okay.” The florist laughed. “Here we are. Maybe the kid was right. You know, you've kind of become his hero.”

“Hero? I think that's a bit much.”

“I agree, but he was a wreck. Terrified. You showed up out of nowhere, and gave us your voice while everyone else was running away.” The florist tapped the man’s shoulder. “Thank you. It means more than you know.” The man could see the edge of a smile as the florist walked away. “Be right back, gotta take care of some things.”

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Anxiety gripped him. He stared up at the flags hanging by the church’s narthex, the familiar gold and white standard of the Vatican with that green-white-blue tricolor, a UN crest emblazoned in the center. Why did that sight bring him such pain? It wasn’t the longing, wistful pain everyone else here felt. When he turned his eyes to the altar, the light of Tau Ceti glinting off the gold of the tabernacle, he felt a tremor in his bones, a gripping talon sinking into his heart. He closed his eyes, putting a hand on his downcast forehead, his breath hitting a hitch as it rolled down to the granite below.

“Why did you only show up now?” A little voice shouted up at him.

He opened his eyes. The florist’s son stared up, the child’s face consumed in an inquisitive blankness.

“Me?” The man pointed to himself. The hum in his core would not let up. He smiled anyways.

“Yeah, you.”

“I… am not from here.” That much, he felt, was obvious. “I got stuck here on a business trip.” The man stared out into the distance, sighing.

“Oh, what do you do for work?”

He feels the strain on his fingers, every ounce of willpower seeping into the controls. He knows it isn’t enough. The blue diamonds seared into his retinas remained with him every time he blinked and multiplied with every breath he took. If only they had kept more planes in reserve. If only they hadn’t loaded out just for air to ground. If only— if only he had been a better leader— No. He shakes his head clear, sucking down a deep breath. I am a squadron leader of the Fleet Air Arm.

“All callsigns, this is Wyvern One. Get back to where the ships can cover you. We’re not losing anyone else today. All Wyvern callsigns, turn hot and engage. We have the rearguard.”

He grips the stick, the growl of a heatseeker building to a howling roar. He reaches out with talons of silicon and steel and swats a Panther from the skies. He dives to the cloud layer below, seeking the visual cover of the thick, stormy sea to break any image-rec sensors. In the maelstrom he meets his adversary, and draws his blades as twin cannons pop from their hatches. His jaw spasms as the anti-accelerants hit, the neural weave channeling uncapturable anguish into the outlet of cold violence. Twelve g, thirteen, fourteen. He locks eyes with the UN aviator, a blank, inhuman visage returning his gaze. His Vaquero’s delta wings glitter in the blackened visor of his adversary. His thrusters do the work his wings could not, his airframe buckling under the stress of the soupy atmosphere, and the jet slips ever so slightly from the sky, but the snapshot is all he needs. A programmed burst of twenty-five tungsten darts slip from his breath. Reactor plasma bursts from the shredded Panther and the skies catch fire around it. The firestorm hangs in the air. The plane does not. He does not see a chute. He blinks, and he wonders what is happening to him.

“I’m a butcher.” He hadn't meant to lie to the little one. Perhaps he hadn't.

“Woah.” The florist’s son paused, a palpable silence as he let the man’s words set in. “What does a butcher do on a business trip?” The child raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, well, there's… conventions.” He stared out across the great Gothic columns of the building, hand-made stonework a touch of the cradle in this new world. He wanted to do anything except look at the kid. He couldn’t stop himself.

“I'm just glad you found a place to stay.” His smile quickly turned to concern. “They haven't dragged you to one of the… the big prisons, have they?”

“The… the prefab blocks?” The man glanced back to the kid.

“Yeah, dad says they're prisons.” The florist’s son glanced down at his feet. “He also says I have to be careful and that I can’t go outside near the wall. Because of the drones.” He looked up at the man. “They don’t really… cook you, right?”

“Um.” The man staggered back, biting his tongue. Not here, he thought. “You should listen to your daddy.”

“Dad says that the Minervans hate us.”

The man’s hands shook.

The man has no words for his pain. It seeps into his very breath as he raises his eyes on a board that had once been a consolation. Yet this is not his board. They had recreated it as soon as they had landed, lent to him by another squadron, the original up in flames with their home ship. He raises a marker, dragging it across a name that had been a friend. Good kid, that Hyder. His hands shake. His teeth clench. Good kid. That made four, today.

He doesn't want the answer, but he has to ask. What about the others? She puts her hand on his shoulder. Worse, she says. Much, much worse.

He is a mess of curses and agonies. They look like bugs, he thinks, the blackened, bulbous visor of the monsters who had done this to him hanging in the vision before him. They look like fucking bugs. They swarmed like bugs. And, he recalled, they died like bugs.

He looks down at quivering hands. I don't think like that. What the fuck is happening to me?

Commander, she says, her tone trying to ground him in the present. She knows it is useless. He has spoken at their weddings, seen their children, known their pains and shouldered their burdens. Now they are his.

He raises his eyes to a padded ceiling in a carrier ready room, at once familiar and alien, drifting far in the cold, distant darkness. It is a simple plea. Help me, he says. Save me.

“Hate you?” He looked down at the kid.

“Yeah. He says they’ve always hated us.” The florist’s son stared up at brown eyes struggling to hold back the fullness of a man’s sorrow. “Since the revolution.”

“This is a beautiful church,” the man smiled, a desperate ploy.

“I like the music. Dad always says, when we pray, we're supposed to lift our hearts to God. And he says when we sing, the rest of us comes too.” The boy nods. The man feels a wave of relief crashing over him. “You look sad.”

“No, I'm fine, actually—”

“Dad!” The florist’s son ran off. “Dad?”

The man watched in terror as the child tugged on his father’s arm. “Can the nice man have dinner with us?”

He glanced to the tabernacle, a fleeting feeling of calm washing down his head into his spine. He took another look back to a child pleading with his father to have his friend come over, and he was overcome by an insurmountable pity. He had begun to walk towards them before he even realized it.

Padre, he stares at the Chaplain. I don't know how to ask for this.

Then ask, the Chaplain nods.

I want to be whole. I want to be right with God. I want to come home.

The Chaplain reaches out to his brother. There is a tenderness in his eyes that the man has never seen before. It is a look of love. His tears fall on a purple stole.

How long has it been? Padre Josemaria leans into the hug, the Father lending the man his warmth.

My whole life, the man sobs. I started, but I never finished. The priest pulls away, looking the man in his eyes. That's alright, mi hijo. It's late. But it's never too late. Now come, he smiles. We have work to do.

The florist and his son seemed to have come to an agreement. “You're welcome to join us,” the florist says. “Susan has a roast in the freezer we've been saving for something big, and they didn't cut our power for long, so it's still good.” The florist looked down at his son. “We were hoping we'd break it out for the end of the occupation, but…” He smiled. “This is a nice occasion too.”

“Oh. Wow,” The man stepped back. “That would be…” He fumbled for an excuse. He came up empty. He chuckled. “I mean, for me?”

“Yeah,” the father, the florist, stared back with an unplaceable look somewhere between bitter and sweet. “We don't know when they'll cut the power for the last time. Might as well eat it while we have it.”

“You really don't have to.”

“I insist.” The florist shook his head. “Look, I don't know how they do things where you're from, but here it's rude to refuse an invitation.”

He wanted to run. He had to run. He had no other choice but to run. He was in too deep already. His breath quivered. His voice spoke on its own. “Alright,” the words slipped out. “Yeah. That sounds lovely.”

The upper atmosphere of the moon glows a tranquil blue below them, the typically daggerlike delta silhouettes of the interceptors turned into porcupines by radiator booms peeling from their wings. A thin bridge between the ground and the heavens beyond reaches out below the man as he glances through the bottom of his spaceplane, the sensors melding perfectly to pick up where natural senses fell short. The sleek, pearl-white composite of the station at the terminal point, far, far in the distance looks almost close enough to touch through the eyes provided to him by Kormoran Astronautics, the neural weave spilling tantalizing sights across his occipital lobe. It is not completely white and nor is it completely sleek— charring scars the station’s side as a wound of grey reinforcement panels gapes out at the moon below. Is that it? He asks. Yeah, his wingman answers. They took sixty-three of ours with that fuckin’ thing. Anti-ship warheads, she snarls. Only place to go from there is a bloody nuke.

How many wounded?

Almost a hundred.

The man stares at the maw of the wound in disbelief. The new suits were supposed to save you from decompression. Even a civilian station like this was supposed to be able to contain a blast. What happened? He asks. I know the story. I still don't understand it.

Motherfuckers snuck four gutted anti-ship conventional warheads onto a cargo palette stuffed full of medical supplies a few months ago. It got security checked, but they hid the damn things real bloody good and we were getting careless. I think they bribed somebody.

Bribed?

It happens everywhere, man. Everyone thinks they're above it. No occupation has ever gone without it.

The silence hangs, static over a radio line screeching louder than any words ever could.

The meds were real, by the way. In case you were wondering. Allegedly, a donation from local hospitals to show they wanted to cooperate. They blew up their own bloody meds just to kill a few of us.

Bastards, he snarls. We’ll get even.

Our boys don't even get real coffins. They're bloody— dust and ice on the solar wind. And these motherfuckers get to go home to their wife and kids every night.

The man has never walked these streets, but he knows them. The drones buzzed overhead, timing, tracking, surveilling. He did his best to not present his face to their sensors, but they were everywhere. In the distance, shuttles carved through crisp blue skies, orbiting with troops loaded to the gills with everything from tasers to RTEKs, ready to kick down any door in the city at a moment’s notice. He had long looked up at this all as a comfort, a watchful aegis against the very people he now walked alongside. The three kept to the marked route.

Along the roads’ intersection, the snowmelt from a few days prior had turned a shallow bomb crater into a miniature lake. Some local children played unattended around the edge, the eldest casting an imaginary lure into the crater with the broken-off branch of one of the avenue’s trees. The man stopped for but a second, frozen by the boy’s smile. The downwash of a distant riot control drone tussled his hair. Their parents really should bring them in. The thought ricocheted through his mind as implications and consequences wreaked havoc in his imagination. He jogged to the florist and his son, a question searing his mind. “Your wife couldn’t come today?” The man looked over to the florist with a concerned glance. He pushed the image of the crater from his mind, an obvious answer he could not allow himself to entertain.

“Her leg got crushed when they raided our local grocer two weeks ago. They blew a hole in, and a big piece of concrete just smacked her right here. Shattered her bone.” The florist gestured to his shin. “She hasn't been able to walk since. And we still haven't heard from Mr. Nesmith.” A pang of guilt overtook his slight relief.

“Is he going to be okay, Dad?” The florist’s son pressed his father’s hand as he walked. They stopped.

“Son, I don't know.”

“I hope he'll be okay. He was always so nice.”

The florist knelt, and held his son gently. The man retched. This was not his to witness. He did not get to be here. He felt an intruder. He felt disgusting.

He looked out at the wall in the distance, the drones buzzing overhead, and felt through every muscle in his body the urge to run for it, to slip back into the little tunnel patrolled by the likeminded Marine, to not look back at the faces, the hearts, the souls he had crossed paths with here. This was dangerous. The florist was a good man. He was not. Run. Run. Run.

His heart put a foot down, and he set his face toward their home.

“You alright?” The florist raised an eyebrow. “C’mon, it’s not far from here.”

“Yeah,” he breathed out. “I’d have loved to see this place before.”

The florist paused. “It was a beautiful city,” he sighed, a sudden distance in his words. “One day, it will be again.”

The man cast his eyes down, the wistfulness of the florist’s voice stirring a great guilt within him. “One day, when the Minervans are gone.”

The florist huffed.

The Marines hoot and holler, the jam-packed square a disciplinary breakdown for the ages. The aviator knows that not even CINCOMAR himself can stop them from what they are about to do. The aviator knows that CINCOMAR does not want to stop them. He feels likewise, staring up at the statue of General Nguyen Ivanenko, a boogeyman right out of his sixth-form history book. The man who had burned Hazelcrest to a cinder, immortalized in bronze. The General raises an ancient sword to the sky in defiance. Cables wrap around the General’s neck, a hangman’s noose the man was happy to see on the old bastard. Once more, the proud Ivanenko meets his end at the hands of Minervans. He glanced down at the plinth. BUT FOR TEN MEN WHO CHOOSE DUTY OVER FEAR, OUR PEOPLE WILL LIVE A THOUSAND GENERATIONS. The aviator raises an eyebrow. The message rings true.

He lets a shout rise as the messenger topples over, bronze twisting and giving way as a Chevalier tank rolls down the street, chain held fast to its rear. The Marines wave unit flags from beside the plinth as the bronze snaps, General Ivanenko’s head scraping down the stairs, his nose snapping off on the asphalt as a Marine snatches it off the ground. The crowd roars as the man holds the souvenir high. A small mob assembles, each Marine seeking to climb the newly vacated plinth to wave his flag as the final conqueror of their ancestral terror. Man, Narco nudges him. I can’t fucking wait until we get Havelock’s, too.

You think we’ll make it to Ottawa? He raises an eyebrow. C’mon, that’s not what we do. Besides, we’re not dumb enough to try invading—

Man, just enjoy the moment. We got the bastard.

He stares at the words on the plinth. He thinks of the words of his own oath. It doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make sense. How could he— that butcher— say that?

He looks out at the wall in the distance, barely visible through the forest of skyscrapers. There is a sinking in his stomach. He watches as the Marines kick, spit and snarl. A feeling passes him by, the dimpled texture of a flight stick, the smooth plastic of the trigger.

A cathedral spire pokes out above the wall, a golden cross mounted above a tower of stone. The Angelus bell rings out the noonday call to prayer, the space an aural warzone as the gentle grace of the bell’s ring rises up against the Marines’ cacophony.

He stares at the dead man’s words, and he knows.

The apartment was small and simple. A florist, it seemed, did not make money for luxury, only from it. The door to the home beckoned, either the welcoming draw of a gate swung wide or a gaping maw waiting to devour some sweet prey. His instincts raged, a battle between the desire to cross the threshold and the animal panic to run home to safety. He had hidden his heart from these men just as he had tried to know theirs. His heart had enjoyed the security of anonymity, and while he had raised his voice to the heavens he had chained his heart to the ground. Survival training kicked in. He had no means of resistance beyond his fists and fangs, no means of escape beyond his feet and no means of identification beyond his face.

His heart rose against his gut and forced his foot across the sill. He had come this far. A strength swelled behind him.

“Mom! Mom! The nice man from church came!”

“Hang on a second.” The florist held up a pyx, the golden disc glinting in his hand. The man’s eyes widened. “I need to bring Him to the wife.” He sighed. “Lot more extraordinary ministers these days than ordinary. I’m responsible for all the injured in our apartment block. Gonna get this taken care of, get the roast in the oven, and then go stop by Mr. Foulke’s.” The florist disappeared into the other room, and his son flopped onto the couch.

“You still look sad.”

“I…” The man blinked. “This war has been very hard for me.”

“Yeah,” the kid said. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“It's… I don't know, kid, it's… it's hard.”

“What's your name?” The kid stared up at him. “I never asked your name. I'm Gabe.”

The man knelt down. “I'm… I'm Longinus.”

“That's really cool.”

“My parents were, ah, traditional.”

“What's your family like?”

The bitter cold of the Japanese winter bites at his neck. The man stares at the cross and the child lashed to it. The edict has sealed his fate, the man thinks. This is for us all, to shake off the foreigner’s yoke. The boy’s brother writhes under the weight of his breath. Are you ready to renounce this barbarian nonsense? He points to the cross. You can save him.

“My family is from France and Japan. My ancestors were samurai.”

The brother breaks free. His hand goes to his sword, but something stays his draw. The brother falls at the foot of the boy’s cross, embracing it, looking up at his own flesh and blood. Go, Yujiro, he says. Do not give in for my sake. The newness of life lies ahead. His tears fall into powdery snow.

“Woah, that's super cool!”

The man stumbles back. How strange. He raises his eyes to meet the emaciated face of an unconscious child, bloodied and bruised. His breath speeds. He looks back into the distance, the lights of the prison a warm glow in the careless dark. The brother looks up to the man. Commandant, I will not abandon my God, the Lord of Mercy. My brother will not live to see tomorrow. The man looks to the child on the cross. The man looks down at his hands. What have I done? Something crumples in his chest. Have mercy on us, the young man pleads.

How? The wisps of sorrowful breath hang in the February night.

“It sounds cool, but…” the man paused. “He wasn't like, a hero, or something. He was a torturer.”

“Aren’t samurai like… Knights?”

“Men of honor…” he chuckled. The poster that had once promised him adventure and nobility hung in his imagination, saccharine words turned sour. “It turns out, we're all just men.”

He trudges through the heavy snow of the Tsuwano countryside, the cold form of the boy in his hands. Clouds still issue from his nostrils, weaker and weaker with each step. Yujiro, his brother had called him. The lights of the other prison, the women’s prison, cut through the blistering breeze and falling sleet. Frost bites at his hands, his neck, his heart. The boy gets heavier as the night grows darker, the snow giving way to the path. He runs down the block of cells. Yujiro! A voice cries out from behind the bars, anguished and frightened. He orders the guards to let him in and leave him be. He places the boy in his sister’s arms, dying.

The man looks the Navy chaplain dead in the eyes. I have killed, Padre. He shakes against the confessional. In the service of my country, sure, but I desired blood, not peace.

A wave of panic rose within him. He looked for the door, a hand raised to the back of his neck, fingernails digging gently into his hair. “I'm sorry for coming here. I should go.”

“Go?” The child looked up at him. “You just got here.”

He started for the door.

“I'll miss you, Mr. Longinus.”

His hand fell on the cold plastic of the door handle, and his breath shuddered. He glanced back over his shoulder, and he saw a heart breaking behind brown eyes.

“I’m… I’m sorry.” The man bowed low to the boy. “I… you have a very nice home.” He looked around the walls, family photos taunting him, their backdrops flush with the vibrant colors of a city full of life.

“Please don't cry.” The boy came closer as he walked back towards the door.

“This… this war.” He shuddered. The son’s eyes looked up at him with the most tender pity, and deep sorrow welled forth as he choked on his words. “I— I—”

“It's okay.” The boy ran up to the man, staring up and reaching out a hand. “Come on, sit down.”

The man blinked, and silence gripped them both. He nodded, and took the boy’s hand. The florist and his wife had emerged from the side room, a bootleg flashfabbed wheelchair joining the three plush-covered chairs around the sturdy square table as the florist gently set the pyx down on the table. “That one's mine,” the boy said, pointing across the table. “This one’s yours.”

“Thank you.” The man set his hand down on the grooved wood and lowered himself into the chair, his body aching with the pains of the heart.

“You’re the man from the choir?” The boy’s mother set her gaze upon the man. He watched as the florist started to prepare the roast, heating up the oven behind her. He caught sight of a few birthday cards scattered across the countertop, written on plain white paper instead of the colorful cardstock of peacetime. He stared at the stacked up pile of CHC cassettes next to the stereo. He did anything except look her in the eyes. She cocked her head and looked intently at the stranger, clearly a man of much sorrow, etched onto his face with the chisel of experience and time. Stress had painted silver streaks over his ears and he had the acrid reek of instant coffee. A wistfulness seeped from the corner of the man’s eyes as he stared at the music cassettes, the joyful funk of yesterday that had long since fallen silent from the radio, overtaken by the harsh blare of emergency sirens and the biting sterility of evacuation orders. A pitiful breath curled from her lips. “Are you alright?”

“No.” He still didn’t look her way. His head dropped into his hands, mutterings slipping from his lips. She looked over at the florist, quickly flashing a finger towards the man with a frightened look. The florist turned away from the roast. He mouthed “I-don’t-know” before fixing a glance of pity down at the stranger at their table. Tears had already started to well in the son’s eyes, poking his head around the vase of wilting roses that had long been the family’s centerpiece.

“Mr. Longinus?”

“I… I had so many friends in the Navy.” He brought his gaze to meet the florist’s.

The florist closed his eyes with a grimacing nod.

“This war has taken so much from me. So many from me. But I… I come here, and… I… I’m lucky. I’ve never seen it face-to-face.” His face quivered. “I… I don’t believe in hate. So why do I hate them so much?”

“The Minervans?” The florist leaned in.

The man looked down. “The soldiers.”

“Father Declan tells me that ‘if you hate, you shall surely die,’” The son reached out his hand across the table. “I don’t want you to die.”

The man blinked. A smile crept across his face that didn’t match his eyes. “Thank you,” he whispered.

“I can’t believe they did this to us, either.” The florist’s words cut like steel. “They’ve taken so many from me, too. The soldiers.”

His hands shook. His hands shook with the memory of Hyder and Chmeil and Hakim and Davin, his hands shook with the words he had told little Rianna about her daddy, his hands shook as they had when he had hit ‘record’ for the fifth time in two minutes, his hands shook with a hatred born of loss and pain and the dimpled grip of a flight stick. His breath rose and fell with his heart. It was that buzzing dryness, that hatred deeply steeped, that gripping malice that seemed to crawl right out of his bones.

He'd been a man of much grief, but hate, this kind of hate, was new to him. It felt right at home. It terrified him.

“I can't believe they can do this to us.” The florist’s voice trembled as he walked down the countertop, picking up a deck of playing cards. “Rounding us up, leveling our homes, herding us around like cattle. That wall. That horrible wall. I'm glad the cathedral is on our side of it. Who knows what they would have done if it was in the way.”

“You don't think they'd tear down a church, do you?” The man lifted his eyes to the florist, a gasp curling from his breath.

“After all this? I'm not putting anything past them anymore. Probably not very Christian of me.” The florist shook his head, pulling a card from the deck with a sigh. “I’m sorry.”

The man was struck speechless. His head collapsed into his hands. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry…” Staggered breaths rolled out from behind the fortress of the man’s hands.

Silence hung as the boy reached across the table, falling too short to lay a hand on his new friend. His mother glanced around the table and shot a worried glare towards her husband.

“Susan, Gabriel?” The florist looked to his family, the faint tenderness of a grin curling across his lips. “Can I speak to my friend alone?”

She nodded. “C’mere, Gabe.” The boy looked back at the man and walked over, placing a hand on his side and looking up with a care the man would never forget. “Take care, Mr. Longinus.”

“You too, Gabe.” The man smiled down at the son, eyes glassy with tears as the boy walked away.

“Now that we’re inclined to… let’s speak honestly.” The florist set his hands on the back of his son’s seat.

“Honestly?”

“You’re not quite as good at this as you thought, my friend.” The florist tossed down the Three of Hearts. “A man of your stature cannot come here without being known to a man of my station.” CDR ELISHA T. NEWPORT, the card read. A younger man stared back, a man who had not yet been tormented by the terror of war or the trials of command. “Though… I didn't recognize you at first. The beard threw me off. It ages you.”

“Are you going to kill me?” There was a flatness to the man’s words.

“No.”

“Why?”

The florist fumbled with the words. His eyes were mired in confusion and pain. “I… wanted to, once. But… I wanted to know why you came. You didn't have to. They’d strip your wings if they knew. You're not spying for them. You’re not smuggling for them. You come to Mass, you sing, and you leave. I didn't even trust myself after a while. I thought you were just who you said you were until we walked here together.”

Have you decided, mi hijo? The priest stands beside the oils, a smile on the wizened face of the chaplain. The man breathes deep, opens his heart, and feels God rest on his head as he fixes his gaze next to the Cross, brushstrokes traced across the wood of the icon.

The words echo in his mind. I wounded Him, and then I came to believe.

The Centurion stands confounded, spear lowered from the side of the One he had pierced, drenched in mingled Blood and Water.

Longinus, the man says.

“You're not… Resistance, then?”

“I am.”

The man stared up with an overpowering medley of emotion. Misery and joy, loss and hope, tension and release, all flowing from the corner of his eye, bridged the gap between two hearts if only in this moment, this fleeting moment.

“Still, though. I must ask. How can you do this to us? How can you call our nations brothers and…” The florist stumbled over his words, pointing to the window.

“We… I… I never—” The man gathered his words from a mind wracked with sorrow. He stared out the window, a Roohawk shuttle shining a spotlight down on a distant apartment block, smoke rising from below. He struggled to meet his reflection in the glass, and he set aside his excuses, gathering himself with a gasp. “Brothers kill brothers sometimes.”

“Hmm.” The florist cast a glance down, a wistful sigh rolling off a simple shrug.

“Something I think both our countries are familiar with.” The man could not shake the bronze visage of General Ivanenko, a revenant horror, a reminder of why the city he’d visited so many times as a child had such perfectly straight streets.

“I suppose that would make my people Cain,” the florist sighed. “There wasn’t supposed to be any vengeance for Abel. But I think you’ve more than repaid us.”

“I think so too.” The man could not bring himself to meet the florist’s eyes. “You wanted to know why I came?”

“Yes.” The florist leaned in over the chair.

“I’ve been at war for most of the year now,” the man brought a weary gaze to bear on the florist’s eyes. “I’m not just fighting your people anymore. I’m fighting myself. I’m fighting for myself. I… I have been at war for my heart. There are two men who wear my face, one merciful, one wrathful. But neither speak with my voice. I… I needed to sing. I needed to see.” He glanced to the door of the side room. “I needed to be with the ones I have wounded.”

“You needed to know your brother.” The florist met his eyes with pity and sorrow blended with a quivering hope.

“Yes.” The man rasped out. “I don’t know if I will see battle again. I pray and I hope not. They… they have to be able to sort something out. They have to see the madness. Can’t anybody see the madness? I… I must serve my country. I know you feel the same. The men and the women beside me— they are good. They are worth fighting for and I will protect them. But, can’t they see the madness this has all become? Our people were never meant to be conquerors!”

“I wish there were more of them like you.” The florist pulled his chair out and sat down next to the man, the man whose voice had mixed with his, the man whose despair had blended with hope in song and melody, the man whose heart had been lifted up with his under the stony mantle of Our Lady of Sorrows. The pyx sat on the table between them, gold glinting with the light of Heaven invisibly pouring out from inside, and in that light Michael embraced Elisha. “It’s good to see you, brother.”

Stillness reigned in place of silence.

“I don’t want to go back.” Elisha choked on a tear. “If I go back, the war will start again. I… I don’t want to fight your people. But my people— my brothers-in-arms— they need a chance. They need a chance to get home safe. There’s still so much rage in me when I think of what I’ve lost... My ancestor in the flesh and my ancestor in the faith are still warring for my heart.”

“I know.” Michael paused. “Me too.”

“Your people have taken so much from me.” He hung his head in his hands. “If I meet them, how will I know which man will win?”

He feels the smooth plastic of the trigger call out to him as he meets the aviator’s gaze. The canopies cross for but a moment as the planes roll past each other. He sees the eyes of a young woman staring back in terror from under that buglike visor. Smoke billows from a hole in the blue-grey composite of the American jet. He pulls the Vaquero free from the scissors and loops around, his wounded prey waiting under a bleeding sunrise in his helmet display’s boxed diamond.

He hesitates.

Your Lord, the man says. Your brother calls him the Lord of Mercy.

Yes, she says.

I did this to him, to Yujiro. He would not relent. So I did not either. I did this to him, to a child, in the service of our people.

Are you here to gloat?

⠀

No.

⠀

His hands shake.

I have come here to ask for mercy. He prostrates himself before the dying boy, laying in his sister’s arms, legs draping over her knee. The samurai opens his mouth and Longinus speaks. I have not come seeking such forgiveness from men but I ask— would your God have mercy on a soul like mine?

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He would have forgotten it was there if not for the weight.

The case hung from his wrist on a carbon-nanofiber tether so strong he was scared to let the bag go. If he did, he wondered if his hand would fall with it. He was certainly the weaker link, but it probably wouldn’t yank hard enough in this gravity. In his old life, he would have complained about it— the cases were secure enough without a tether, the tired refrain would have gone. It’s a useless inconvenience that no one uses. The self-scuttling charges were certainly enough to prevent such valuable information from falling into the wrong hands.

That was then, and this was now. He had to admit, the engineers had done an excellent job masquerading the tether as simply another piece of fashion-forward wristwear, easily hidden by long enough sleeves. Only the weight of the case, tugging ever so gently at the edge of the brace whenever he went to set it down, served to anchor him against the tides of nostalgia, the fluorescent lights and endless carpet battered and stained threatening to suck him back to his own college years. He much preferred those days. It was simpler then. He had a future ahead of him, a known path he need only walk. There was no map anymore. There were, however, signs.

One of them read “DR. ALAN STUYVESANT”, “PROFESSOR OF SYNTHESIZED LANGUAGE”, and “465”. It was the clearest one he’d read in a long time. The faux-wood door had no window. Printouts of webcomics scattered themselves across the door, cracking jokes on the hidden inanities of great knowledge he could never learn. The Captain grimaced. He hoped they were funny to somebody.

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“It’s about time,” Officer Taylor, CIA, glanced at her watch. “Besides, he doesn’t have anything before this.”

“Fair enough,” The Captain knocked. Once, twice, three times.

He was glad he couldn’t hear anything through the door.

It swung open, and a man at the latter end of middle age walked to it with a nod of the head. The office’s harsh lighting glinted off round-framed glasses as he glanced up to greet the Captain. He got the feeling the Professor did not need to do that for most visitors. “Captain Starling, I presume?” The Professor scowled. “I have to wonder, what does the military want with a simple academic?”

The Captain and the two officers with him filed into the office, closing the door behind him. Taylor pulled a bug sniffer from her jacket pocket, the faux leather glinting under the florescent lamps. She began scouring the room as the two men in the middle seemed to study each other, waiting to see who would make the first move.

“All clear, Cap.”

“Thank you, Taylor.” The Captain nodded, and sighed. “Professor Stuyvesant, ‘simple academic’? Don’t insult my intelligence. Or yours, for that matter. You come highly recommended. The good folks at the Federal Intelligence Activity love you.”

“Of course the Martians love me. I’m theirs.” He grinned, a snicker on his lips. “You should ask the Americans, or the Chinese. I’ve heard I’m quite the… Wángbādan? Something like that.”

“Well, you come with commendations, and a UNIC-SCI clearance. We like that.” He gestured towards the circular table in the center of the office. “Let’s talk.”

“Let’s.”

Taylor remained standing, too busy inspecting a plaque propped up in his bookshelf. “Oh, that?” The Professor poked his head around the Captain’s wiry frame. “My son’s. Not a day goes by.”

The Captain looked over at the alcove. The burnt sienna flag of Mars sat folded into a neat triangle amidst several open medal cases. One caught his eye. An American Navy Cross, marked in its case with a simple label:

FT3 BECK STUYVESANT
MARTIAN FEDERATION NAVY
ATTACHED USS PUERTO RICO (DDK-840)
OCTOBER 27, 2470

He sucked in a breath. Fuck, the Puerto Rico? “I’m sorry for your loss, Professor.”

“He died a hero,” he paused, an inscrutable mix of sorrow and pride overtaking his face for but a moment. “That’s at least a little comfort.” He waved a hand. Not the time. “So. Business, then?” Stuyvesant pulled out a chair, and sat.

“Unless you have any better ideas.” The Captain sat down, placing the metal case on the table with the tether clearly in view. The Professor’s eyes immediately started flicking back and forth.

“Look, I’ve enjoyed my… more quiet work, in the past, but… This is a nice job. Hometown, close to the family, I get to shape lives! It’s very fulfilling. The youths of Mars won’t learn the intricacies of synthesized language on their own, now, will they?”

“I mean,” The Captain thumped a textbook lying on the table with his free hand. “Maybe they will. You wrote so many nice books.”

“Oh, those don’t even have the half of it,” Stuyvesant growled. “Trust me. People think they know synthlang, they don’t—” He chuckled. “Do you even know what synthlang is?”

“Frankly, Professor, I don’t.” A calculated half-truth. Not like you, anyway. Keep talking, my friend.

“Half the people out there think it’s when a synth starts speaking Arabic! Half of it I can’t make anyone learn, and the other half—”

“Is classified?” The Captain rapped at the titanium lid of the case. “I’m well aware, Professor. Of its sensitive nature, anyways. I was hoping you could explain what you do… what you do better than someone else, anyways.”

The Professor wagged a finger. “Ohhh… I see. Synthlang, my friend. Synthesized language has nothing to do with synthetics. It’s the only man versus machine chess match a human can still win. AI and VI systems use natural language to communicate with us, no? They have no need to pander to us among themselves. I read the inner lives of the most complex computer systems known to man… and some, perhaps, not. There are some, ah, darker corners of the ‘net, after all. Being an unaugmented organic certainly has its perks.” He grinned. “I mean no offense, of course.”

Officer Elliot, a synth, nodded. “Look, I don’t want to stick my head in there either.” The table shared a chuckle that hesitated to amount to a laugh.

“What I do, is I take samples of languages, created by machines, for machines, and I localize them for a more… neurally architected audience. I’m a code-breaker for ciphers that bear no resemblance, no commonality, to human language whatsoever. And I’m guessing… you need me, don't you? After all, there’s no one else who does what I do, and if there is, it’s because I taught them. One of one.”

“True enough,” The Captain nodded. “That’s what I was looking for. Because no one else does what I do, either.” He tapped the case. “Guess that makes us two a pair.”

“Really? With the way you’re acting, I thought you had a stronger hand.” Stuyvesant grinned, laughing at his own joke.

“Big poker guy?” The Captain smiled.

“Yeah, I dabble. Won the office pot a few times.”

“I actually don’t play.”

“Not a gambler?”

“I’m not inclined to it.” He shrugged. “Plus, I was too busy in school. Never learned.”

“You don’t need to bet to enjoy the game. Never too late, either.” Stuyvesant picked at a fingernail. “What’s in the box, anyways?”

“A gift.” He smirked. “Just gotta sign the form.”

“All due respect, this is gonna have to be really good to get me to uproot my life for your little pet project. My students’ll be devastated!”

The Captain grabbed the case’s handle.

“Can I read the form first?”

“Well, that’s not classified.”

Officer Taylor placed down a Non-Disclosure Agreement, and in a matter of minutes, they were on their way to the airport.

The CV-74 Kaskara parked on the tarmac at Ruacnoc Regional looked like any other COMPMARFORCOM heavy dropship, except perhaps for how seldom it lowered its main cargo ramp. A woman in a Hoplite rig stood, leaning against a nearby cargo trolley; her rifle sat slung under folded hands. She stood up and saluted as the Captain approached, waving a keycard over the locked side hatch. “SCIF’s this way.” The Captain beckoned the others to follow him as Stuyvesant climbed the steps into the cavernous cargo hold. “So why do you have that with you? It’s SCI, right?”

“We’re offsite. Not allowed to leave my person.”

“That’s not typical protocol.”

“We’re not typical.”

“Well, this is the first black program I’ve ever seen with its own dropship,”

“All due respect,” Officer Taylor shook her head. “You haven’t been around that many black programs.”

“I guess not,” The Professor grimaced. “Always more to learn, I suppose.”

The door to the plane’s portable SCIF opened with a keycard, a retinal scan, and a passcode. The Captain set down the case on a nearby table, cracked it open, punched in another code, and plugged it into the wall, shedding the shackle of the security tether. “There you go. It won’t explode now.”

“Wait, it explodes?”

“If I haven’t held it in a while. Much fussier than my daughter.” He walked over to the corner, picking up a paperback book. “Give that a look. I need to make sure I can help her with her homework. Hamlet.”

“Are you allowed to say that out loud?” Officer Taylor raised an eyebrow.

“No, wasn’t that… Othello?” Officer Elliot gave her a skeptical look.

Stuyvesant looked at the two of them with a crestfallen expression, plugging in a set of headphones. “We’ve been building up a database for seven years,” the Captain sighed. “Been using some of your students and automated methods to try and figure it out. You’ve been earmarked for other programs, and unfortunately, I’ve been unable to impress upon your superiors the importance of this project. Believe it or not, it's easier for us to move money than people.”

“How long have you been trying to get me?”

“Seven years.”

A laugh hung in the cramped, containerized room. “I guess you’re a good judge of talent.” He raised the headphones to his ear. “Audio?”

“Yeah, a little bit. Mostly sounds like screaming. Listening to a signal, and all. The visuals will interest you more.” The Captain flipped through the pages.

“Well? What do you think?” For once, all the Captain could muster out of the Professor was silence.

“I… don’t know.” He blinked. “This is… Wow.” A moment of silence hung in the air. “I mean, it’s pretty pointy. Where did you get this?”

The Captain looked down at the page and smiled. “There are more things in Heaven and Earth…”

“…than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

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The last four months had been stressful. The chaotic, pounding stress of open battle had faded, giving way to the new, creeping stress of suppression operations, Rama’s fleet having long taken the springboard jump to their untimely demise. It was unfortunate that she'd left them holding the bag with so little to show for it. The Minervan Republics had no desire for territorial expansion, let alone into such a hostile environment. Yet, here they were, running a forward staging base for an invasion that had just failed. Their mandate was in desperate need of a change, and everyone in charge seemed to be in too much of a panic, sending hurried, slapdash reinforcements off the Frontier to the front line, to do anything about it. If Denys was in charge, he would have abandoned the place as part of a peace settlement. They had bargaining chips. There was no point in holding this system, he thought. The soldiers had already assured the civilian populace that they'd leave when the war was over, after all. They already had enough terrorist attacks without throwing any broken promises on the fire. Why invite more chaos? The war was already over, in fact if not in name, if anyone had the wisdom to see. Unfortunately, he thought, his superiors did not share his pessimism.

“I donnae understand you, Denys.” The Colonel dipped his head. “First you’re telling us that we won’t be able to keep the city if the bombings continue. Then you tell us it’s bad they stopped bombing us. Every movement faced with great overmatch loses steam eventually. Do you think the Marathonians to be superhuman, Commander?”

“No, sir, but—”

“But from where I sit, you’re looking a gift horse in the mouth. You bloody intelligence types are always looking for piss in your coffee. Perhaps it’s the filter.” Standing in for his commanding General, Colonel Ahmad Pembleton, a stiff-jawed Scots-Kuwaiti from Dartmouth, Sligo Republic, was an infantryman through and through. He had a natural distaste for spooks, especially ones that weren’t his. Denys hadn’t been wrong much, but he had been wrong before, and once was enough for the Colonel.

“Let my man speak, Colonel.” Rear Admiral Ann-Marie Berhane was used to cutting the Sligoan’s grumbling off. She had little time for foolishness and less still for mistakes, let alone a man who had gotten here by being prone to both. She wished General Reyes was here. Ruthlessly competent with a meticulous streak that tended towards micromanagement, the General had gone on a visit to check on the troubled occupation forces in Lakeford, one of the moon’s other tether cities. “Commander Sato, your assessment?”

“Well, ma’am, terror bombings are down, there hasn’t been a riot in weeks, and the Marathonian National Guard hasn’t sent a sortie our way in thirty-five days. Electronic interference is also down, and we even had a group of militants turn themselves in.”

“I understand counterinsurgency isn’t my wheelhouse, Commander, but I fail to see why any of that’s bad… unless they’re gathering combat strength.”

“Well, ma’am, yes. I think that's it. After all, which of them are connected? The National Guard isn’t doing the terror bombings— usually— they just order them. They control the air forces, and the jamming, and really, the only thing here they don’t control are the riots, and we’ve mostly shipped everyone out who could join in. There’s one common factor. The Marathonian National Guard has decided to stand down, and rather abruptly so, at that.”

“You don’t think we should expect a surrender, then.”

“No, ma’am. I don’t think they’re getting tired, either. I think they’re getting ready.”

“Ready for what, Commander?”

“Some kind of attack, I don’t know. But they want their home back. That much I do know. We’d be pretty pissed, too.”

The airbase’s Combat Control Center was always a busy place, even when nothing was happening. ST2 Johanna Maroun gasped when she first saw it, a collection of large and small blips on her console, approaching quickly enough. “Strike group, one-two-eight kilotons, passing through slipspace. No transponders, at least none we can read, and we have no scheduled transits. Assuming hostile.”

Her supervisor, Chief Kamolov, popped up behind her. “Back for seconds, huh? Good spot, Maroun. Any estimated trajectory?”

“They keep this up, they’ll be on the far side of the gas giant in twenty-four minutes. Likely coming out there.”

The Commander, the Colonel, and then the Admiral walked up behind the Chief, a conga line of authority forming over the Sensor Technician’s shoulder. “Sortie the quick response group,” Admiral Berhane nodded. “Attach the Saratoga battlegroup, and keep the Warsaw in reserve.”

A “Yes, ma’am,” rose from a nearby console, and an operator was on the line in mere moments.

“So,” Colonel Pembleton elbowed Denys. “Your wolf showed after all.”

“Thank you, sir. Can’t say I’m happy about it.”

The wait was nerve-wracking. Intelligence satellites, positioned strategically around the far side of Plataea, the gas giant the moon Marathon orbited, watched for the characteristic radiation spike of a slipspace influx, and soon they had it. Gatorheaded destroyers poured forth from the gap in reality, larger ships soon to follow, and one after another, the satellite picture slowly went dark.

“We’re in the blind until the ships arrive. Estimate two minutes.”

“I don’t like it, Chief.” The Admiral shook her head.

“Me neither, ma’am.”

Hang on, Denys wondered. “Admiral, why would they stand down their ground forces for a naval assault?”

On the furthest front and leftmost console of the airbase’s Combat Control Center, hastily re-appropriated from the Blues and jury-rigged to interface with Minervan hardware, a single pixel switched on in the top right corner of the display. It grew at a breakneck pace until only instants later the operator behind the console was alerted by a bright red flash around the border of the gravitometer’s Graphical Plot Interface. Confused, ST3 Aesha McDaniels thwacked the connector cables linking her terminal with the native hardware, hoping the thump would make what was clearly an error go away. “Chief? Could I get you to look at this? My hardware’s acting up. Contact just appeared out of nothing, no leadup or easein or anything.”

“Coming,” Chief Kamolov strolled over, hunching over the display. It indicated a wave displacement around 47 kilotons, single contact, high angle, closing fast. “McDaniels, they’re already here. I don’t know if that’s a glitch.”

“Chief, a high-angle run is suicide— and besides, we’d have picked it up before now if it wasn’t—”

“It’s stupid, not impossible! The approach angle is exactly what makes it harder to detect. It’s— hold on.” Another blip was starting to grow.

“I’m getting it here, too. I’m reading four. No, ten.” Maroun was starting to sweat. “High approach angle, and displacements and signatures looking like… well, carriers, Chief.”

By now, the officers had dropped their conversation, staring intently at the master display. Fifteen slipspace tracks dotted the arc of the moon. Seventeen. Twenty. Twenty-three, twenty-five…

“Goodness alive…” Colonel Pembleton’s jaw dropped.

“Colonel, ready your men and scramble the fighters.” The Admiral shook her head as the quick response force revealed the imposing force on the far side of Plataea to be a loose collection of destroyers around two cargo ships. “We’ve been played.”

INFLUX DETECTED, the console chirped. PROXIMITY ALARM.

“I’m getting influxes in low orbit!” McDaniels’ console was flashing all sorts of warnings she had no time to dismiss. “Count five-zero-plus contacts and one-five plotted influxes, more popping up by the second.”

INFLUX DETECTED, INFLUX DETECTED, INFLUX DETECTED…

“They’re transiting… coming in right over the city. They’re… hugging the atmosphere?”

“I see tube launches, strike craft!” An operator on the far side of the room shouted. “Doing everything I can to burn through their jamming! Spectrum’s a soup, ma’am, but that’s gotta be a thousand fast-movers, at least… and I've got more on the way!”

“Shit,” Denys blurted. I hate being right.

“Long day ahead,” the Admiral nodded. “Let’s go win it.”

The Rhodes Arc will follow the Second Battle of Rhodes (February 6, 2524- July 31, 2524), the single largest urban battle since the Fourth World War (2037-2040). Dragging on for months and resulting in millions of casualties across both sides and the displacement of a hundred million people, the Second Battle of Rhodes marks the first contested orbital landing (i.e. an attempt at planetary invasion prior to securing orbital superiority) as well as the largest planetary landing operation in human history. A costly, but not pyrrhic, victory for the Marathon National Guard and the United Nations, the Second Battle of Rhodes and the Marathon Campaign that followed largely set the tone for the dying days of the Fools’ War— a lethal struggle featuring the Minervans trading territory for time and the UN trading blood for victories.

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#17 of the Bits & Bites series

28/06/2491
by Nicholas Abd al-Nur

I really didn't think he would say yes. About two months ago, I sent an invitation to a fellow Carraroan to get grinders at Benedict’s on Bank. There is no more hallowed local institution, except perhaps for this paper. I think both of those two hometown treasures played a role in the President of the Minervan Republics saying ‘yes’.

There is no man in the public sphere more derided than Mint Y. Abawi. Liar. Fraud. Huckster. Cheat. That's without even getting into his ideology. Certainly I'm no exception. Just look at my socials. I've chirped my fellow Carraroan enough times for one lifetime, and I'll let you find out today if I intend to stop. (I don't.) I think President Abawi decided to sit down with me, one of his thus far most viral critics, for a very calculated reason. All he had to do was be normal, and he would have the attention of a broad audience (as per usual) but with the institutional legitimacy of The Republican making him look good. I guess I was willing to gamble on that offchance.

I'm sure it will be hard for most of my regular readers to believe this, but at the start of this interview process I resolved to put all the Chirpsong beef behind me and start fresh. For one day, it would just be me and him, two kids from Carraroe, sons of Little Beirut and Bakersville standing side by side, yakking it up over some wicked good sandwiches. I did that. It was alright. But it didn't end there. The distrust I have for Mint Abawi is no longer just an academic pursuit, an inherited impression from newscasts and Chirpsong posts. It is a completely novel, personal, and warranted distaste— it is the difference from conceptually knowing soap tastes bad to having it shoved down your throat.

I don't want to color your impression of Mint right off the bat. That would be bad form, and would hardly be fair of me. So I won't do it any further. From here on out, he will (mostly) speak for himself— but there is more to this interview than just the conversation. Like all things Abawian, it lingered on my mind, unwilling to let its talons of ludicrous incredulity slip, anchoring him firmly in the currents of my thoughts. So I did what any good journalist does. I followed up.

I will be interweaving the story of my investigation with the interview. So here we go. I suggest you prepare for the story of some serious baloney.

It's no wonder that people liked this man so much when nobody knew anything about him. He is a fun conversationalist. He stands about 5’10”, a bit taller than me, and is reasonably athletic but not so much so that it makes you jealous— just enough to think that you could look like that, too, if only you ever bothered. He looks better on TV than in person, but you almost think it's not because of the makeup. It's just a factor of how wide he smiles. He greeted me with a handshake, firm and respectful, then with the jocular embrace of a hug. “Bring it in, you bastard,” he taps me on the back. “Long way from the Coopers’ High Gazette, huh, Nick?” He shakes his head with the gaze of an old friend. I've never met this man before in my life. I almost have to admire the boldness.

“You went to Coopers’ High?”

“I sat in the back.” He smiles. His eyes are a glassy green. You'd think you would remember a guy named Mint. Maybe that wasn't his name back then. “I'm glad to be back here. I haven't come home since I've been in office.”

“Well, welcome home.” I nodded. In person, he's a completely different man. Disarming. It's funny, you wouldn't take him for a con man— he’s never pushing anything on you except his own image. But perhaps that's why he's so good at it.

The wood paneled walls of Benedict's on Bank are stained with history, and probably more than a little olive oil. For those of you from Carraroe, I know this place needs no introduction. However, given the subject of the interview— I get the feeling that most of you won't be. Allow me to introduce you to an old friend. Benedict’s, or Benny’s, as we are more likely to call it, is a small hole in a smaller wall. It's in the older part of the city, down on Bank Avenue in the Nauset Bay district, where the old low-rise buildings still dominate the skyline. Benny’s is a place that feels bigger than it is. The walls are simply adorned with family photos from the family of Benedict Mazzulla, who founded the restaurant in 2329. This isn't the original location— that was destroyed in the War— but Benny Mazz and his family have been making grinders under this roof since 2344, so it might as well be. They make their own bread in a notoriously unreliable oven salvaged from the old location and kept functional by a community effort to fabricate replacement parts when the supply ran dry in 2410. Most customers pay in quid, but some pay with spare parts. They probably could have invested in a metalfab for themselves, but I think the Mazzullas like it better this way.

The grinders, by the way, are fantastic. They don't bother buying cheap, vat produced ingredients. Everything is local, natural, and fresh, because that's how it was back when Benny started the place. Meat from local farms, mostly local domesticated wildlife. It's a miracle we can eat the animals we found here, especially because some of them are extremely tasty sliced thin on a sandwich. It's not that unusual, sure, but it is certainly a rare find to get fresh bread, natural meat, and fresh olive oil all under one roof. Sure, many of you will remind me that vat meat really doesn't taste all that different. I would contend that if you've had enough of the natural stuff, synthmeat tastes too clean. It's the impurities in the meat, the inconsistent grain and consistency, that makes it feel real, and they're not killing you on the price, either. Sure, Benny has been gone since 2392. It doesn't feel like it. My mother always used to say that Joey’s running the place so well it just feels like Benny’s out in the back instead.

Today, Joey’s daughter Maria was at the counter. The speakers, hooked up to an old digital jukebox, was blasting Benny’s favorite oldies, from Elvis and the Beach Boys to ABBA and Taylor Swift. Right now, it was Jake Yong’s Troubled Ground, a slow, melodical 2240s hit. You can buy copies of the playlist on a novelty USB stick in the back. It's pretty good stuff. Benny always did have good taste.

“What are you having?” I raise my eyebrow at the President. One of his Official Protection bodyguards stands behind us, eyes scanning up and down the menu. Apparently she’s hungry, too. They're all wearing plainclothes, but they must be custom tailored. I couldn’t even make out the holstered gun on her hip until she unzipped her sweatshirt for her wallet.

“Oh, my usual.” He approaches the window, and asks Maria for a footlong Italian with triple mayo and vinegar. That really made me raise an eyebrow. Triple mayo and vinegar? I suppose everyone has their preferences. She seemed about as surprised as me, but she duly punched the order into the register. The Italian is good here anyways. It's a classic for a reason. I just got an armu-ham grinder with oil and salt— classic. They didn't take long. We went over to my usual spot, a booth in the corner under a family photo from a waterpark in 2385.

As Troubled Ground wrapped up, the electric violin solo winding down to a held note, Bobby Darin’s Mack the Knife swung its way onto the speaker system. Mint smiled a toothy grin as he unwrapped his order. It wasn't even off the paper and it was already dripping from the edges, a viscous mix of vinegar and mayonnaise. The President sure has eccentric tastes.

“So, Mint, why—”

“Why triple mayo?” He chuckled. “That's what you were going to ask, right? Well,” he shrugged. “I like mayo.”

“I can see that.”

“And they never put enough of it on there.”

“Why the vinegar?”

“I like vinegar.”

That wasn't really the point of my question. I decided to let it slide. “So, Mr. President,” I glanced down at my notecards. “Why take this interview? You know as well as anybody what I’ve said about you. Hardly flattering.”

“Why’d you extend the invitation?” Mint smirked. “You wanted me here. There’s something there. If you hate me so much, I can’t imagine why you want to talk to me.”

“So… you took an interview with an avowed hater just because?”

“Your words, not mine. I took it because it would be interesting.” He hung on that last word, letting it simmer on his tongue as if to savor its flavor.

“I think it will be, too.” I nodded. “Should we start with softball, then?”

He rolled his eyes, taking another bite of an abysmally messy rag of a sandwich. “If you must.”

“What’s your favorite college story?”

He smiled. There’s that TV smile. Wide, toothy, enraptured by the moment, or perhaps lost in some hidden calculus trying to get two steps ahead of you.

“Oh. You’re good. You’re good at this.” He wagged a finger, laughing, hearty and full of energy, a laugh every sitcom producer this side of Tau Ceti wishes they had on their soundboard. “College. Oh, I loved it. I had a wonderful time in Fall River. I remember, there was this frat… oh, f— me— sorry, you don’t mind if I—”

“No, Mr. President, feel free.”

“I can’t remember the name. It was a Halloween party. I’d lost a bet and dressed up as a cop. The guy studying to be a defense attorney, right?” He leaned in, smiling like he’d let me in on an inside joke. “It must have been ‘65. I said to my buddy Addison that the Vipers were going to the playoffs. They had just gotten Michael Fenner. Oh, was I dead wrong. So I had this Fall River PD uniform. Everything gets out of hand and everyone’s out of control. Neighbors call the cops. They come in, two cars.” He grinned, eyes wide in exhilaration. “They come in and clear it up, everyone’s chasing down the side stairs, the hallways, hell, the fire escapes. I’m plastered, right?”

“Right.” I nod.

“So I see them coming in the building, and have a terrible idea. I walk to the end of the hall, calm, orderly. Grab a buddy, tell him to play along, ask him to punch me in the face real good. There’s a bruise on my cheek for weeks. I hear them coming up the staircase and tell them I’m with the other car and this guy gave me a swing, that he’s going to the drunk tank.”

I laugh. “Just walk out the front door.”

“Yup. Then I book it. It was a good time.”

Santa Maria Assunta University, a bilingual English-Spanish private Catholic research university in Fall River, Groton Republic, does not have fraternities or sororities. I was unaware of this fact while I was interviewing President Abawi. From my later investigation, it is unclear if the rest of this story happened at Abawi’s actual institution, Nazareth Polytechnic, or if it was a complete fabrication.

“So, President Abawi, I have to wonder,” I gesture to the surroundings, tapping a Mazzulla family photo hanging from the wall. “I’m trying to get to know the real you. Why don’t you tell me about your family?”

He nodded, a wide grin on his face, bobbing his head up and down with the music. “My family. Let’s see… pretty, uh, average, honestly.” He seemed to stumble over the word ‘average’. “My ma, my pa, my sister… a cat. And yours truly, of course.”

“You have a sister?” I raise an eyebrow.

“Yes. She doesn’t care much for politics.” He stares off into the distance. “Or at least. She didn’t.”

“Didn’t?”

“She was taken from us, tragically, some years ago. Boating accident. She sailed in a yacht race from Falk Beach to Portsmouth… I still remember the last I ever saw of her. I told her, Chloe, don’t. Don’t go. It’s dangerous. It’s open ocean… I mean, the storms alone, Chloe.” He stared down into his sopping mess of mayonnaise that was now standing in for a sandwich. “We never saw her again. Maybe she’s still out there. If you read Mr. Abd al-Nur’s interview, Chloe, I love you, and I miss you.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

I was naturally skeptical, so I spent some time digging. While I did find a disappearance report for a woman sailing out of Falk Beach in 2459, her name was not Chloe Abawi. However, an arrest warrant by the Milwaukee (USA) Police Department on Earth was issued in 2467 for multiple counts of credit card fraud perpetrated by one ‘Chloe G. Abawi’. It is possible this was an alias President Abawi used as part of a financial scam while traveling abroad in his mid twenties, briefly before beginning his career in defense consultancy.

There was pain in his eyes, real pain. I'll never know how he did that.

“Well, Carraroe. There's really no other city like it. I mean, you know. It's your damn job to show people just how great this place is. And it's not just the food. I mean, who turns out for their city like us? Nobody on Minerva! Not anywhere else, either.” He stared up at one of the few pieces of decor that wasn't a family picture, a framed, signed Jacques Jefferson Red Shirts jersey from his MVP season in 2474. “I mean, look at this sh—stuff. Jacques Jefferson. He's not from here. But once he got drafted here, did he ever go anywhere else? Nope. They offered him trades, coaching jobs. Nothing. He’d rather be around Carraroe than around basketball, and he loved basketball. People still run into him at bars. Nobody around here will ever forget Number 18. Bet he doesn't have to buy his drinks.”

“Yeah, they'll be talking about Jeff for a long time.” I smiled. “Good days for the town.”

“I believe in this town,” he nodded. “I went to bat for the people of this town. Cut my teeth doing criminal defense. You know how many people are wrongfully charged out there? I mean, they're not coming after Joe Schmoe like they're coming after me, now, but the system’s flawed. Everybody knows it.” This is more the rhetoric of his campaign. Criminal justice reform. Fairness. Only now, it's tinged by a self-inflicted martyr complex. It's also something he hasn't actually done anything about. “And you know that over in Hanover… You get a criminal conviction, you can't vote, you can't run! It’s ridiculous. It’s horrible. What about all the people who change? Who grow?”

“I didn't think we'd be talking about politics today.” I sighed. Of course he took up those talking points again. It's funny. I voted for him, to be completely honest. It must be strange to read that, unless you too were hoodwinked by Mint. I believed he wanted to make things better for other people. That he actually believed in these things for their own sake. Shows what I know about politics. I am a food journalist. Why is it that so many of us have such a hard time believing in forgiveness until we ourselves need it?

Alright, I decided, let's get this back on track. “Growing up here in Carraroe, in Bakersville specifically, did you come here often?” I gesture to the sandwich unwrapped at my place. “I mean, you and I both know how important this damn sandwich is to this town.”

“No kidding. I mean, I never really came here. I know it's the mecca, but, there was this smaller place in Bakersville that my dad loved. Closed now. João’s. Amazing little shop, even smaller than this!” He sighed. “Oh, my sister and I would go down there every time we wanted hoagies…”

Hoagies?

He trailed on. I blinked in confusion.

“…was so crisp, great lamb, and they'd have just the best, juiciest tomatoes you've ever seen. He grew them on the roof. Oh, it was magnificent, magnificent.” I'd never seen that look in somebody’s eyes before. It looked as if somebody had stepped away from the window to his soul, if but for a moment. He was back in but a blink. “They closed down in ‘69. I miss that place dearly.”

For those of you who aren't from here, or perhaps are normal and care only a normal amount about sandwiches, the local English name for a sub sandwich is a “grinder”. This name comes to Carraroe through New England, a region of northeast America who many descendants of which wound up being one of the main groups settling Carraroe and the rest of Korangal Republic. They brought several things with them— a pervasive and all-consuming regional identity, a boisterous, proud, and passionate sports culture (though unfortunately not the same level of success), and a weird dialect and accent people love to make fun of. We get very defensive of it.

There is another city that's like us, as much as we would hate to admit it, a little bit down the coast. Perhaps you've heard of Memphis, Hanover Republic, and perhaps you've heard and made fun of their accent too. I know I have. They call them hoagies over there. There also may not be two cities on Minerva that are at each other's throats more.

And now I had a suspicion.

There were a few more questions to ask, but I’m only going to bother printing one more. I asked him, “You know how I feel about you. Now that we’re face to face, what do you have to say to the haters?”

“I can swear, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Fuck ‘em.” He laughed, deadly seriousness in his eyes and mayonnaise on his chin.

My search for answers started at Nazareth Polytechnic, one of the most prestigious public STEM universities on Minerva and Mint Abawi’s true alma mater (his time at Santa Maria Assunta, where he allegedly attended undergraduate and law school, has been revealed to be a very publicly documented hoax). I spoke with the registrar to try and confirm his hometown. It was a hunch. Plenty of people use different regions’ slang because they heard it on TV or something. Something still didn't sit right with me. I was very kindly informed that under the Privacy Act of 2351, they weren't allowed to disclose that information. So I took a different tack.

It was some time ago revealed that our friend Mint was in fact a mathematics major, rather than a prelaw student as claimed. So I went to the mathematics department. I interviewed several professors, but it has been thirty years. I wasn't sure what I would find, but I stumbled into Professor Oleksandr Ryang. A tall but hunched over man entering his 90s, Ryang is at the point in his life where one starts to see the signposts that tell a man he is no longer middle aged. That has not stopped him, he tells me, from exercising daily. He recently ran the campus’ annual half marathon, and is the advisor to the club gridiron team. A playbook sits next to a textbook on his desk. He says he would like to run a veer and shoot offense but that the club team just lost their quarterback who could do it. After exchanging pleasantries and getting to know each other a little, I dove into the meat of the question. I asked him what he knew about Mint Abawi.

“The President? That Mint?” He chuckled. “I was his advisor, and I had him in class both his freshman and senior year. I taught every class of mathematicians for four decades, and never once did I meet one quite as talented as that Mint Abawi.” He stared down at his desk, a pile of printouts rising next to a bulky laptop with fans that sounded like a jet engine. “Of course, I didn't know him as that. He went by another name back then. I can hardly recall... I think Mint may be his middle name, or perhaps a nickname. Maybe he changed it. We weren't close.”

“Weren’t close?” I thought that was strange. One would think his advisor would at least know him, even if he didn't come to class.

“Well, he rarely spoke to me. Never came to class, always had his work in on time. I think he had it set up to hit submit exactly six minutes before the deadline, every time. And it was always correct... Only occasionally in office hours, too. I remember more of his handwriting than his face. Well, until recently, anyways. Though, he had a moustache back then. It was in fashion.”

“What do you remember about him, Professor?”

He snapped into his answer. “He had an almost singleminded devotion to proving the Riemann Hypothesis.”

“The Riemann Hypothesis?”

“One of the most important unsolved problems in all of mathematics. If it could be proven, there is an entire stack of modern mathematics built on assuming it is correct that would now have a firmer foundation than quicksand. And whoever solved it, well, they would go down in history. Immortality with Pythagoras and al-Khwarizmi and Newton. In my approximation, he got damn close… he was onto something marvelous I spent years chasing down to no avail, but could articulate it in a way that made perfect sense.”

That didn't sound like the Mint I knew. I mean, we all knew he was at least a little smart when we found out he was a math guy from Nazareth Poly. But hidden supergenius was not what I was expecting, especially after I met him in person. Brilliant, slippery political operator? Mostly. Real-life supervillain? That has, admittedly, blindsided me. Maybe he was lying about the math, too.

“Interesting. I can't say I've met that Mint.”

“Well, neither did I. I barely knew him outside of one of his enraptured rants. I didn't even think our dear President was him at first. I'm a fairly apolitical man, after all, I wasn't paying attention. When I heard the name Abawi… it's not an uncommon last name in some parts. When I tuned into the debate and saw his face, I wondered if maybe the Abawi I knew had a brother. When I heard him speak... Well, I figured he must have taken his talents to another field. Which, I suppose, he did.”

“Do you remember anything else, Professor?”

He paused for a second. “He, ah, seemed to be getting even more distant at the end. I thought he was sliding into a funk after banging his head against that particular problem for so long. Now, I suspect, he was getting bored with mathematics as a whole. He always chafed against the rigors of writing proofs for things he thought were obvious, and had little patience with me.”

“One last question, Professor.” I paused. I didn't think this was going to go anywhere, and it still felt like a crazy hunch. “Did he ever talk about his personal life? Home life? Family?”

“Oh, gee, I really don't remember.” He shook his head, sighing. “I wish I could be more… well, actually. Now that I think of it. He would occasionally talk to me about basketball. I don't really care for it, I much prefer the football codes, but… he always would wear a Pharaohs cap— I think, the team with the Egyptian branding— and he was extremely particular about not letting it get too wet in the rain.”

“Thank you, Professor.” That was seismic. The Memphis Pharaohs, a team whose title hopes are as dead as their mascot, and whose fans have been perpetually stuck in the limbo of the rebuild, are by no means a team popular in Carraroe. Growing up we would always joke you could get stabbed for wearing a Memphis hat around some blocks, and every once in a while it would happen.

My stupid hunch had just become a real suspicion.

The next part of my investigation took place hunched over my laptop at my desk at home, after hours, and took so long I had people close to me questioning my sanity. I told them it was for a story. I don't think I managed to convince anyone.

On my wall next to my desk is a framed photo print of the Meijing Valley, the stone pillar mountains rising over the fog in a vista that's just what the name says on the tin. A beautiful view. Yet I've been obscuring that view for the last couple days. My wife says I really need to stop. I disagree. I need answers. The cliffside overlook has been overtaken by pictures of varying city recreational league water polo trophies from the Carraroe and Memphis areas, split meticulously into three categories— Untested Carraroe, Untested Memphis, and Wrong. In the center of it all is a picture clipped from a video released at the start of Mint’s term in office— a smiling Abawi hoisting his rec league water polo trophy allegedly from a city league here in Carraroe while giving a tour of the Office at the End of the Hall.

“Nick, this is a little ridiculous,” my lovely wife, Isabel, was concerned for my mental health. Too bad. She was about to make a great point. “He’s old enough that they might have changed the trophy since he won it.”

On her recommendation, I expanded my search to look for trophies from leagues over the last fifty years. My search was fairly exhaustive and involved the assistance of numerous volunteers I found on Chirpsong. They argued a lot and found nothing, so I had to go somewhere else. Somewhere worse. Thank you especially to @swimpasstreadshoot and @POLOMANIACXX69 for your efforts, even if they were for naught.

Ashamedly, I had to turn to the image board wePost for help. For those of you unfamiliar with the cesspool that is wePost, imagine a site where you can say anything with a consequence of nothing. No names, no reputations, just pictures and messages, with no moderation. It's an awful experience. That said, they are incredible detectives. Recently, the wePost hivemind located the apartment of Admiral Rachel Ambrose about twenty minutes after she showed up to a forum in which she gave a speech calling for Mr. Abawi to resign following the revelation of his first round of petty lies, and sent her through Republics Mail about six hundred and twenty letters full of fake anthrax. You may think it foolish of me, then, to seek their help in exposing Abawi for lying once more. Unfortunately for Mint, this crowd is incredibly mercurial and changes their opinion on a whim, and apparently Mr. Abawi is not their particular brand of deranged anymore. Not entirely, anyways.

I started by uploading a picture of the trophy. I’ll let the conversation speak for itself.

Okay, on second thought, there are too many slurs.

Even censored, I can’t run that. So I have found some of the less offensive snippets of the conversation:

Eventually, some posters came out who felt more strongly about Mr. Abawi.

But all it took was one cooperative poster in a sea of ethnic grudges and bigotries I didn’t even know existed.

I looked through his proof and it makes a lot of sense. It took the board one day to do what I'd failed to do for months.

I had a field trip to make.

I do not like Memphis. It is a city pretty similar, in all honesty, to Carraroe. An old Colonial era core ringed by areas of varying urbanization, busy traffic on foot, train, or car, and sandwich shops that all think they have the best in the worlds, and are all wrong, because they're not Benedict’s on Bank. I like to normally wear a Red Shirts hat, but here I knew that was a bad idea. I don't even watch them, but my dad was a huge fan. Between us and Memphis, I think there's enough hooliganism in this area of Minerva to topple most national governments. They're almost our dark mirror.

The building for the Memphis Athletic Club, however, is quite nice. It's a mid-rise next to Besette Park, with a stone and glass facade that gives the gyms a great view of the lake, kites streaking across the grass. The inside of the lobby has a marbled floor and intricately inlaid concrete pillars with murals of athletes engaging in various sports. It's wonderfully airy inside. There's a big desk in the middle in front of the elevators, painted in a dizzying array of colors as abstracted figures swam, dribbled, ran, skated, and shot their way across the room. A receptionist sat behind the counter, a real person instead of a VI. Quite the luxury. I walked up to him, and put into motion my half-baked plan.

“Hi,” I said, trying my best to mask any hint of a Carraroan accent. “Do you think you can help me?”

“Well, certainly.” He nodded, looking up from his computer. “Do you have your membership card?”

“Uh, no,”

“Well, you need a membership to enter. The Community Leagues don't have anything running today.”

“I just moved into town and I was wondering if I could tour before I joined.”

“My apologies, sir, you'll have to take our brochure. It has a virtual tour on the back, just scan it—”

Okay. Plan B.

“Uhhh I didn't really want to talk about this. It's still a little raw. My brother used to be a member here. He passed just a few months ago.”

“Oh, I'm… I’m sorry for your loss.”

“He, uh, he played water polo here. I miss him a lot. We were pretty close, I'd take a trip into the city to visit him. He'd always take me to the Pharaohs games… anyway, uh, I just wanted to take a tour so I could go find the picture of the year he won the championship and send a little something back to his wife. I'd like to join… I've never played water polo, but it meant a lot to him.”

“What was his name?”

“Bobby. Bobby Lim… cancer got him. I miss him tons.”

“Aw, jeez. I'm sorry. C’mon, I'll show you in. Tim, by the way.”

“Nick.”

I shook his hand. Tim is not his real name, I changed it for this article. He is a very nice person, and I could not in good conscience inform you of the following if his real name was attached to it. His handshake was uncomfortably limp, and reminded me of raw chicken. I'm sorry. It just really stuck with me.

The elevator was very nice, mirrorbacked and jakarta-wood paneled, and we rode down two floors to the pool. The hallways stank of chlorine. “When did he win, about?”

“Oh, back in the ‘60s. He wouldn't shut up about it.”

“Okay, so we're gonna take a left at the end of this hall, and the water polo championship records should be on the right. You’re not really supposed to have your phone out, club etiquette, but I guess for this I’ll make an exception.”

I walked down the halls, looking for the right year. ‘61 didn't have him. ‘62 didn't have him. ‘63 didn't…

…But ‘64, well, 2464 was another story.

There he was, in the picture. I would recognize that face anywhere. Younger, but the eyes, the smile… all the same.

I pulled out my phone and took a picture. Sure as you know it:

MEMPHIS ATHLETIC CLUB

2464 WATER POLO COMMUNITY LEAGUE CHAMPIONS

From Left: Abawi, Bancroft, Daci, Belanger, Giraud, Oubre, Maxwell, Nacif, DiMaggio, Xavier, Sato, Kim.

“Oh, cool. Which one’s your brother?”

My arm, and mouth, moved before my brain. “That one,” I blurted, pointing to somebody very clearly marked DIMAGGIO.

“I thought you said his name was Bobby Lim.”

“I, uh,” I paused. I didn't know what to do. Double down? No, this guy was a good kid, and I was an asshole for lying to him. “I did, didn't I.”

“Yeah. You did.”

“I'm… I'm real sorry, man.”

“Wait, so you're just like. Lying, then? So what are you actually doing here? Do you even live here?”

“Nah, I’m a journalist…” I wanted to puke.

“Man, if you had just, just said that, I would have like, let you in. What's all this… lying about a dead brother and shit? You know, you're a bad person, you know, for that. Next time somebody comes in asking to see family mementoes, I might just say, you're fuckin lying to me, bro, and throw some guy out with like a dead dad, or something.”

“Wait, does that happen a lot?”

“No, but, like. Man, fuck you. I’m throwing you out.”

He did, in fact, throw me out. I felt bad, so I didn't try to run away or anything. It was just a really awkward elevator ride. He called over security, told them I'd lied to get in and was snooping around near the water polo stuff for seemingly no reason. As I was being walked to the door, one of them pulled up their phone to take a picture of me and called somebody up. They told me I was banned for life.

Fair, I guess.

Author’s Note: You'll have to forgive me. I wrote this portion of the article substantially later than I should have, and I don't have notes to reference for everything that happened. I do, however, have audio recordings for much but not all of it, and I've used these extensively to reconstruct events as they occured. All other events are as best I can remember.

My flight home was uneventful, but what followed was not. I was carrying on my phone— and had sent to Isabel— the crucial piece of evidence that proved that I was not a total nutcase. She would be pleased to know that my Quixotic quest had ended with a windmill slain at my feet, no doubt. I sauntered through the terminal checking my phone repeatedly, passing grinder shops, gyro counters, and pizza joints as I made my way through the Terminal B food court at Nayaka Regional Airport. I felt a buzz on my hip. yay!! does that mean I can get that mess off our wall? I love her. She completes me.

I sighed, and let her know the good news. I was about to be sane and normal again. It felt great, honestly. When you've been grasping at straws for so long, accidentally grabbing hold of a rope feels incredible.

I left the concourse and waved to the soldier at the door. He took a hand off his carbine and waved back. It was good to be home in Carraroe.

I walked out towards the train station, snaking my bag across the concrete of the Arrivals bus lane sidewalk. Almost immediately, a blacked out van swerved out of traffic, wheels nearly smacking the curb. The door swung open, and a towering synth in a well-fitting suit and a large, broad-shouldered organic in full tactical rig stepped out into the sidewalk, blocking my path.

“Mr. Abd al-Nur? You should really come with us.” I was shocked. I blinked a little, as if the figures ahead of me were some unpleasant sleep crust that would become dislodged if I tried hard enough. “What.” was the only word I could think to say. The ganic’s vest read OPB OFFICIAL PROTECTION BUREAU in large print font, like something out of at least eighteen Waikikiwood action movies nobody watched. So these guys were Mint’s goons. I had come to the conclusion I was being kidnapped, and immediately started my audio recorder.

“Am I being detained?” I asked. He began to answer, but a man behind him cut him off.

“Sir, you can't park here.” A short, stocky guy, tapped the dark-suited synth on the shoulder. He wore the characteristic hi-viz vest and Carraroe Area Rapid Transit ballcap of a bus terminal operator. “This is the bus lane.”

“We're OPB,” the synth said, pulling a badge off his belt. “Official business.”

“You're in the pickup spot.” He held up his lanyard, a CART badge glistening in the stark lights of the bus terminal. “It's marked.”

“This is official business. We'll be out of your hair—”

“I have a schedule to keep. You can do official business somewhere else. You're not kidnapping this guy, by the way, are you? ‘Cause if you are, I’m gonna have to go get security.” A growing crowd was gathering, phones recording, fingers pointing. Shouts of “What are you doing to that guy?” and “That's the bus lane ya fahkin tool!” rang out.

“To answer your question,” the armed, armored man leaned in towards me. “No, you're not being detained. You should really get in the van though.” He gestured inside. Two more armed, black-vested tactical officers sat in the back, staring at me with blank expressions and annoyed eyes.

“Look, we're not kidnapping him.” The synth in the suit nodded. “Please stop filming.”

“I feel like I'm being kidnapped. Do you guys have a warrant?” I raised an eyebrow. I heard a bus pull in behind us. “Am I actually being detained?”

“We are not kidnapping you. For Pete’s sake, we're not kidnapping you. You can just go. You can just go! I guess.”

“You've got a black bag on the seat!”

One of the armored officers in the back swiped the head-sized bag off the leather seat with a sigh. “Oh, well, that does look quite bad now, doesn't it?” He pulled a sandwich from the bag, setting it down by his foot, and yanked his balaclava down to take a bite.

“You know,” the suit-clad synth sighed. “You're gonna leave the President hanging.”

I raised an eyebrow. “The President wants to talk to me?”

“Nooo, they just sent OPB for no reason.”

“Why are you guys here by the way? Aren't you guys bodyguards?”

“Look, this is new and just as frustrating for us, honestly. We don't exactly pick people off the side of the road often.”

The crowd parted, and the transit operator was back. The soldier from the exit followed in tow. “I got a bus here.” The bus was stuck midway through its turn, repeatedly attempting to gain even a centimeter of purchase, the driver VI displaying a frowning face on the windshield status screen on the verge of tears. “You're making the bus cry. Do you know how hard it is to make a bus cry?” The soldier laid a hand on his carbine’s barrel. “You can't park here.”

“For the millionth fucking time, we're OPB—”

“AND I'M FAHKIN LATE FOR DINNAH!” A voice from the crowd shouted.

I sighed. “Well, fuck, man, if the President wants to see me, I guess I'll go. Can I text my wife first?”

The soldier tapped his carbine. “Quickly.”

“Oh, look at it. The bus is crying. You know this is a direct representation of how many people are late now? Because of you? Because you can't read a parking spot?”

The guy in the suit put a hand on my shoulder. “Just get in the van. Text her on the way.”

I hopped in, the armed man scooping up my bag and tossing it in the back. The bus dried its tears as we pulled away.

We didn't go far. Annoyingly, they just kind of turned around and we drove into the vehicle access gates. I wondered why they bothered with the van in the first place. I asked them why, actually. Dagger-sharp glares were shot across the front cab as both the men who'd jumped out at me blamed each other.

“Brett’s idea.”

“Oh, fuck off, Fernando.”

I paused, glancing around the back of the van.

“You guys must not do this often.”

“Does nobody friggin listen to me? I said we were new to this earlier. Last President wasn't like this.” Brett, the guy in the suit, white-knuckled the steering wheel. “Never asked us to grab someone off the street before. He had to have known what that looked like, right?”

“Wait, he specified to kidnap me?”

“No, he just told us to pick you up and to try and be… vague about it. I wasn't supposed to tell you. Now I'm gonna get in trouble with the President.”

“I think he wanted him to think he was getting kidnapped.” One of the other agents in the back tugged on their vest with a sigh. “Jagoff.”

The other nodded. “Yeah, thanks, Mr. President. Now we're going to have to explain to the public that the OPB isn’t the bloody Stasi, kidnapping people off the street ‘n shit.”

“You think John Q. Public knows what the Stasi is?” Fernando raised an eyebrow. “Ancient freakin’ history.”

“They know the Spanish Inquisition.”

“Hmph.”

I certainly didn't expect this kind of banter from people who had just voluntarily kidnapped me. I've changed all their names so they hopefully don't wind up in too much trouble. If you're reading this, I had a good time, and would love to be kidnapped again. Or perhaps to save us all some time you could start a podcast.

They had a Roohawk waiting for us on the tarmac. The plane was cool. The ride was awful.

We landed at 1 Keystone, the castle of the Executive Residence looming from beyond the helipad and the palatial yard. The home of both the President and the First Representative, formerly Fontbona Palace when New Ruacnoc was a Commonwealth-American colony, was built to fit the extravagant tastes of a First Expansion trillionaire, the polar opposite of Minervan architecture in every way except one: scale. I’d been here once on a class trip when I was younger. I’d never seen it without the rope barriers and display plaques. I have to hand it to the Fontbonas. It’s a pretty house. Far too large for only two families, but very, very pretty.

When the Revolution took the Palace in 2339 it was a bloodbath. A symbolic one, sure, but a bloodbath nonetheless. No one was living here at the time— the stone outer walls of the estate simply were very convenient protection from small arms fire, and the large building’s office complex proved a convenient place to headquarter a UN garrison. There were still the faded outlines of where the more restrained reconstruction of the building met the original grandeur, inside and out. Now the decor that once celebrated the Fontbona family’s wealth and industry now celebrated the industry and justice of the Minervan people— Deco Revival portraits of triumphant Minervan everymen taming the High Frontier, feeding the hungry, and housing the needy— all things that had been achieved not by the power of the sword but by the pen. I’m sure there’s plenty of friezes lionizing our success in combat, as well, but this was the hallway the diplomats went down. The office complex was a floor up, but Brett and company had decided to give me the scenic route. I appreciated it. It wasn’t every day you get a view like this.

I knew Mint was a scumbag when he decided to work from the Palace. There’s no law that says he can’t, but he’s supposed to go to work at the Consensus Building in the Hallway Office. They have a whole subway line just to bring the President and the First Representative back and forth from the Consensus Building. The least he could do with my tax money is use the damn thing. He brought me into his office— the same office, in fact, Colonel Gonçalves planned the siege of Shepard’s Peak in all those centuries ago. He rose from behind the the Martyrs’ Desk, that so dearly beloved slab of rough concrete and Seongnam trinitite. It should never have been here. I grimaced, and immediately became disgusted with the opulence of my surroundings. It didn’t belong here, among this gold-lacquered vomit. The Martyrs’ Desk is more than just a piece of concrete. The trinitite pressed into the front panel is impure— vitrified around the ashes of dead Minervans. They deserve respect. I saw the folding chair set up in front of the Desk, and looking around to see many perfectly serviceable chairs that could be moved in this room alone, wondered if Mint was even capable of it.

“Take a seat, bud. Let’s talk.” Mint nodded, shooing his OPB bodyguards away after Brett frisked me for recording devices. “Leave us be.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. President.”

I stared down at the folding chair, a Moondance City Party Rentals sticker slapped across the top of the backrest. “I appreciate you going through the trouble. Out of pocket?”

“For you, my friend, anything.” Mint laughed. “You know, I was really glad when you sent out a request to interview me. You know I run all my socials myself?”

“I thought you had a team.”

“I do. I don’t listen to them often. They’re all too concerned about the metrics. But how can you really measure these things? You need a human touch. That’s why I called you here, actually.”

I gulped. I had no idea what that meant. I only knew it was probably bad for me.

“Nicky my friend, you are in a lot of trouble. I just mean, an absolute walloping, heading your way. See, you’re trying to bring me down. I thought we were friends. Just two Carraroe boys, after all.”

Oh, thank God, he doesn’t know, I thought.

“And here you are, about to tell everyone— I’m from Memphis? Me?” He laughed. “Come on, Nicky-boy. That’s ridiculous. Bury the story.” His grin faded to nothing as soon as it had appeared.

“What?” Shit, he knows!

“You heard me. Be a good, whatever it is you are. Are you really a journalist if all you ever do is write about the food in some shithole little city? I mean, c’mon, the only other thing you do is argue on Chirpsong with— who, at-mintymania? at-batterwarrior417? I mean, come on, these aren’t… people. It’s kind of pathetic, honestly. So you’re going to bury the story, and I’m not going to use the power of my office to ruin your life.”

“Is that a threat?”

He laughed. It was chilling.

“Buddy. Come on. I can’t just let you slander me like this… you know that felons in Hanover Republic can’t run for office? Republic or Federal. Are you trying to kill my political career with a… sandwich interview? Certainly creative. Bravo. I’ve lived in Carraroe all my life, far longer than the ten years it takes to get long term residency status. But you’re accusing me of defrauding the elections office— a felony— and not even being a resident of Korangal Republic at all in some bogus expose, and I just can’t let you drag my good name through the mud. Do you know what people think when they hear the name Mint?”

“The wannabe king of Fontbona Palace.” I shook my head.

“You don’t think I’m smart enough to run this country like a king?” There was a fire behind his eyes, briefly fading as he spat the words through his teeth. “I was going to say ice cream. Close!” He chuckled. “See, you and that little shithole city of gluehuffing hooligans— you just don’t understand my vision. For this country. For humanity. I just… I just don’t get it. We could easily— why has nobody just… done it?”

“What the hell are you on about?”

“Nevermind. You wouldn’t understand. You’re a— food guy. I won’t bore you with astropolitics.”

“So, let’s assume I do publish this—” I tried to get a word in edgewise.

“Why bother? Do you want Isabel to be without her husband? You know her. She’s lovely, but she’s such a practical woman. I don’t know if she’d stick with you in prison, let alone the deep, dark one you’d be rotting in. You see, I know my OPB doesn’t do kidnappings. But I know some people who do.”

I went pale.

“Oh, give me that face all you want. Somebody’s got to do it, even if you don’t like it. Well, if you’re going to keep pouting, I have real work to do. FRMI has a tantalizing prospect for me, a real barn-burner of an operation.” He mentioned a man’s name I don’t remember, tacking on a hasty “oh, forget you heard that.” He rose from his desk. I was frozen in my chair.

“What are you staring at me for? You can open your own door.” He shooed me away with the top of his hand. “Run along, little hoagie boy.”

I walked over to the collossal door, shaking, trying to hide it as best I could. I wrapped my hand around the golden handle, feeling something suspiciously plasticky on the backside. Had the Fontbonas cheaped out?

No, I realized. I peeled back the tape edges creeping around the sides. There was a box cutter taped to the back of the door handle, and now it had my fingerprints all over it.

“Oh, that?” He laughed. “In case you have any second thoughts, don’t forget you tried to kill me.” A shark’s grin crept across his mouth, beaming at the sight of his handiwork.

I reached down to put it in my pocket. If I couldn’t publish the story, at least I could deny him his leverage. “Oh, nuh uh uh!” He threw his hands up. “You don’t get to take souvenirs. Mind you, Brett out there has a gun and you have a knife. Now shoo.”

I dropped it, and slammed the door shut.

I thought about this for a long, long time. Running this story… I mean, he has a knife with my fingerprints on it, and I know I have no proof of that conversation, but it really is real.

The President of the Minervan Republics made a threat on my freedom, and I think I'm going to take him up on it. I already thought he was bad beforehand. But I've met Mint now. He's a threat to our country. If you're from the UN reading this to get a look at the other side, he's clearly a threat to your country too. If he's not comprehensively stopped from running for office again, he will do irreparable damage to this country. We have a split executive for a reason, but he has insisted on overstepping the power of the Presidency, trying to centralize the power of the Executive Branch into his person. His decisions as Commander-in-Chief have been mercurial and threatened to shatter the fragile peace we've only just managed to forge— he's somehow found a way to take credit for the Landigal Summits, an effort that predates his administration— and that he quietly opposed— while also taking credit for expanding arms manufacturing. At some point in his Presidency he seems to have supported every policy from those as mainstream as expanding the housing program to such radical proposals as privatizing the state armories, and somehow people haven't figured it out yet.

He doesn't believe in any of this crap. This is at worst a game to him and at best an interesting challenge. He does not view the objective of his presidency as the betterment of the Minervan country by guiding her foreign policy with prudence. He views it as a personal test— to prove that he really is smarter than everyone else in the galaxy. That he can lie to anyone, manipulate anyone, rule over anyone. And after finally getting to meet the real Mint? I think he wants to rule everyone.

I never tried to kill him. I will say that unequivocally and plainly. He’s threatened to black-bag kidnap me and throw me in a military prison, on a made-up charge of attempted assassination, because I nearly exposed him to consequences. He can’t conceive of his actions having real consequences. The way he sees it? Consequences are for stupid people. So he’s decided to turn the intelligence apparatus— I assume that’s who does kidnappings, anyway— into a secret police. That’s not how we do things here. It’s never how we did things here. Havelock’s tyranny rounded dissidents up, and we made laws and systems so that would never happen here. I am a Minervan citizen, and I am entitled to my natural rights, recognized by the Writ of Union and the Keystone Charter, but inherent to my existence. There’s nothing he can do to change that— even if he chooses to ignore it.

So I’ve made my peace with it. I’ve sent the manuscript of this article to the Carraroe Republican and the New York Times, with a deal that if one doesn’t publish it, the other will. The Minervan people need to know who their President is— a delusional psychopath with absolutely no boundaries.

I’ve said my goodbyes, I’ve talked to my bosses and my lawyers, I’ve prayed for my family. I'm ready. If you’re gonna come at me?

Send everything you’ve got.

And since I’m a food journalist, by the way, what you did to that grinder was a crime.

Goodnight, Minerva. I hope you’ll hear from me again.

Nicholas Abd al-Nur is a Bancroft Award-winning food journalist for the Carraroe Republican. A local, Abd al-Nur is a graduate of Falharbor University, where he studied English writing and culinary history. He lives in the Bakersville neighborhood of Carraroe with his wife, Isabel, and his dog, Scruffins.

Mr. Abd al-Nur has asked that this story be published in its submitted, unedited form, and as a professional courtesy to a dear friend, we have respected his wishes and provided the use of the Republican’s legal department. You can donate to his supplemental legal fund here.

We will continue to cover the Abawi administration’s crimes and will not be intimidated.

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“What, then, we must ask, is the ultimate goal of cyberwarfare?” The man at the podium paused. “It, most simply, must be to interfere with the enemy’s execution of any form of military activities, to break the comfortable reliance the enemy holds on their technology and create a sense of paranoia in the ranks… it is both an extension and an evolution, then, of psychological warfare.”

He sighed, advancing the slide with a tap on the podium.

“Certainly when one thinks of cyberwar, the word evokes drama, ship systems shut down and overtaken, life support disabled, synthetics killed on the spot, plague and devastation. There is, of course, some truth to that, but only in the extremes, and well-regulated by the laws of war. Defensive cyberwarfare is a field of study and practice that has existed for centuries, aimed at curbing the worst excesses of malware and hacking. It is of course, largely successful given the computing power to back it up when faced with a type of threat actor it is expecting. This is why tactical offensive cyberwar is a game of inches; you take what you can get and get what you can take, as much of tactical cyberwarfare develops along predictable lines. When confronted with a hostile warship, it is fairly easy to presume that they do not, in fact, have friendly intentions.”

There was a chuckle from the crowd. He was glad; it was a line in his notes that had amused him, even if it had not risen to the point of actual humor.

“So, then, the state of the art in tactical cyberwarfare is fairly consistent. The aims and goals are to disrupt enemy communication, detection, classification, and tracking capabilities by the deliberate insertion of false or misleading information or contacts, and interfering with or degrading systems the attacker has gained access to. In through the comms lasers, out to the sensor telescopes and operator displays. But we live in an era of fused systems. Defensive cyberwarfare has once again increased in capability for data-links and cross-fleet information sharing to be permissible again, and we have been brushing off long-dormant capabilities for both offensive and defensive purposes. If we can't get into their life support systems, their targeting IFF, or flay their systems coordination officers and anyone else jacked into their network, what else would the Holy Grail of offensive cyberwar be, in this old-is-new era of networked warfare?” He shook his head. “Next slide, please.”

“This is code recovered from the computer systems of the PDFN Agamemnon, one of our new Taruga-class frigates that was part of the FRIGRON organized to go to Akrotiri. Well, not really. It's representative. The real code, well, I don't even have access to it.” He grinned with a chuckle, and some scattered across the audience returned the gesture. “But I believe it's a good time to finally speak about what it does.” He swiped at the podium. “We don't have anyone in here who believes in UFOs, do we?” The audience laughed, and a video taken from an infrared telescope onboard the frigate played out behind him.

“This is, quite simply put, the most sophisticated contact generator we've ever seen. It can ping false targets to the full fidelity of our sensors, constructing something out of nothing. For its first outing, the Minervans apparently didn't want to play their full hand, and instead wanted to capitalize on the recent UFO craze.”

As he finished his sentence, a strange form, almost like a shark fin hanging upside-down, parted from the void and set the infrared view alight. It was a haze, a blur, a hanging whisper of a dream.

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For the last three hours, the Chilean ship ALMIRANTE COCHRANE had been ignoring her gravitometric sensors. They were not the only ones. A collection of sixty some-odd UN warships orbited the abandoned planet, the radio telescope’s pale visage silhouetting the eyeball world. ALMIRANTE COCHRANE had been coming over the night side— the icy side— when suddenly the carrier’s gravitometric sensors had erupted with a massive cluster of contacts. Androniki Mitrakou, Hellenic Navy, Sensor Technician Third Class, had wondered if the worlds were coming to an end— if that great war they had long feared was finally here. Yet as she stared at her console, sweating bullets as she struggled to characterize such a large signature, her pessimism had faded to exasperation. That wasn’t a Minervan battlegroup. It was too big. It wasn’t moving right. It looked more like a neutron star, if anything, but it was steadily increasing in magnitude. She sighed. It was busted. It had to be. She was an older ship, after all. She didn’t start worrying until she found out every other ship there had been reporting the same issue.

The Cyber department had called in to her Chief and told them that there was a fleetwide cyberattack, likely a remnant of the battle a few days prior. The contacts were false. That made her a little bit more comfortable, but as she dwelt on the possibility, she couldn't help but find it thoroughly unnerving. She'd never seen anything that could infect a fleet so fast without anybody knowing. Besides, if the gravitometer readout was fake, what else could be? She'd been instructed to keep an eye on it but not take it too seriously.

It was three hours into the whole ordeal when the gravitometer had finally even started to calm down. It was not, by any means, calm; her supervising Chief stared over her shoulder in quiet befuddlement, her Captain’s lanky arms throwing up a shrug at the Petty Officer. “It's starting to dissipate, sir.”

“Mind if I take a closer look?”

“No, sir.”

“Ope,” he said, squeezing between the two acceleration seats. “Huh,” he blinked.

“Yeah.” She tapped at her controls. “Hang on, it's really dying down now.”

“Uh oh,” ST3 Matthijs Molenaar said. “Dat is niet goed.” He shook his head in surprise. “Sir, I am beginning to see things, on the infrared. They are not right.”

“Bring it up top,” the Captain squeezed right past her console as a cluster of flags, and the shoulders that carried them, towered over Molenaar’s seat, some standing, some floating in the null-grav of a ship on the drift. The Captain bore the white-green-purple of Ganymede, the SENS the rust-white-rust of Mars. Her Chief behind them wore the gold-blue-red of Colombia, all hovering over the red, white, and blue of the Netherlands with the twelve stars of Europe. The Captain sprung to his station, and slipped on his pressure helm before barking into the helmet intercom. “Yeoman, sound Action Stations. I don't know what the hell that thing is, or if it's even real. But we're under some kind of attack.” He scanned the room. “Dammit, where's Coles?”

“Head, Cap’n,” Captain Privalov, his DCAG, nodded to the hatchway.

“Shit,” he shook his head. “Get the ready birds out the tubes. If he disagrees, too bad.”

“With you on this one, Cap’n.”

There was a chorus of “Aye, sir.” The whole of the CIC started cracking their pressure helms out of the seat lockers. “Action stations, action stations…”

Daniel ‘SETI’ Coles, Commander, Aerospace Group of the carrier ALMIRANTE COCHRANE, was not a happy man. He never was. He was least happy, however, to have been torn from his toilet time because the computer had hallucinated. That's what the Yeoman had told him was happening, anyways.

“Those are fuckin’… aliens, man.” He stared at the shapes on the telescope footage with bated breath. A cluster of ships of assorted shape and size swarmed a giant, inverted shark fin coasting through the stars.

“Captain Coles,” the Dutch kid, the Sensor Technician, spoke. “I mean no disrespect. You cannot seriously be suggesting this is our first contact with intelligent life.”

“No, but you're his,” the DCAG sighed.

“Hey!”

“Unfortunately, ol’ SETI here thinks everything marginally blurry is an alien star-ship—”

“Yeah, since I almost hit one!”

“That was a recon probe with a sensor decoy.” The DCAG shook his head. “Besides, do any of these ships look like the one you found?”

“Well, no, but—”

“Look at that one. It's all blocky, and that one’s got wings! It's clearly a generative sensor spoof, the system is hallucinating. These ships look nothing like each other!” As if on cue, a new ship spawned into view— missing one moment, there the next. “Oh, sure. Just as I say something, it makes a bigger copy of the middle one.”

“I am inclined to… agree with the D-CAG.” Molenaar summoned up the courage to look over his shoulder as much as his pressure suit would allow. “I have been conversing with the… SCO, and, well,” He paused. “Surely you know our systems are infected.”

“That's true,” the Captain of the ship nodded. “I've been talking with the Systems Coordinator too. He says he's never seen code like this.”

“Grav is picking up again! It’s… scattered, it looks.”

“Captain,” a Sailor burst in behind them, tapping the CO on the shoulder. “They want you in the Cyber room. They think they found something, and they say we’re clear to stand down to Condition II-SCREW. It isn’t in the life support.”

“Good, then. Lids off, sound the order for Condition II-SCREW.” He unsealed his pressure helm, slinging it under his shoulder. “Get it sorted, gentlemen. I’ll be back,” He nodded, slapping Coles on the back. “Don’t go too crazy.”

“It’s in there pretty good, Captain,” the Cyber Officer pointed at his screen for the information of the man quite literally hovering over his shoulder. “I knew something was off when I called in to ask SENS to check the star tracker… it’s outta sync with the electro-opticals.”

The CO nodded. “Well, that’s what it’s there for, isn’t it? Ground truth.”

“Exactly. We do periodic sync checks but since that’s part of the non-networked layer of instruments, we have to actually send somebody to check it. Next one wasn’t for fifteen minutes. At some point in the last forty-five, we started flying blind. And none of us had any idea.”

“Thank God we haven’t burned.”

“Well, we probably would have caught it in our check then, at least. That’s not as important. What is important is a list of degraded or non-functional sensors. Obviously, we’re getting false contacts across the gravitometer and the electro-optics, including the infrareds. Our radars are just completely fucked, they’ve been stuck on the same output for the last twenty-six minutes. Lidar seems to work, but on closer inspection is constantly returning one of four values on a rotating loop. So basically, our long-range passive sensors are being flooded with fakes, and our more close-in active sensors are being tricked to think they’re clean. They seem to specifically have targeted the navigational sensors.”

“That’s… terrifying.” He blinked.

“Yeah.”

“You find the infection vector? We have an EVA team aboard. We should recover it, get it to analy—”

A jolt crashed across the ship. The Captain was thrown into the ceiling.

“Collision, front!”

The lecturer pointed to a hand in the crowd.

“Why do they look… like that?” The audience member, a Captain from his shoulder boards, raised an eyebrow. “Looks like something from my kid’s games.”

“We believe this was a limited trial, with the portable generative system not trained specifically on Minervan emissions to prevent us from gleaning any actionable information from the test run.” The man at the podium paused. “There is, of course, another reason.”

He stepped out from behind the walnut lectern, notes left behind on top. A glint from a spotlight caught his glasses— a square, delicate frame, one that made him look like an intellectual or perhaps some European banker, a duality supported by the thin sheen of an accent that seemed some boutique blend of Cambridge and Zurich. “Aliens. The mere idea, is infectious. They have a weapon, they can test it on their own architecture as much as they want. Even, on captured articles of ours. However, this does not change the fact; they have a weapon. They do not know what will happen when they pull the trigger.” He opened his hands. “I have worked in intelligence for thirty-five years. This is a rumor trap.”

“Oh.”

“They do not need a source inside of our Navies if we go to the public and tell them that no matter what they heard from their cousin, we didn't see aliens at Akrotiri. And it's of course, a rumor so salacious that it will make the rounds.” He sighed. “For goodness’ sake, we have entire ships full of sailors absolutely convinced they've just met Mr. Spock. This is a counterintelligence nightmare— we've been trying to stop it, but some of the sailor lifestyle blogs are already running with it. The problem with this damn rumor is, it's not serious enough to shut anyone up, and it's not boring enough that nobody cares.”

“Huh.” The Captain replied. “FRMI pitched us a real screwball on this one.”

“I'm sorry, I don't watch your American football. Not one for sport. But I am inclined to agree. Quite a screwball. Next question.”

The Captain winced, a finger raised. He let it down gently.

“What the hell did we hit?” The Captain rushed back to his station in the CIC, holding his head. Blood trickled off his scalp, crimson globules floating in the air, diffracting the light of countless screens.

“Captain,” the CAG flinched away from a bloody droplet drifting by his face. “You gotta get to the centrifuge.”

“What… did. We hit.” He glared, panting heavily, a single message on his eyes. I'll rest when I'm dead. There's more at stake.

“Cap… Jak—” CAG Coles couldn't get his words in, edgewise or dead on.

“I'm not fucking going, CAG. Not until I know if this ship is in danger!”

“Debris, sir.” The SENS didn't look up from the console.

“Check the scopes—” He coughed. “Clear of mines?”

SETI looked on in horror.

“Clear, Captain.” SENS glanced back at him. “We have some slight damage to the bow, sensors have cleared of the false contacts but navigational interference is still in effect.”

“Get… EVA out. Full damage assessment. Find me the infection vector. I'll go to fucking sickbay, Coles. Just let me get these affairs in order.”

“What if it's internal, man? The bleeding?”

“I'm just grabbing my tablet.”

The walk to the centrifuge wasn't far, but it was chaotic. Mag-boots clanged against deckplate as Sailors rushed any friends who hadn't been appropriately bolted down when the collision hit towards the spin-gravity of the midsection. The Captain glanced down at the tablet as Coles walked him forward, a sanguine trail marking their path.

“You're losing a lot of blood for a guy who insisted on staying.”

“Think I… hit a bolt.” He nodded. “My skull doesn't look caved in, does it?”

“No?”

“Feels like it.”

“Alright, elevator time.” Coles shuffled into the flip-lift uneasily. “Doc’ll get’cha the good shit.” Coles glanced down at a buzzing phone. Commander Markannen wanted to talk. “Cyber found the infection vector.”

“Don’t let them put me under until I've talked to him,” he slurred out. “Call ‘em up!”

“Okay.” He patted him on a rather sweaty shoulder. “Okay, Ja—”

“Don't. Treat me like I'm dead. That wasn't nearly bad enough. Just… a concussion. And a little bit of blood.”

The Hospital Corpsmen loaded the Captain onto an operating bed with a heave. “Get me an IV and some O-neg quick. He's lost a lot of blood. Signs of a concussion.”

“Captain,” the Corpsman looked back at him, head shaking. “It's been almost ten minutes since the hit. That hand has been doing a lot of heavy lifting to keep your blood inside your head. And it has not been enough.”

“Yeah, whatever. Get… get me Cyber.”

“Captain, you're not fit for duty… and we’re going to need to transfer you to one of the Tarugas. Their medbays have full plategrav.”

“I have three more orders to give. Then you can do what you need.”

Captain Coles looked on with bated breath, shaken out of it by a knock at the compartment’s door. He walked up to the panel at the side. “It's Commander Markannen, sir.”

“Let him in.” Doc seemed ill at ease.

“Over here, Cyber.” The Captain hailed Markannen over. “You got it?”

“Yes, sir. Minnie transmitter buoy. New type, haven't seen it before. It's… we missed it, it's hydrogen-cooled. Tiny, and damn near dark. Hard to pick out unless it's beaming, or chirping.” He put his hands on his knees. Had he run here? “I scrubbed through the logs… when we got in system, we registered the comms, but we thought the signal was one of ours… and we thought the buoy was flaming wreckage.”

“Good.” The Captain gasped. “You listen to me. I hate to be a prick, but I have to be clear. This is the most… most important thing you've ever… done in your life.” He nodded. “Get me that beacon, send an EVA team. I want it in a Faraday box, in whatever ship they're shoving me in, under my custody alone.”

“Sir?”

“Don’t. Just do it.”

“Yes sir.”

“I need a second favor.”

“Okay, Captain.”

“I need the drives for the main computer and the sensor consoles. Full readouts and logs for all systems.”

“They're infected, sir.”

“I know.” He nodded. “Standard containment protocol. We're not going to be able to get the whole damn ship over in time. But… people back home need to know.”

“I…” Markannen paused. “I understand.”

“Same security as the buoy.”

“What's the third order?” Coles stood by the doorframe.

“It's for you, Coles.” He nodded. “I know what you think you saw. Secure that talk. Never tell a damn soul. You'll cause a panic.”

“Sir—” Coles winced. The Captain had been good to him. He would defer, for now. “I understand.”

“We'll talk.”

The Captain nodded to Doc, who had been busy inserting an IV into his arm. Cold saline rushed into his veins, the sharp tingle of the water seeping into his entire being. The Corpsman primed the blood tubing, attaching it to the Y-joint as the donor blood started to trickle in. “Prep the operating theater, possible internal bleeding.”

A lone Gladius dropship prowled through the night, spacesuited flight crew staring out into that which had once been void. Now it was a burial site, and perhaps they were grave robbers. Tremendous hulks, broken and scattered, mingled metal and flesh and silicon alike. The cargo ramp opened, a portal to the whole macabre scene as the small craft spun about. The silent burn of her RCS thrusters ilumined the wordless testimony of emergency helmets and the shattered visages of deadened faceplates alike, pulling back the veil on a tapestry of cold, bitter decay.

“O’Connell? Kim?” The loadmaster nodded. “You're up.”

“Understood.” The EVA specialists glanced at each other, Kim even tapping O’Connell on the shoulder, right on top of a patch of an old-school Space Station astronaut throwing a shaka beneath his Irish-EU flag. “Back in a jiffy,” Kim radioed in.

The two kicked off their mag-boots and primed their thruster packs, a green piloting HUD popping up across the visor of their Hoplite-VI suits. A toolkit hung from their belts, with some effects velcroed to their chests. O’Conell strafed his thrusters to the side as he nearly brushed by a floating body, the light of his headlamps glinting off the reflective stripe that lay across the breast of the Minervan uniform. “So much for the new foldables,” he said, making eye contact with the dormant face of a Minervan woman as he floated by. She was no older than twenty. She looked kind of like his cousin. They had the same hair. “Looks like they kicked it just like anybody else.”

“Thought those helmets deploy automatically?”

“Did. She didn't flash-cook, at least. Only got so much air, I guess.”

“Fuck me, man.”

Around the slim, night-blue shape of the cyber buoy, a forest of forms hung. One of them held a tablet computer in his hand. Another, a wrench. It appeared they'd been blown towards the beacon by an explosion aboard their ship, a mangled scrap of what had once been a leg still tumbling ever so slightly. Kim glanced over at O’Conell. O’Connell stared in shock.

Kim looked out at them. One was the spitting image of his brother. Another’s uniform bore the same surname as his childhood neighbor. He reached to his chest, a book velcroed there in place, in stark white with laminated pages easily turned with the heavy-duty gloves. He crossed himself, flipped the page, and read.

“Lord God, by the power of Your Word You pulled back the darkness that rest on the face of the deep, and divided the day from the night. You set the stars in the heavens to give light on the Earth and by a star led worshippers to Your Son.”

His stomach churned as he surveyed the faces of the dead, whose bones would not know the rest of the grave nor the solace of the depths; he had, of course, trained for years to fight and kill men and women just like these. That had never meant he wanted to, it had never made him enjoy the terrible duty, it had never made him relish these here, the spoiled of victory.

“As we commit the bodily remains of these, our unknown brothers and sisters, to the heavens, we pray they will be granted peace and tranquility until that glorious Resurrection in the last day, and the life of the world to come, through our Lord Jesus Christ; at whose second coming in glorious majesty to judge the world, the stars shall give up their dead. We pray that You may forgive them their sins and raise them to a place where there is no pain, no grief, no sighing, but everlasting life in and through and with Christ Your Son. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.”

There was silence, even reverence, from the void. The stars knew their charges. They would keep them until that fateful day.

“Amen…” O’Connell nodded. “You always keep that on you on walks?”

“Yeah,” Kim nodded. “Never know when.”

“It got any prayers in there for the living?” He maneuvered over to the other end of the beacon. “With what's in here, might need it. Better yet, some prayers for peace.”

“Shh— you see that?” A flash lit his peripheral vision, gone in but a moment. He thought he saw one of the corpses jump in surprise.

“Huh?”

“On the— past the hull of the other destroyer.” Kim shook his head. “Oh, shit. Rad spike. Think it was UXO… still a lot of torpedoes floating around.” He chuckled. “You feeling nice and toasty in there?”

“Fuck, man, let's get inside.”

Kim pulsed his thrusters, taking up the other side. He unstrapped the Faraday foil on his belt, and began to wrap the buoy and its shrouded laser comm emitter, as O’Connell strapped mag-handles to it. The surface was cold. Damn cold. The Faraday foil was starting to contract. “How much battery does this thing have, damn?”

“The case is in the ship. C’mon, let's get it back.”

They gave one last forlorn look to the assembly of the dead, and pushed the control stick forward as they flew off into the black.

The Captain opened his eyes to the airlock corridor of a TARUGA-Class frigate, one solid g of gravity holding the wheels of his surgical bed to the deckplate. He glanced down at the tablet in his lap. A sailor jogged alongside the cot.

“Captain, you're awake.” She nodded, a vaguely humanoid synth with a wiry, thin frame. “I'm Cyberwarfare Technician Abija, Commander Markannen sent me. Captain Scott is in command. Your personal effects are being transferred, and the second special cargo is here.” She held a Faraday-caged, ruggedized container roughly the length of his forearm, bulky and rubberized black. “The first is being loaded into the cargo hold. You can check it when you're ambulatory.”

“Thank you, Technician Abija. Is… the hold pressurized?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Sailor?” He twisted his head towards the one pushing the cot. “Bring me down there.”

“Sir, we are under strict orders to get you to the medbay. The hold doesn't have artificial gravity.”

“The surgery. Will the patch hold?”

“Doc said so.”

“Then I don't care. Do it.”

The Sailor wheeled him off the beaten path, as the elevator brought them down to the cavernous— for a ship of this size, anyways— cargo hold of the PDFN AGAMEMNON. A large, grey crate floated down the cargo ramp of the Gladius that had wheeled in from the hangar airlock. He nodded to Abija, tapping the protective case cradled in his arms. “Thank you. You've done me a great help. Now get back home.”

“Aye, sir.” The synth turned and walked away.

“Sailor?”

“Yes sir?”

“Wheel me over to that crate.”

Two EVA specialists and a gaggle of aircrew stood around the crate, seemingly placing bets on what it did. “Hello, Sailors,” the Captain said, raising a bandaged hand in greeting. “Mind giving these old bones a helpin’ hand?”

“Whaddya need, Captain?”

“Open the box.”

“I was told not to do that, sir.”

“By me. Belay that, open the box.” He put his hand to the biometric scanner and punched in the code. “The foil will hold.” He had a hunch.

The Sailors shuffled uneasily. “You sure, sir?”

“Yes.”

They turned the seals, and peeled back the box. A slender, capsule-shaped form sat amongst form-sealing insulating foam, a last-line protective foil shrink-wrapped to the device.

The Captain smiled.

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Adi should have known better than to get between a woman and her hangover.

Wyn Lebasque really loved Calvados. The bars were good, the routes were steady, and the stays were short enough. She could have had stable, simple work back home on Yangtze or anywhere else back in Keid. That was boring. There was no excitement behind a life that was as easy as they got back in the rest of the Republics. Sure, she had to move cargo, but she got to see the world behind the Curtain on a budget and with very little constraints but a time and a date. She’d stayed in ports in Tau Ceti, Rigel, Fomalhaut, Epsilon Indi, and even as far out as the systems out in the Pavonian Current. She’d gotten to see a good amount of Sol, too, and she honestly got why nobody really cared about Earth anymore.

Wyn dragged her face out of the couch’s pillows. She blinked the sleep out of her eyes and it took her irises a second to let in the light in a trickle rather than a flood— as she came to, she took in emerald eyes in a judgemental squint.

“We gotta go, ya fuckin’ bum.” Adi Kamil scoffed. “We’re leaving early.”

“Early?”

“Those guys in the Gulf need bailing out. We leave in forty-eight hours.”

“Fuck, it gotta be us?” She groaned.

“They’re starving, Wyn.”

“Fuck.”

She rolled off the couch, flopping onto the floor with a thud. It was a less dignified sound than the thump she used to have. Was she letting herself go? Adi crossed his arms over her. “Do I have to drag you on your feet? C’mon, Wyn, what was it last night? Absinthe?”

“Y…yeah.”

“To which?”

“It was… jägerbombs, not absinthe.”

He cocked his head, hands on his hips. “Really, Wyn?” He rolled his eyes, and squatted down, holding out his arm with a sigh. “C’mon.”

“What would… What’d I do without you?”

“I don’t know, Wyn. Drown in puke, I think?”

“Fuck off.” She groaned, wrapping her arm over his shoulder as he slung her bag across his arm. “Yeah, probably.”

“Point that— point your face away from me while I help you walk, okay? Your breath is rancid.”

“Got it. Radical.” She nodded.

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Calvados City was pretty, for what it was. Palm trees, imports from Earth, reached out for the sky, dwarfed by the space elevator that sprung up from the center of the resort town. This city had two kinds of people in it: traders and vacationers. It was Minerva’s one indulgence into the world of moneymaking rackets. Wyn stumbled alongside Adi, her right arm slung over him, a WIRED!™ can in her left hand, hoping the pseudocaf would, even if it wouldn’t sober her up, at least let her have the energy to walk alone. She couldn’t help but think it tasted like battery acid, but even if the Blues didn’t know how to make an energy drink taste good, they sure as hell knew how to make it kick. That was the upside of living here— even if any other Minervan looked at you with suspicion, you could trade across the Curtain with impunity and relaxed tariffs. There was next to no luxury you could find in the UN that you couldn’t find in the FMR— well, good wine came to mind— but there was something about the storied, prominent name brands of the United Nations that some people couldn’t help but find irresistible.

Hawaiian shirts and pastel swimsuits mobbed the tube station as they stepped into the subway car, and the two freight haulers stood out in the crowd like a sore thumb, clearly not dressed for the occasion. Heaven forbid anyone here have something to do. She sighed. Fuckin’ tourists. She was at least glad the station was so close to her apartment. This line ran from the Long Shore neighborhood to Jarrett Beach, but it passed through the space elevator on the way. That was their stop, and she sipped away at the caustic beverage as she awaited the siren call of the text-to-speech announcer beckoning her to safety, away from these disgusting people who had the gall to enjoy themselves in her backyard. She hadn’t grown up here, of course, and she barely lived here anyways, but it was hers. She’d run away from the comfort and stability of New Brixton and sought the rough living of running freight because there was nothing that scared her more than a soft life— let alone a degree, a desk, and a partnership at Lebasque & Koyama. It was either this or the military, and unlike many of her countrymen, she didn’t particularly care enough about the FMR to take a slug for it.

The announcer sung its sweet, saccharine-smooth song as the algorithm pieced together the words “Now arriving: Bonhomme Memorial Space Tether. Mind the gap.” Her hangover and the some two hundred or so miligrams of pseudocaffeine in her body were viciously fighting for control over her brain as Adi led her by the hand out of the subway car, emerging into the concourse of the station. The view of the city was majestic from the glass walls of the Tether’s integrated Calvados City Rapid Transit station; glass, concrete, and composite alongside faux wood and stone with grand avenues and promenades stretching down into the beach in one direction, and towards the bazaar in another. They sauntered towards the entrance gates of the embarkation station, and scanned their work IDs at the commercial gate. Adi passed her bag through the scanner and they walked through the security gates, and as the disinterested officer stared wistlessly off towards the beach, a green light flashed behind his console and he waved them through. “Travel safe.”

They nodded, and stepped into one of the smaller auxiliary cars, slated for a climb at thirty minutes past the hour. The tether complex was, in fact, several space elevators colocated with each other— and the passenger cars had the best view. It wasn’t common for space elevators to have windows, let alone large wrap-around ones, with most settling for a pass-through screen to entertain its passengers with a spectacular vision of the world slipping away, but these ones were wrapped around with windows of what was either alumiglass or clear-ceramic. She couldn’t tell. It didn’t really matter, either. It would hold, and it would look damn good while it did. The climber car’s passengers were an eclectic mix— there was somebody from anywhere here. Anywhere but here, anyways.

On their right sat a pair of UN businessmen— she could tell by the way they carried themselves. They flicked their eyes around like they were in enemy territory, the polo shirts and khaki pants telling on them almost as much as their laptop bags, almost as much as the way they walked ever so uneasily in Calvados’ 0.85g.

On their left was another gaggle of locals— as much as one could call them that, anyways. These ones were either dockworkers or cargo haulers like her— they were built for it, and their wrists showed the imprints that years working in exo-harnesses would give you. Even still, they weren’t from here. Nobody was from Calvados. People born here rarely stayed here, anyways. People came here because they hated how cushy their life was in a place where the state would provide for you, because they wanted to chase riches in a land where there were actual consequences. Or the illusion of them, anyways. Calvados was a land of a quick buck, a quick tan, and quicker changes in fortune. It was a quick ride down to the gutter if you played your cards wrong, but wealth was never more than five minutes away. That’s why she was here. Sure, they still had some of the Minervan safety net— but they weren’t smothered by it, and it wouldn’t fuck you out of your next score. That’s how she saw it, that’s how she liked it, and that was enough for her and the lucky few hundred thousand to live in the Calvados Special Economic Zone. Most back home thought people like them were insane. They just didn’t see the vision.

They settled in as the time wound down to the climb, pulling the harnesses down and strapping in for what would be a pretty speedy ride, given the distances involved.

She breathed in and coughed— Adi had been right about her breath— and as the door alarms sounded and the hatches slid shut, she watched the surly bonds of Calvados slip away in a blur of skyscraper, sand, and sea.

The Siren’s Song was a storied ship. She had been christened Terra Nova, first owned by a UN company from Epsilon Indi, and now owned by a Minervan co-op. She was a Savannah-Class, a tried-and-true cargo hauler design that had been built by the yards at Alpha Centauri for almost a hundred years, which was itself a slightly tweaked version of an older design from Sol’s twenty-fourth century. The internal markets of the UN and FMR very rarely touched— at least, outside of Special Economic Zones like Calvados— but in the freight business, it really didn’t matter who you bought your ship from. They were all pretty much the same, and most of them were second-hand, if not third or fourth, and none of them were particularly luxurious. Siren’s Song was no exception.

The dockworkers scurried around the loading platform, EVA suits’ position-marker lights cutting through the settling night, as the shadows of dusk crept upon the trunk of the enormous tree piercing into the heavens. They had still about two days to load the shipments of grain, seeds, soil, Raw Programmable Protein, aeroponic equipment, and various other supplies, including a few luxuries— real coffee, for one. Grown on Minerva. Not the synthetic stuff. She’d be doing the same job in reverse when they got to Akrotiri— well, not quite. She’d be loading all the containers onto shuttles to bring down to the surface. They had the capacity for thousands of containers, but Akrotiri didn’t need all that. Most of the containers flying with them would be for another leg of the run— they’d hang a chain of assists off EQ Pegasi, Krüger 60, and 61 Cygni into a high-velocity trajectory to reach Altair in two months. It sucked that they were going to lose a bunch of money on this run— some of the goods they had been planning to bring to Altair weren’t scheduled to arrive for another month. Oh well. Looks like they had to go be altruistic for a change. She was still getting paid, at least.

The decks up here were plategrav. Inside, anyways. It was real fancy stuff. Sure, the technology to make gravity from the deckplates had been around for a few decades, but it still felt new, perhaps because it hadn’t made its way to cargo ships yet. Cruise ships and mega-yachts used it. The UN military almost went all in on it in the 2430s until it killed a ton of people, and then they backed off until they finally did go all in on it a few decades later. Minerva had been a little bit more skeptical, especially after all the deaths the Blues had on the Charles de Gaulle and the Akagi, and was only just kind of rolling it out now. Freight haulers? Hell no. Too expensive for next to no gain of functionality in the ultimate goal of making money. She was enjoying it while it lasted.

She stumble-sauntered towards the gangway, the meager portal of the airlock beckoning her home.

Captain Kaylin Rama looked out over untamed stars and uncharted space, and sighed. The WORLDS’ OKAYEST XO capilary-mug hung next to her, holding back her coffee from floating away by clever fluid dynamics and sheer human ingenuity, as she peered out the meager observation deck, one of precious few aboard the behemoth vessel. If she looked out the cupola window at the right angles, she could see hundreds of torpedo tubes and missile cells stretch out across the primary hull of the battleship, and always, always the slablike panels of applique armor hung above the vista of the space beyond like a gaping maw.

She clicked on her mag-boots and did a flip with whatever joy and whimsy she could muster against the best efforts of Big Navy, images of the twentieth-century astronauts experiencing zero-g for the first time looming larger than life in her mind. She let herself hang from the ceiling for a bit, before grabbing her coffee, taking a sip, and taking another glance out the observation cupola trying to spot any of the other ships in her battlegroup.

The intercom in the room crackled, her XO’s voice filtering into the stale air of the observation deck. “Skipper, FLASH priority. New orders came in.”

She already had her phone in hand. Her work phone, anyways. It’d buzzed just moments earlier. She unfolded the screen into the full reading tablet size and sighed when she saw the orders on the screen.

It was going to be a long few months.

She disabled her boots’ magnetic grip, did a halfhearted somersault onto the deckplate, and walked off for the CIC, feet firmly planted on the best stand-in available for solid ground.

“Captain on the deck!”

Her Executive Officer, Commander Erik Olsen, stepped aside from the holographic station at the center of the CIC and nodded to her, tapping a button to switch workstations to the other side of the table. He pulled back the acceleration chair and brought the desk up to standing height. “All yours, ma’am.”

She returned a salute and nodded. “At ease.”

The sailors got back to work as she walked up to her crash couch, tapping the headrest as she always did. “You read them?” She held her tablet in her hand.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Thoughts?” She arched an eyebrow.

“Depends.” He paused. “Professional or personal?”

“Business before pleasure.”

“Professionally: I think we can break it, ma’am.” He nodded. “We’ve got a lot of firepower here. Even if we don’t match their numbers, just us being there will call into question the political viability of the blockade.”

“Personally.”

“Personally, I think the worlds are going to hell in a handbasket, and we’re the couriers.”

“I’ll take that under advisement.” She nodded. “Let’s get a course laid in, get these orders to the rest of the battlegroup. And tell the chef to throw the steaks on the grill once we transit slip.”

“Aye, ma’am.”

She picked up a phone from the base of the console. “All hands, all hands. This is the Captain.” All across the ship, the 1MC jumped to life. “Due to circumstances beyond our control, our deployment has been— oh, I’m not gonna sugarcoat it. We’ve been retasked. Our new orders are to preempt the incoming United Nations blockade of Akrotiri, one of our furthest colonies... and to deter its continued enforcement. We will not be engaging in combat with the Blues, but is damn well our job to put the fear of God— and more importantly the fear of us— in ‘em.” She sighed. “Unfortunately, this will mean we’ll be out here a little while longer. And yes, there will be steak in the mess when we reach the slipstream. Might as well celebrate, I guess.” She sighed. “We will need to give this task our all. This is a mission of incredible importance. Those people down there are counting on us, and if we don’t deliver, they could starve. So let’s get out there, let’s get mean, and let’s send the Blues home scared.” She nodded to the slip officer. “Mr. Joyeaux, lay in the course.”

“Aye, ma’am.” He nodded. “We should have a solution in six hours.”

She buried her head back into the phone. “All hands, make ready for slipspace transition in t-minus six hours.”

"You know," the voice from the TV in the Siren’s Song rec room was nonchalant and bemused, ever so slightly loopy. "I ran into Jason Solís at a wings joint in Marshall the other day."

"No kidding, Xavi?" The other voice was similarly out to lunch. "Did he recognize you?"

"Well, considering that to most people, I'm a disembodied voice on a television, no."

"You know, my grandma was mad when I took the announcer job," 

"Really, Steve?"

"Absolutely. She said nobody would see my pretty face," he shook his head, no camera in sight to catch it. "She wanted me to be a neodisco star."

"Do you think you have that in you?"

"One hundred percent, Xavi."

"Okay, then, let's hear it."

"Okay, you, me, and all of Minerva." Steve drew a deep breath and snapped his fingers. "Ohhh, when I see you walk in the roooom—" He sucked in a breath and stopped singing. "Oh, that's a foul, Montaña. Bokeo at the line for the 'Nauts."

"You know, maybe she was onto something." Xavier nodded, a slight frown of approval on a face neither Adi or Wyn could see. 

Wyn sighed.

"These announcers fucking blow, man." 

"Look, gonna have to put up with these jokers. This is the only broadcast I could record." Adi's shoulders sunk. "At least the game's good."

"They never talk about it!"

"You're not watching for the commentators, are you?"

"No, but, like."

"Let's work through that, Steve. Your grandma wanted people to see your face, so she encouraged you to sing, a profession which is also largely audio based."

"Correct, Xavi."

"…They're still on the grandma thing."

"Did you tell her that?"

"Yes I did. Solís for three! And he ties the game up."

"Can the Caballeros make it down the court before the buzzer? Veiss has it, and he's running out of time, he shoots it from halfcourt— 

"Oh, shit." Adi leaned forward in his seat. Wyn's eyes widened.

"Oh, right off the backboard!"

They grinned at each other.

"Looks like your 'Nauts are hanging in there, Adi."

"Yeah, barely. Just wait. Suri is a choke artist."

"Adi, with all due respect, what the hell are you on about?"

"You saw what happened in the divisionals last year."

She sighed. "You fuckin' Canaveral fans are delusional…"

The Action Group Intelligence Center was always a little bit chillier than the rest of the ship. That had always rubbed Captain Rama wrong. The whole damn ship was too cold all the time. She was glad this generation of duty uniforms had a personal pressure layer— the fact that anybody doing anything was effectively walking around in a temporarily helmetless spacesuit meant everybody had their own climate control for everything but their head. Most people left the gloves off until General Quarters hit. She couldn't help but always notice that Olsen didn't.

Lieutenant Commander Jo Broadhurst, the lead intelligence officer of Space Action Group FIVE-SEVEN, stepped up in front of the display table, beckoning the others in the command staff around. She stood shoulder-to-shoulder with several other Captains, and a gaggle of space warfare officers gathered, clustered around them, peering over shoulders and between cracks in the group.

Jo nodded, and he clicked a remote. “Alright, let's begin.” A holographic, faded-color rendering of a sparse star system sprung to life in front of them. “GJ 1221 Draconis. White dwarf, two planets. GJ 1221 II, lifeless, frozen rock. One, however, is a different story. I'm sure some of you have heard the name Akrotiri thrown around. This is it. Our friend Jimmy’s favorite little boondoggle. Eyeball planet, breathable atmosphere and damn near one-g, stuck bang-on in the middle of a fading Goldilocks zone and on the far edge of nowhere. Native flora and fauna. And, as I'm sure many of you have all figured out by now, the reason we're all here today.”

“While back, the lovely people of Calvados— bless their hearts— set up a colony on Akrotiri. Two problems. One, they didn't tell anybody until after they did it. They were frustrated the Consensus was moving slow on authorizing their project. So somebody gets the wonderful idea to do it unofficially without asking and go beg for forgiveness later. Doesn't matter, we're obligated to protect ‘em. They're Minervan citizens.” Somehow, Rama grumbled to herself. Wouldn't think it, the way the Calvadans act.

“Problem two. The UN moved in just after they got there. And they had no idea anybody was there. Several UN space agencies built a radio telescope in orbit of the planet to observe past the Draconis Gulf for scientific applications.” Jo shook his head. “This is the bigger of the two problems… by a considerable margin. Because there's also a secret third problem, and it makes all of this a lot worse. There's UN forces on the ground already, and they're listed as officially dead. Deserters, back from the Maybe War. Of course, Bradbury wants them back, and their equipment, of course— and moreover, they want our colonists off the rock.”

“Fuck,” Rama whispered under her breath. So this just got a whole lot more messy.

“We’ve had actionable intelligence that the UN is dispatching a blockade from multiple sources for a few weeks now. An inside source in-system has corroborated it and a source in Bradbury has confirmed it. The colonists have been having food problems recently— it’s a pretty damn cynical play. Starve ‘em out ‘till they give you what you want. Here’s our rules of engagement…”

“So yeah, two things you need to know about me. I'm arachnophobic, but, like, phobic in the scared way and the hate way. I don't know if y'all know this but brown recluse spiders are an invasive species in some parts of Mars. I mean, all species are invasive species on Mars, but those lil’ motherfuckers weren't supposed to hitch a ride. Like I'm sorry, little guys, but we don't want your kind here.” The standup on the lounge TV paced along the stage. “Number two is I puke easy. I don't know what it is. I can't get bad news without throwing up. I think I just have a very sympathetic digestive system. Lil’ guy's tryin' to show his support. How much this means to him. By ruining my day.”

“Hey, Brett?”

“Yeah, Wyn?” The lump on the couch stirred.

“We had the room scheduled. Think you could, y’know…?” She jerked a thumb back towards the door. “Unless you want to stay for basketball.”

“NBA or RB—”

“Republics League.”

He rolled his eyes. “Enjoy your short-dude ball.”

“Oh, shuddup, Brett.”

“Fine, fine.” Brett threw his hands up and walked towards the rec room’s exit. “You two enjoy yourselves. See ya for poker at 1800?”

“Yeah, def.” Adi smiled. “See ya there.” Brett grunted.

“Who's on today?” Adi cocked his head as Wyn walked to the TV, sticking a datacart into the appropriate plug.

“Well, Adi, today in basketball we have… let’s see. ‘Dores-Roohawks, Nauts-Hoplites, and Mets-Manhattan Beach.”

“Oh, rad. Canaveral vs Attica? That's gonna be a fun one.” He stuck a thumb out towards the TV. “Fire it up.”

“Gotcha. You mind getting the popcorn?”

“Sure, yeah.” Adi nodded, heading over to the cabinet. He groaned. “All we got is Crispin Buttery’s. All out of the good stuff, I guess.”

“Crispin Buttery’s is good stuff.” Wyn huffed.

“Have you ever actually looked at the back of the bag?” Adi raised an eyebrow.

“Uh… no.”

“I don’t think you’d ever eat it again if you did.” He squinted, holding up the Martian staple. “I mean, I’m pretty sure that much sodium just kills you.”

“I like it salty!”

“Wyn, you’re gonna die young.”

You say that like it’s something I didn’t already know. Wyn shrugged. “All queued up.” She gave Adi a thumbs-up.

“I still don’t think you’re using that right, Wyn.”

“Get off my ass.” She hit play, and the RBL on S5 fanfare filled the rec room, as cleanly-designed team graphics split the screen. The dulcet tones of Steve Boise and Xavier Ofosu-Yeboah broke both the silence and the peace on the couch.

“These clowns again?” Wyn buried her face in her hands.

“You’re always surprised, Wyn, but it’s literally their job. They’re the guys who get paid to do this for Sports Five. We always watch Sports Five. It’s always them.”

“Nuh-uh! We got a different crew last week!”

“Steve had food poisoning!” Adi paused. “Wait, why’d that take them both out?”

“If I had known a little food poisoning was all it took to keep them out of the booth, I would have been a chef,” Wyn grinned. “Well, looks like we’re in for a fun one.”

“Oh, that one sucked,” Wyn rolled her eyes. “Suri is a fucking fraud, and I had to listen to a man winging about a tummyache for two hours to his bozo lackey.”

“I don’t think they’re that—”

“Shut the fuck up, Adi.”

He threw his hands up in protest. “Woah, there. Okay. See you for poker?”

“Yeah, whatev.”

“All hands. General Quarters, General Quarters. All hands, man your battle stations. The route of travel is forward and dorsal to starboard side, ventral and aft to port.” The 1MC boomed through every corridor and compartment on the venerable old battleship. “Set Environmental Condition Five and prepare for imminent contact. This is not a drill.” The CIC was mercifully spared from the meticulously-drilled chaos and commotion that would be consuming the rest of the ship, and Captain Rama looked over at the face of the Boatswain’s Mate, speaking calmly into the mic inside their pressure helm, the red battle lights of the CIC glinting off the duraglas visor. “Prepare for imminent realspace influx in fifteen minutes. I say again…”

She stared down at her console, her breath fogging her visor. She was breathing too fast and the CIC was too cold. I shouldn’t be this anxious. We’re not here to shoot anybody.

Olsen radioed in on a private channel. “You good, Skipper?”

“Yeah. All ready, XO.”

“You think we’ll have to fight?”

“Not unless they do something real fuckin’ stupid.”

“Think they will?”

“Jury’s out.”

He closed the channel, and fourteen minutes later, reality collapsed on itself. Her stomach was punched into itself, the fluid in her ears momentarily going every which way. There was no real ‘up’ in space, but suddenly up was everywhere, nowhere, and somewhere, all at once. She wanted to puke. She always wanted to puke when they did a slip transit. She never did. Contacts lit up on her master display, and console operators ringing the CIC began assessing what they were. An eyeball planet hung suspended in the distant sunrays of a dying dwarf. They were in the right place.

“Coleman is a fraud.” A hmph and spilled popcorn accompanied a foot stomping against the deckplate.

“What the hell are you talking about, Wyn?” Adi picked up his face from the couch pillows, silhouetted in the glow of the TV. “He’s one of the best three-point shooters in the whole League.”

“He can’t fucking dribble! Every time he tries to back up he gets stolen from. I don’t care how many threes he hits, he’s holding everyone else back! He can’t rebound, he can’t dribble… all he does is force everyone else to play for him. And de la Cruz is way better than he looks because he never gets a chance to show it. Bench Coleman. Fucking fraud.”

“You say that about everybody,”

“Then everybody should stop being frauds!”

He sighed.

Captain Rama wanted to get up out of her seat and look over some shoulders. That’s what she was going to do if nothing happened in fifteen minutes. “SENS, what are we seeing?”

“Slew of new contacts, Captain. five… new picture, seven contacts India. Tracks and classifications to come. Only so much I can do with the retro IR sensors while we’re burning. Permission to go loud on radar?”

“Permission granted. Thank you, SENS.” The engine burn was blinding the sensitive infrared cameras that comprised one of the many tools of the trade for getting to know your new neighbors. The radars would pick up the slack, but they likely wouldn't have the majority of their tactical picture until they could bring the most sensitive parts of the ship’s admittedly aging sensor suite to bear. She nodded from inside her pressure helmet. “TAC, status?”

“Tubes one through fifty loaded, with fifty-one through eighty on standby, ma’am.” The Tactical Officer squinted at his monitors. “Capacitor banks one through five coming online. Will keep you apprised of any issues.”

“Understood.” She nodded. “Bring the secondary gun radiators online, too.”

“Don't you think that's a little aggressive of a posture, Captain?” Olsen, her XO, radioed in from across the command console on a private channel.

“That's the point, Erik. I want them to know we mean it.”

“Ma’am, do we mean it?” There was a hint of concern in his voice, seeping in where the gasket of calm, professional confidence had slipped ever so slightly out of alignment.

“You know what our rules of engagement say.”

“I know what they say, Captain. But we’re out on the edge of nowhere. Do you mean it?”

“I wish I didn't, Commander Olsen.”

“God help us all,” Erik slumped back into his acceleration chair.

“Yeah,” Kaylin snipped. “Yeah, pretty much.”

“Captain, SENS.” The Sensors Officer called in.

“Go ahead, SENS.”

“We have new contacts. Radar reports twenty-three contacts Romeo. We have established initial classifications and are developing tracks. Check the system for details.” The contact markers on her console display blossomed with information, preliminary orbit projections sprouting forth from newly-resolved prograde vectors. She watched as specks of sensor noise resolved into satellites and drones, individual strands of a great Blue web weaving itself into view. “Thank you, SENS.”

“TAC, Captain. I want a dry cycle on the guns while we're still burning retrograde. Check them. Full systems test, bring the secondary power system on.”

“Aye, skipper. Bringing the battle reactor online.”

Erik stared daggers across the console. She met his gaze, recoiled, and paused. Wait, no… If Erik thought the fore gun radiators being on was a sign of aggression, what the hell would it say to light them up like a Christmas tree? She wanted them to know she meant it. She didn't want them to think she was going to start it.

“Negative, disregard my last. Surge the main. Don't waste the fuel.”

“Aye, Captain. Cycling sequential off main grid.”

Lights flickered. In many other, less essential parts of the ship, they were just plain going out. The MEDINA RIDGE was a beautiful, graceful lady, but she was getting up in age, and she was a product of her time, even with all the work they had done on her. In her generation, battleship power grids had been a limiting factor— and the designers of the day had decided that the MARIANAS-Class would sidestep that limitation by having an entirely secondary power grid for the main guns alone— the ‘battle reactor’. El Morro Naval Yard was proud of its handiwork— it meant a MARIANAS could do something no other battleship of her day could do, and have all five main, spinal guns shoot simultaneously and on a single target. However, it was a pain in the ass, and worse, one that was almost never necessary. Few captains ever ordered the secondary reactor to active— outside of live-fire gunnery exercises, there was next to no reason to. Kaylin Rama, after further consideration, was not about to buck a good trend.

“Gun One, empty, check, firing.” A dedicated bank of capacitors dumped massive sums of energy harvested from the disemboweled core of an artificial star into a series of magnets strung out along a barrel spanning a good chunk of a kilometer, with nothing to accelerate. Heat, of course, found its way out, a complex series of heat exchangers passing thermal energy to the secondary gun radiators up top. Her display flashed a green OK on the status indicator.

“Gun One is go. Gun Two, empty, check, firing.”

A silence hung.

“Gun Two is go. Gun Three, empty, check, firing.”

She looked up through the holographic projection of the system, peering over the watchstanding console at Olsen. He didn't seem to notice, staring intently at his console, brow furrowed in a nervous pause.

“Everything okay, Olsen?”

“Yeah, just… worried.”

“More so than usual?”

“Yeah. First contact with the Blues,”

“This is your… first? Even after all those Frontier deterrence patrols?”

“Yes ma’am.”

The voice of the TAC officer broke their conversation. “Gun Three is go. Gun Four, empty, check, firing.”

She nodded towards the Tactical Officer, uncaring that he couldn't see her. “Olsen, you've really… never run into them? That's surprising.”

“I mean, not… this close, in this hard of contact. I know it says deterrence patrols, but those patrols got really sidetracked. Most of what we did was antipiracy,” He shook his head. “The Blues were being too well behaved.”

Another green OK flashed onscreen. “Gun Four is go. Gun Five, empty, check, firing.”

“I thought I’d told you about this,” Erik’s voice came in over the private channel.

“Well, I— I don't remember you telling me, but. Maybe? I'm— I'm really sorry— I… I believe you when you say you told me, but I just can't remember it—”

“Ma’am, don't worry about it. It's been a long patrol.”

“Look, Erik. You've got so much experience under your belt I forget sometimes there are things I've done that you haven't.”

A jolt and the sound of a loud CRAAAAK ran down the structure of the ship up into her acceleration couch and through her console, and an alarm broke out over her helmet speakers. A large red INOP flashed over the icon for Gun Five. “Reporting a fire in Capacitor Bank Five. Gun Five is no go. Repeat, no go.”

“Shit—”

“Fuck!” Rama scrolled through messages on the Damage Control screen in disbelief and switched over to a public channel. “DAMCON, tell me you have a team en route!”

“They were out as soon as I heard the call, ma’am.” The Damage Control Officer nodded, his lightboard showing statuses all over the ship. “We'll get it all fixed up right away.”

“You know, kid, in all my years in the Fleet,” Chief Poole scratched his head, or at least tried to through his pressure helm. “I dinnae think I ever saw something like this.”

“What, exactly… is it?” The younger Machinist’s Mate squinted at the charred-out wreck of Capacitor Bank Five. “Well. I know what it is. What it was.”

“Heat exchangers are melted right through, all three of ‘em. And look at that crack, Kuzma,” Poole pointed to the main capacitor array. “Oh, shite, is that still bubblin’?”

“Source of the fire?” Kuzma raised an eyebrow. “You think, I mean.”

“Possibly. Shite, I tell ya, kid. This whole Navy is going t’hell. Look at this installation. Sloppy work. Rushed work.” He held out a phone— one of the few with an enabled camera onboard, taking pictures of the sizzling wreckage. “No wonder it caught. Get the foam on it. Can't believe the bloody DAMCON boys missed that.”

“On it, Chief.” Kuzma leveled the nozzle of the isolator-extinguisher bottle on the bubbling, cracked shell of the enormous capacitor. He had to check to see if the RCS autocompensator was on before he squeezed the trigger, bracing himself for the slight pushback. Neutralizing foam sprayed and crystallized on the broken component.

“Agh, no fixing that one.” Chief shook his head. “We have backups of the capacitors, sure… but the heat exchanger units are supposed to be impossible to all lose at the same time.” He grit his teeth. “See, son, we used to have enough time in spacedock to get everything done right… now every sailor and yardworker has to run around with their hair on fire to match the pace of the bloody deployments. It wasn't like this twenty years ago.” He shook his head with a disapproving click of the tongue. “If the Maestro was still alive to see this, I bet’e’d drive off a cliff again. His bloody brilliance shot to hell by a bunch of knobbers who think they can do it better, faster ‘n’ cheaper than ‘m.”

“Huh? I thought he got in a car crash,”

“What, you didn't read past the headlines, did you? He gunned it right off the cliffside on Highway 25. The old man died with his fate in his hands, just like he lived.”

“Should we all be so lucky, I guess.” Kuzma shrugged. Small chunks of isolator foam that hadn't quite attached itself to the capacitor floated past his visor and pinged off one of the other A-gangers working with him in the reasonably small room.

“Are’ya daft? The old man drove off a cliff, fell forty meters to his death! Hardly lucky. Ya wanna be lucky like that? Put that gunk in a cup an’ drink it!”

“No, Chief, on second thought I guess he wasn't that lucky.”

“No shite, he died on New Year's Eve in ninety-nine. Missed a hell of a party. Poor old bastard. Dearly missed.”

One of the Electrician’s Mates with them, EM2 Valencia, tapped the flashlight on her helmet. “Hang on a tic. Got something here.”

“Yeah?” Chief Poole looked back at her. “Whatcha got, kid?”

“Looks like… busted power relay. Burnt out. It's the switcher.” Valencia shook her head. “That relay right there, 2B-65-243? Regulates the whole power distribution for the capacitor bank. That's responsible for switching between the main and the secondary power circuit. Looks like it got jammed somewhere in between… Every wire but ground is connected.”

“Must have cycled too quickly,” Chief Poole looked down at the relay. “Ah, shite.”

“That's what I was thinking, Chief. We better check the other guns. These relays don't get flipped often. Who knows what will fail next.”

“So what's the damage, Valencia? Kuzma?”

“Relay 2B-65-243, which, we can bypass… not much else on this side. Minor cosmetic damage.” Valencia looked over at Kuzma.

“Main capacitor bank melted. Secondary exploded. As you said, Chief, we got spares. Easy replacement, as long as we can get the… melted capacitor goop out of here. We're really gonna be reeling from losing the heat exchangers. It's supposed to be impossible to lose them all simultaneously— we just got real unlucky, I guess. Main capacitor fire melted through the primary, and the explosion of the secondary capacitor sent shrapnel through the two backups. Can run the whole gun on one. Not on none.”

“Thank God the auto-extinguishers kicked in. Would have hated to do this work while we were still under thrust.” Poole nodded. “Petty Officer Valencia, you take point, get this wrapped up. CHENG, TAC, and the Captain want two things, answers and a solution, and I don't intend to keep them waiting on either.”

“Shit,” Rama’s eyes flicked up and down the report. “So we're down one gun heading into the closest contact anyone's had with the Blues in thirty years.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Poole nodded. “For the moment, we’ve lost functionality of Gun Five.”

“What the hell happened?” CHENG, Commander Meyers, stared him down, face red with annoyance. “You’re kidding me.”

“We believe the root cause stems from a combination of inadequate relay actuator maintenance in the last overhaul period and a rapid cycle between primary and secondary power grids.”

Rama’s heart sank.

“You believe.” Commander Meyers grit his teeth.

“Well, sir, it's the determination of our fact-finding survey, aye—”

“Chief, this was your team. Your conclusion.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Mr. Meyers.” Captain Rama cut off Meyers before he could say something inflammatory. “Let the Chief speak. I’d like to ask him about something he said earlier.”

“Sorry, ma’am.” CHENG backed off.

“I believe you said ‘for now’, Chief?”

“Aye, for the moment. I have a plan on how we can bring ‘er online again, but… it's a bit of a long shot.”

“A long shot.” Rama shook her head. “Well, any gun is better than no gun.”

“Aye, ma’am.” Poole nodded. “Alright. So, the capacitor can be easily replaced with onboard stocks. The heat exchangers, we'd need to go back to a FRRV or spacedock, and we don't have either luxury, do we? But what we do have are backups, but they're on the other guns.”

“I see where this is going, and I'm going to stop you right here.” Commander Meyers shook his head. “I worked ship thermal systems for years. Those units don't come apart.”

“No they dinnae, not by design. But, with a little elbow grease and creative thinking, I know we can take them apart. I went through the ship’s schematic bank, and while they're complicated, and it'll take a delicate touch, I've started working out a procedure to remove and replace one of the backup heat exchangers. Gun One looks like our best transplant candidate.”

“Let's see it, then.” Rama nodded. “Show CHENG.”

“Aye.” He pulled out a tablet and handed it over to the Chief Engineer. Meyers’ eyes widened. “Huh,” he grimaced. “It's... doable. More than I expected. Captain, we can do this, but we run the risk of disabling two guns instead of one.”

“We need to restore our full offensive capabilities, CHENG. We've got a full picture now. We're sitting just slightly over a three to one numerical disadvantage. That's not something we can afford going into with one hand tied behind our back.”

“You wanna cut off that hand trying to get it out?”

“We can mitigate the risk. If you give me a shirt-sleeve working environment in there it'll be a lot easier. I’ll have a team of my best men on it, and I'll be doing most of the work myself. I need you two to trust me,” Poole locked eyes with the Captain. “I've been in this service for twenty-four years, I'll be retirin’ soon whether I want to or not, and I dinnae. I've been doing this longer than some of the crew of this ship have been alive. I need you to trust me now, and if you cannae trust me, I'm askin’ you to trust my experience and my rate.”

“Alright, Chief. I'll trust you,” Meyers lowered the tablet, looking Poole right in the eyes. “You get your best men on this.”

“Aye, thank you, sir.”

“Make it so, Chief. Git ‘er done.” Rama nodded, and walked off. Poole turned to do the same before feeling a heavy hand on his shoulder, spinning on his heels.

“Listen, Chief. I know you're been around the block. I know you can do this,” the Chief Engineer dripped cold judgement in a hushed tone. “Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should take the risk. Captain’s a tactical officer. She sees risk as reward. I don't. I'm an engineering officer. I see risk as lives, and these are the lives of everyone in this battlegroup we're talking about. I don't care that you're an old timer, and your retirement is not my priority. The lives of this crew are. You fuck this up, and I will bury you. Dismissed.”

“Hey, Wyn. It's. León.” The man on the message sighed. “We’re… worried about you. I know you don't want to hear from us. I don't care. We heard from a friend in the Calvados government that the ship you're on is trying to reach Akrotiri.” León Lebasque paused. “I don't really care what you do with your life. You're my sister, not my kid. But I don't want you to die. And it would probably kill Mom to find out that you ran off and got yourself killed in a system nobody cared about until last month. Get home safe. If you can get off that ship, leave. I'm sure you know about the blockade. This shit is dangerous, Wyn. You're not just fooling around for extra cash anymore, these are warships, with nukes. Just get home safe! You don't ever have to see us again, just. Let us know when you get back. I love you.”

SEND RECIEPT: FEB 11 2506 12:45:34 UTC <NEW BRIXTON, SHUKAR REP., YANGTZE, KEID>

RECIEVED: FEB 14 2506 14:06:27 UTC [CODE D56- BUFFER DELAY//SLIPRELAY OUT OF ALIGNMENT]

Wyn shook her head. Blockade? León was usually cryptic and annoying— too concerned with politeness and pleasantries to say what he actually meant, like Dad— so this was, admittedly, a change of pace. Wyn liked it. She'd always preferred a more direct approach. What the hell is he talking about, though, blockade?

The intercom chirped. “All hands, all hands. This is your Captain speaking. This is a summons for an emergency all-hands meeting in the main canteen. We will meet in two hours. Be there.”

Oh, shit.

“Thank you all for coming,” Captain Artemov stood up on the mess table, his synthetic frame’s metal skeleton catching the glint of the overhead lights. “I’m sorry for the theatrics, but we have a very dire situation.”

Adi met Wyn’s eyes. He looked panicked. Perhaps he’d already heard.

“There is a United Nations naval blockade around Akrotiri,” The Captain pulled down a deep breath. “And they are threatening to destroy anyone who attempts to cross.”

“Oh.” Wyn blinked. That’s what he meant.

“I understand that when you all signed on with Northstar Spacelines, you didn’t sign up for humanitarian missions, or to get shot at, but this is life or death for these people. I know you’ve seen the articles, the news. They’ve been starving for a month and a half now. Subsisting on whatever little they can grow, because much of the local wildlife is poisonous. They’re good people. They deserve a shot. The UN won’t give ‘em it.”

We’re not seriously going to—

She could see Adi taking a deep breath.

“We don’t have enough time to head to a port before we try this, so… we have to put this to a vote. But I think I should let you know something. The government on Calvados has offered to more than double our pay for running that blockade. Five times more than double, actually, they’re gonna 10x it. I think for most of you, that translates to retirement, or whatever else you wanna do. Our other option is to turn the ship around, hang an assist off Krüger 60 and go home. But then they all die.”

“Way I see it, those people deserve a chance at life, and we can give it to them. It’s a risky maneuver we’ve got calculated, we’ll be pushing our drive pretty damn hard and coming out real close to the planet. But we’ll be coming out with enough velocity to do a slingshot, drop all our cargo tugs on automated flight just before the periapse, and go. They won’t be able to stop us before we get past the blockade. They’ll have two choices. Start a war and shoot some civilians, or let us do what we want. Look,” Artemov paused. “We’re not here because it’s safe. In one way or another, being a Calvadan is to be a gambler. So let’s go, let’s get a little reckless. For a good cause, of course, and if not for that, for the payday at the end. Let’s go double or nothing. I’m voting to go.”

“So, those are our options. We’re gonna hold a vote. Simple majority wins. Line up to port if you want to play it safe, if you want to turn around. Line up starboard if you’re coming with me. If you want to save these fellow Calvadans.”

Adi had already started walking starboard once the Captain had told the others to line up port. Wyn grabbed his sleeve.

“Seriously? It’s crazy!”

“Wyn,” He shook his head. “There’s a lot of people down there. Lot more than in here.”

She shook her head, slowly, shocked. “Come on. Think of your family.”

“I am, Wyn. I am. If my family was down there, I’d want somebody coming for them.”

He broke away, and she was left holding the silence as the sea of cargo haulers parted around her. She glanced to her left, to her right, her breath quickening. She closed her eyes and walked left, crossing her fingers.

Her brother’s face was plastered in her imagination. Even with all that had happened between them, between her and Dad, between her and Mom, León still wanted to talk to her. What the fuck? Her breath sped. She had thought she’d done enough to make her position clear— don’t fucking talk to me. Why did he still want to talk? Why did he care? She didn’t really feel like she loved him still. Why did he love her?

“We have a verdict,” the Captain announced.

She opened her eyes, and her heart sank.

It was time to go die for a majority of the crew’s good intentions.

“Been a while, huh, Wyn? Been a weird week.” Adi passed her a bag of Crispin Buttery’s as he sat down on the couch, gesturing towards the game on the television. “St. Kateri versus the Indys, right?”

“Yeah.” Wyn snipped. “The annoying guys are back, too.”

“I… know, Wyn. They’re the regulars.”

“While you were gone, one of them went on vacation and so they got a new set of guys. They were good.”

“While I was gone? Wyn, you didn’t invite me.”

“The North’s looking pretty open now. Canaveral and New Groton’re dueling for the Central-West, but Canaveral’s ahead.”

“Wyn, the fuck.”

“You fucking voted to kill me,” Wyn shot at him. “And you want to act like things are normal, one week later.”

“You’re the one who brought me here, Wyn. And you tried to change the topic.”

“I'm just. I'm just a little pissed! You know. Nothing big. We could have all gone home. Yeah, company’s losing money on this bullshit but we'll be okay. We'll be okay.” Her breath quickened. “But you and. You and all the other idiots wanted to throw us in the way of a fucking nuke so you can feel good about yourselves!” She jammed a finger in Adi’s face. “You know, at first I wondered if it was for the money… yeah, the money’s good. If that was it I would get it.” She paused. “But it's not about the money, huh? You just want to be a good person.”

“Yeah.”

“Then that's a real shame. It looks like all you good people want to do is get killed.”

“Wyn. None of these people signed up for this,” he shook his head. “I don't expect you to understand—”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“Wyn, these things are bigger than living or dying. When we took this job, we knew there was risk. I'm not here for myself, Wyn. My little brother was sick—”

“So go to the fucking hospital, Adi. I don’t know what the hell that has to do with anything. Not back home on Minerva.”

“Wyn, for the love of—, let me talk. He had Cunningham-Hayes Syndrome. Type 2.”

“Oh, shit. The super lung cancer disease?”

“Yeah. The uncurable one. Well, it was, until about… fifteen years ago, when BioDyne developed a treatment.”

“BioDyne? Wait, then how’d you get it? They don't sell to Minerva.”

“They sell to Minervans, as long as they're paying in Imbrian dollars.”

“So it is about the money.”

“No, Wyn… it's not. I paid off my debt three years ago.” Adi sighed. “We got my brother his genetweak. You know there's never been a gene therapy that's worked for people with Type 2? Not until now.”

“I… no, I didn't know that.”

“I'm here for my family, Wyn. Or, I was. Before all this, I was going to go to uni. I was fourth in my class, had a guaranteed slot at the University of Beqaa, honors pre-law. I wanted to be a public defender.”

“Funny. I can't see you as a lawyer.” She scowled.

“I can't either, not anymore. I don't even know what I want to do with myself anymore.” He hung his head. “I just want to do something good, here…”

She threw out her hands in frustration. “What good is throwing all our lives away?”

He snapped his head back up into a determined stare, a melancholy yearning tugging at the corners of his eyes. “You're so convinced it won't work because you don't want it to be able to. And you and I both know you don't care about your life— not while you’ve been drinking yourself half to death and smoking away another three-eighths, so… why does it suddenly mean so much to you?”

“I…” Wyn couldn’t answer. Not now. Not here.

“You know what, Wyn? You’re so committed to hurting yourself that it's exhausting, sometimes, being your friend.”

“Then why worry about it?” She shot a glare. “If it’s so bad— if I’m such a bad person— you could just be done here!”

“Because I care about you, Wyn, because as much as you have your low points and seem to be allergic to help, when you’re at your higher points I can see what you hide down deep.” He took a breath. “You’re facing down so much, and you can’t stand the possibility of anyone else seeing you like that, but it’s a little late for that. And I don’t think any less of you for it. You’ve spent so long simply reacting to how the world would tell you what kind of person you are… but you can still make yourself the person you want to be.” He reached out a hand. “I know you’re scared. Me too. You just have to open your heart to the possibility that this could work, that we could do some good beyond ourselves here. So… you wanna fight this thing or what?”

She paused. She stared down at his outstretched hand.

“Don’t fucking talk to me,” she said.

Valencia, Kuzma, Decker, and Chief Poole gathered around the heat exchangers of Gun One, and the crack team of electricians and mechanics got to work. Chief Poole grabbed the microiron, delicately desoldering the brazed joints around the outside of the secondary backup. The metal flowed, sucked up into the vac-tube he held in his left hand. It curled down the coppery surface like dewdrops down the Seongnam fieldgrass. It was a nice view— he had not seen dewdrops since he had embarked on the MEDINA RIDGE at the start of this long, long patrol.

He missed them. There would be much more time for dewdrops and sunny days after this patrol was over. There would be time to watch his Trevor run through the fieldgrass, barely over the top of the long, alien stalks.

He smiled.

Trevor would be six now, no? It had been a year and a half— one of the longest Frontier cruises on record. It was far too much time to be away. All that stood between him and his son was a mix of forty UN-UNC frigates, interdictors, and destroyers, the concrete representation of one man’s will. Or perhaps it was the will of the many, that these people should be condemned and their home left desolate. Poole could never tell with the UN anymore.

The harsh, stark diode lights of the worklamps beat down. Vapor, surely toxic, curled off the brazing microiron. He almost wondered what it smelled like, on the other side of the filtration mask. He knew he didn’t want to know.

Chief, Crewman Paulos had stopped him in the hallways a few days ago. What do we do if this goes tits-up?

Well, he’d said. We fight, o’course.

What if it goes tits-up in Bravo Shift? I don’t want to be stuck doing odd jobs while the ship explodes.

Ah, no, son. He’d chuckled. We wouldnae even have time. They’ll feck up real good. Then we die nice and cozy in our sleep.

He snickered, and his hand jumped. The microiron smacked into one of the heat exchanger’s many walls and clattered down into the serpentine abyss of the metal device, trailing brazing metal behind it. “Shite!”

“What’s wrong, Chief?”

“Oh, t’hell with this, I dropped my brazing iron. It’s still on, and… it looks like a lot of the filler went with it.”

“Shit.” Kuzma rushed over. “Still, shouldn’t have broken anything, right? We can just scrape off the filler metal.”

“Oh, I hope so, son. It’s my head if not…” Poole fumbled for a flashlight, knocking his toolkit off the ledge with a sudden “Aw, shite.” Kuzma gasped.

The red metal box sailed down with a catestrophic crack onto the exposed innards of the heat exchanger. The whole room jumped.

“What was that, Chief?” Valencia shouted. “Holy shit!”

“Oh, she’s broken,” he paused. “Toolbox fell. Knocked the feckin’ thing clean in two.”

“I thought these things were sturdier than that.” Kuzma blinked in stunned amazement.

“You’d have another thing coming, son. The metal is heat conductive, but it’s fairly malleable. Plus we’ve left it damn cold for a long time. Gets brittle, like that.”

“That sounds like a shitty design!”

“Well, they didnae design them to be ripped apart in the field, did they? And they designed them to be used! These guns are thirty-five years old. They havenae seen action. They’ve been cold for the better part of four decades.” He paused. “Ah, feck me.”

“What is it, Chief?” Kuzma looked up at his mentor and boss, and didn’t like the look on his face.

“I’m going to have to tell CHENG about this,” He sighed. “Oh, he’ll keelhaul me with a smile.” Chief Poole walked over to his tablet. Kuzma stepped in between him and the device.

“No, Chief.” He looked around the room. “Decker, Valencia. Chief Poole’s stuck up for you, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Decker said. Valencia nodded.

“Time to stick up for him. We’ll get this one taken off completely, and, we’ll fix it. In the meantime, we take the other off and slap it on Gun Five.”

“No,” Chief Poole said. “I dinnae need you to risk your necks for me. And we’ll only be down to one exchanger on two guns, not one.” He shook his head. “This was my mistake. My consequences.”

“You got a kid, right?” Kuzma raised an eyebrow. “You’ve told me about him.”

“Aye, the wean.” He shook his head. “I… I’ll make it work.”

“If you let CHENG throw you out, you won’t get your retirement. We can help you out. Trust us. Look,” Kuzma knelt down, grabbing the heat exchanger’s shattered carcass. “Clean break. We can get this functional again in an afternoon, maybe two days. Not pretty, but it’ll work.”

“No, son. I cannae. I’ve always done things by the book.”

“I agree with Kuzma. You’ll have to work the rest of your life if you want to provide something good for him. Sure, you can do it, but. They’ll be screwing you out of the twenty-four years you’ve given this country. All over an honest mistake, one that could have happened to anyone,” Valencia crossed her arms, walking over. “Look. We can pick this up another time. Just let me tell CHENG we’re gonna need another crack at this tomorrow, and that the backup is disconnected. No lying, just… delegation. We’ll keep watch here, and make sure nobody finds out. We can do both, Chief.”

“Decker?” Poole looked over.

“Well… yeah. I don’t like this, but. They’re right. We can’t let them fuck you over.”

“Then it’s settled,” Poole said. “You’re all set on insubordination, on lying to an officer, on… You know this could be considered, well, all sorts of things? Dereliction, at least.”

They glanced around, an uneasy silence falling between the three Petty Officers.

“Yeah,” Kuzma broke the silence. “I’d take the fall for ya, Chief.”

“Me too,” Valencia nodded.

“I’m in, Chief. Hell or high water.” Decker gave an uneasy, partly-unconvinced nod of his own.

“I’m giving you a week before I rat this all out to CHENG, or when I think this is all headed south,” Poole nodded. “Whichever one comes first.”

The hatch to the Captain’s Cabin unsealed with a gentle hiss, and Commander Erik Olsen raised an eyebrow.

“C’mon in, Erik.” Kaylin Rama sighed, brushing a strand of stray, floating hazelnut out of her eyes. “Good to see ya.”

“Ma’am.” He nodded. The Captain’s Cabin of a MARIANAS-Class was certainly, for lack of a better term, grand, fit for a vessel of her scale and her station. Rama had it sparsely but tastefully appointed, and a soft technogroove sound filtered out of what was effectively a two-story studio apartment built for space. Handholds lined the walls, with a few acceleration chairs stacked up against the innermost one. He had always marveled at the mahogany and Jakarta wood paneling— he had a sneaking suspicion that unlike the ones in the rest of the ship, these were real. He had been in here a few times, but never alone— Captain Rama usually came to him. Like all Minervan battleships, the MARIANAS-Class was a well-armed office building somebody had taught to fly, and this was her corner office. All that was missing were the windows.

She kicked herself off the floor, disengaging the magnetic locks on her boots, and glided over towards a couch and a coffee table, gracefully planting herself back on the deck once she’d arrived at her destination. “I figured we should talk.”

He decided not to indulge in any zero-gravity antics, and instead let his magboots keep him comfortably planted to the laughably out of style carpet. It was a pattern he hadn’t seen outside of his grandparents’ apartment— a tacky, 2440s interlocking-alternating hex pattern in green, grey, and orange, the colors of the Minervan flag. How patriotic. “Lovely decor they stuck you with. Did it come from a museum, or did they have to plunder a retirement home?”

“No,” she threw her hands up. “Look. They never refit the carpet. Apparently it was somewhere between ‘massage bunks’ and ‘free puppies’ on the priorities list.”

“Oh, so it’s an antique.”

“Careful, the Old Lady might hear.” Rama smirked, rapping the wood-paneled wall.

He snickered. “So. We should talk. May I speak freely, ma’am?”

“You, Erik? Always.”

“That’s never something you want to hear from spouses, significant others, or commanding officers.”

“Well, Erik… May I call you Erik?”

“You do anyways, ma’am. My permission has never stopped you. And no, I don’t mind.”

“Ah. Hm.” She paused, frowning. “My apologies. You can call me Kaylin, by the way. I don’t care.”

“Thank you, ma’am. I will keep that under advisement.”

“Want a drink?” She grabbed a lowball glass and a bottle of alcohol-free soju from an acceleration drawer hidden in the Jakarta wood paneling. “I’d bring out the hard stuff, but… you know. What I wouldn’t give to take the edge off right now… but I suppose we need that edge, right?”

“Yeah, sure. Always been a fan of the taste, anyways.” Erik nodded. “So, why have you called me here, ma’am? Not for pleasantries and a… well, a dry soju, surely.”

“Shit, I got sidetracked. I wanted to call you here for some honest conversation. See, the other day, I realized I barely know you, and we’ve been working together all tour.”

“Yes, ma’am. I’ll have you know that there is a perfectly good reason for that.”

“And what might that be?”

“I’m not particularly interesting,” he shrugged. “And I… don’t like to talk about myself.”

“Erik. Don't put yourself down.” She chuckled and smiled, if only for a moment. “I have to trust you in a life-or-death situation. And I do, I do trust you, but I've come to understand that I don't know you that well, and as I've been increasingly confronted with the possibility we could get in a slugfest here, I want to make sure I know you well enough to know how you'll react.”

“Oh.” He sighed. “Yeah, fair. Should I start with my Frontier service?”

“No, Erik.” She shook her head. “That's important, and all, and we'll get to it. But I want to know about you as a person.” She turned around, opening another drawer and removing a vibrantly marked case from it.

“You're kidding.” His face fell.

“Unfortunately for both of us, I am not kidding about Acquaintables.” She tapped the box of icebreaker cards, and set it down on the table with a magnetic clunk. “A gift from my mother that I have never once used, but you've been the one guy I just don't get.”

“Ma’am, is this an order?”

“No, not really.”

“I don't want to play an icebreaker game.”

“Fine, we can just read the cards.”

He audibly gulped.

She opened the box, pulling a stack of red cards out of the package. They hung scattered in the air pirouetting in the dead gravity, almost graceful, almost spilled.

“Alright, I'll ask you first.” Kaylin reached out, snatching a card slowly turning about its axis. “Favorite RBL team.”

“Uh… Navs are my home team, but I don't really pay attention to basketball.” He shrugged. “I’m a football guy, but I don't even get the time to watch much anymore.”

“FMF or one of the soccer leagues?”

“Minervan football,” he nodded. “Portsmouth Gridiron FC, but again, haven't seen the Griddies play in forever.”

“I'm a Buenasuerte girl, myself, right outside of Montaña,” she paused. “Grew up a big Cabs b-ball fan, got that from my dad. You from Portsmouth proper?”

“No, ma’am. Grew up down the line in Scranton.”

“Oh, Scranton’s pretty this time of year.” She nodded. “Next question. Grab one.”

“Uhhh…” He grabbed a card out of the cloud, a pressure-gloved hand gently grasping the cardstock. “What’s the best vacation you've ever been on?”

“Oh. Easy. Calvados, New Years Eve ‘99. I managed to take leave just in time, went with my college roommate. We went to the Grand Monegasque, and I said I wasn't going to gamble, and honestly it wasn't all that grand— just a bunch of chainsmokers in Hawaiian shirts huddled around some very fancy roulette tables— but I won a few quid. It was fun. I was pretty good at blackjack. Rung in the New Century right, on the beach with a marg.”

“Sounds… fun, I guess. How much did you win?”

“Went in with two hundred won, left with seven.”

“…Seven quid?”

“Seven hundred, smart guy.” She rolled her eyes. “So, how ‘bout you?”

“I did a ski tour of Pelham Republic,” he shrugged. “It was pretty nice. But ma’am, how is this helping us fight the Blues?”

“I dunno. Trust the system, Erik. We'll get a good one here soon enough.”

“I admire your faith, ma’am. I do not share it.”

“Noted.”

She leaned over, looking at Erik through the hole in the nebula of prompts. “Alright, Olsen. Your turn.” She nodded.

He sighed. “I don't think this is helping, ma’am.”

“Erik.” She scowled.

“I don't know anything more about you other than that you're good at blackjack. What good is this doing? I can run you through my career, or something actually—”

“Erik, draw the damn card.”

He groaned.

“Tell a secret you've never told anybody before.”

She paused, slumping her chin into her hand, staring into the field of cards between them. “Well, I guess it would be that I only really joined the Navy because my Mom wanted me to.”

“Okay…” he shook his head, sighed, and stared towards the ceiling.

“She was an enlisted Sailor, and I felt like I'd be letting her down if I didn't join.”

“That's your secret? That you're a momma's girl?”

“Uh, yeah, why?”

He grit his teeth, swatting aside the floating niceties and platitudes, and cast the avalanche of cardstock to the deckplate, twisting and somersaulting in the microgravity.

“You said you wanted to get to know me, as a real person. This isn't doing any of that. And you know what, ma’am? May I speak freely?”

She jolted back in her seat. “Of course, Erik.”

“I didn't wanna be here either,” he leveled his gaze at her, a piercing coldness staring through her.

The man at the apartment door looked down at Erik, a split-second’s somberness overwritten by a smile. “Hey, kid.” He crouched down to eye-level, the rows of ribbons on his black suit passing by Erik’s gaze as he came down.

“My name is Jaylen O’Leary. I work with your Mom.” He held a black leather case under his arm and wore a funny white hat. Two other strangers stood behind him, clad in the same, the dress black uniforms of the Minervan Navy. “Is your Dad around?”

“Y…yeah.” Erik shut the door in the man’s face and ran down the hall, banging on the door to his father’s study. “Dad, there's a man at the door who wants to see you. He said he works with Mom. And he’s sad.”

He didn't reply for a second. The door opened, and Sam Olsen put on a smile for his son. “Hey, kiddo. He's sad? What do you mean?”

“He was really upset when I opened the door, but when he saw it was me, he smiled.”

“Can't get anything by you, can ya, kiddo?” Sam gave his son’s hair a ruffle. “Tell ya what. Go throw on some Ricky Roohawk and I'll come watch it with you once we finish talking.” He smiled down at his son. It was the same smile the man at the door had, eyes deep and distant, mind in a conversation that was yet to come. He nodded. “Alright, Dad.”

He walked over to the living room as his dad went down the hall. He cranked the volume on the TV and flipped on Ricky Roohawk. It was a good episode, the one where Ricky learned how to play basketball and learned the basics of being a good sport. He'd seen it a few times already, though, and he was growing out of Ricky Roohawk, anyways. He snuck down the hallway, crouching behind one of Mom’s vases of zafaran flowers, the one he’d made in pottery class.

He heard his father sobbing.

“I’m here because I grew up with only a father, because some bureaucrats on Mars drawing lines where they didn't belong killed my mother. I've been stuck bearing the weight of her death, her absence, since I was eleven. You wonder why I'm cautious? You wonder why I'm distant? She laid down her life for her country, for her fellow sailors, for me, and Dad. I didn't have a choice after that. I had to honor her sacrifice. And make sure nobody would have to reenact it. We've been on the edge of war with Sol ever since that toddler got elected. My caution, my clarity, is more important than ever. And these?” He held up a gloved hand. “Not everyone wants to spend the money out of their own pocket to get their gloves remolded because we're not going to war, so they just wear ‘em on the belt ‘cause they're uncomfortable…Well, we weren't really going to war when my Mom died, and we're not really going to war today, either, so I guess that's a problem for another day, huh? I take it seriously because we're not really going to war, and we're never really going to war, until we blink, and we open our eyes, and we're just there. At war.”

She blinked. There was a long pause. She had been left to hold the burden of the silence. He broke it once more.

“I’m sorry for losing my composure, ma’am, but I think we’re getting nowhere with this. May I be excused?”

She nodded. “Yes, Commander Olsen. You may.”

She stood up and watched him walk off, a sign on her breath. An alert buzzed her phone. She walked over to the terminal on the wall to answer it.

The intel officer stared into the camera. “Captain.”

“Commander Broadhurst.”

“Bad news from the Calvados government. Well, it's bad news for us, anyway. They sent a ship, and they're only telling us now that it's too late to turn it back.”

“Fuuuuuck me.”

“Yeah, I… definitely feel ya. I'm convening an emergency meeting, figured I'd let you know before everyone else.”

“I'll be there in five. Could you raise the heat in there?”

“No, ma’am, it's broken.”

“Lovely. Thank you, Commander.” He nodded, and she hung up.

The interior, pressurized cargo section of the Siren’s Song ran up the long, spindly midsection of the ship, and as they drew ever closer to their destination, the skyscraper of a storehouse was abuzz in activity.

The trams had run day and night for the last few days, as the teams of loaders shuffled crates and crates of Raw Programmable Protein, agricultural equipment, printer-fabricators, and other essentials onto the shuttles docked along the ship’s sides. The pressurized cargo space was a maze, isolated on each deck by airtight elevator doors that allowed each deck to hold its own climate control. Normally, this would all be pretty automated. This was an old ship, though, and the automation was iffy at best, so it helped to have people doing the hard work. If the autoloader for the trams failed— which it often did at this age— it would shut down their ability to move cargo to the shuttles for hours, and as they approached Akrotiri every hour was precious. Realspace influx was only a half-hour away. He had one last thing to attend to before he strapped in back aft, on call in case anything went wrong.

Adi fished into his pocket, an exoskeleton-gloved hand struggling against the seams of his coveralls. He sighed, pulling it back, shaking his hand out. He reached over to his wrist, pushing a button to decouple the suit from his right arm. He pushed it back into the pocket, pulling out a datacart, the blue tape label reading RBL 2505-JAN 2506. He stared into the window on the front of the drive, a holographic crystal matrix shimmering behind it. Color-shifted emeralds stared back at him, reflected and mirrored across a million axes, and he sighed.

“Okay, I want something to do for the next Altair run. So…” Adi held up the datacart. “Five-hundred terabytes. I’m recording every RBL game this season. And we’re not watching them until we’re underway.”

“The waiting’s gonna suck,” Wyn squinted, “But yeah, fuck it.”

“Well, it was fun while it lasted.”

He tossed the datacart into the shuttle, hoping somebody down there would watch it.

Adi clutched the restraints, waiting as the display hanging from the ceiling counted down. Seconds ticked off. The arrow crept on and on. He did his best to avoid looking at Wyn, strapped in not three seats to his right, breathing ragged against his pressure helm.

One minute, thirty five.

One minute, twelve.

Forty three.

Thirty.

The slip drive’s whine shuddered up and down every structural beam on the ship, rattling every deck panel and shaking every weld. He felt the harmony of planes of existence he would never know, he could never know, that he could scarcely even imagine, crashing down on him.

His gut twisted into a knot as gravity went haywire, unsecured papers across the compartment lifting up and shuddering under the transit.

An alarm whined in his ears.

He gripped the armrests, and he glanced over to Wyn. The last thing he saw was the sorrow in her eyes.

Chief Poole stormed into the Auxiliary Machinery workshop, a haste and irritation in his step, scanning the busy hive of A-gangers, Electricians’ Mates, and myriad other enlisted rates crowding the space. “Kuzma!” He scowled. A panicked non-rate pointed towards a welder’s divider, the dim flashes of a microtorch casting off the wall. “Thank ya, son.”

“Kuzma, out here, now!”

“Sorry, Chief!” Kuzma’s voice was ever so slightly muffled by a welder’s mask. “Coming!”

He put down the torch and mask, and slipped out from behind the curtain. He nodded.

“Come, walk with me.”

“Alright, Chief.” Poole turned and started for the corridor. They shared the silence for a while, walking towards the elevator. The corridors were certainly showing their age, the interior lights showing off every crack, peel, and hole in the faux Jakarta wood laminate, the paint peeling from the metal panels below and above the comforting facsimile of the wood. Padded cubbies were stacked in gaps between the laminate, and equipment lockers, deployable acceleration couches, emergency pressure suits, and terminals dotted the hallway. They stepped into the lift, Poole selecting the deck, and shot up the ship’s structure before he turned the RUN/HOLD switch on the control panel. Emergency lights kicked in, and the car was bathed in crimson.

“You're calling it, Chief?” Kuzma looked over at his mentor, a nervous furrow in his brow.

“I'm calling it, son. We dinnae have time.”

“Chief, it's only been a few days. We almost have the heat exchanger fixed, and Gun Five is back online! Come on, let us finish, Chief.”

“I dinnae care for ‘almost’. We’re sitting coplanar to at least ten thousand nuclear warheads dialed in on us!”

“All the more reason for us to finish the job!”

“All the more reason, son, for the Captain to know what she’s working with!”

“You know CHENG will throw you under the bus.”

“Aye, I do. There’s a lot more people than me on this ship.”

Kuzma shuffled between Poole and the control panel.

“Don’t, Chief. Think about Trevor.”

He grit his teeth, fire springing into his eyes. “Aye, I am. Trevor needs a father.”

Kuzma recoiled, the cold metal panels of the elevator walls leeching into his spine.

“I…”

“It’s okay, Ryan. You dinnae have to defend me.”

“I’m sorry, Chief.”

He backed away from the controls, and let Chief lean in and flip the switch.

“Aye, me too.”

They spent the rest of the ride in silence, stepping off the elevator near the galley when a wailing siren and a crackling intercom cracked their uneasy peace in two.

“General Quarters, General Quarters. All hands, man your battle stations. The route of travel is forward, dorsal, and up to starboard, down, ventral, and aft to port.”

The lights flickered as a second fusion reactor roared to life, and the two sailors jumped into action.

“What's going on?” Rama had groggily stumbled out of her stateroom, hurriedly sliding a locking ring on her uniform’s waistline pressure garment into place.

“Gravitational anomaly, ma’am, they're waiting for you in the CIC.”

“Is it that damn ship?”

The Yeoman, one of her administrative aides, handed her a tablet. “Looks like it, ma’am. Wave displacement of fifty-eight kilotons.” The young sailor was sweating bullets. “That's big. Small freighter or a large warship.”

“Well, we're expecting a small freighter. Where's it coming out?”

“Other side of the planet, unfortunately. Can't get eyes on it, either, our probes are EM jammed to hell and they've got dazzling on the lascomms. We're not getting anything out of them for a while.”

“Have we sent a shuttle? Adjusted our orbit?”

“Yes, ma’am. We've got a Roohawk squadron on the way, spreading out across multiple orbits to get a few angles, but the spectrum is so contested we won't be able to get anything back from them without some time. We can send text fine, but any actual high quality video isn't getting to us unless they come back and land.”

“That’ll take the better half of forever.”

“Pretty much, ma’am, and the phasing burn might not get us there in time. Hell, shuttles might not either.” The Yeoman unsealed the hatchway to the CIC, the heavy, airtight door hissing and swinging open. “After you, ma’am.” Sealing the door behind them in the red lighting of the CIC, he announced the arrival to the assembly of technicians, officers, and flight crew. “Captain on deck!”

“Captain.” Olsen nodded.

“Commander. I got the lowdown on the way here.”

“We've charted a phasing orbit to come around the other side so we can get eyes on, but unless we really want to poke the bear we won't be able to beat them to it.”

“How close can we get?”

“Close.” He tapped the watchstanding console, a trajectory projecting into the air between them. “We can get right on top of the predicted exit, but it could be seen as provocative, as it’d be a pretty aggressive change in our stance that’d bring us into a much lower periapsis... And a few intersects.”

“What if we announce it? And what's our closest approach?”

“Seven point three kilometers, right here, and six point eight there.” He pointed to a series of two intersect points further along the trajectory. “This is all assuming they don't move, of course.”

“Big assumption. And that's a little closer than I'd like.”

“Me too.” He nodded.

“Well, it looks the best of bad options.” She put her hand on her forehead. “How are our weapons systems?”

“Tubes are all reporting green.” He sat down at his station across from the watchstander’s console. “Gun five is back online.”

“Any issues with the others?”

“No, ma’am. Secondary power switchover was clean, and all auxiliary systems are reporting operational.”

“Clean bill of health.” She nodded. “Mr. Olsen, I understand you suggest we lay in this burn.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She grabbed her helmet off the back of her chair, sealing it down and tapping a comms button on her console marked NAV. “Ms. Foulke, you have permission to execute the burn.”

“Aye, ma’am.” The Navigator nodded. The 1MC chirped a warning to secure for a high-G burn.

“COMMS, open a channel, unsecured RF. Announce our burn, mirror it on lasers at all UN ships visible.”

“Aye, ma’am,” the Comms officer nodded.

All that was left was the wait.

Massive reaction control thrusters fired as the warship reoriented itself. She felt the cold bite of the injector seat along her spine as her blood was being slowly drained and replaced with the anti-accelerant. The clock on the display counted down to the maneuver. It was three minutes out, and the brief euphoric hit of the oxygenated fluid hitting her head— as well as whatever the hell else was in it— was rushing through her mind. She never did like being on it for too long, but it always dialed her in.

The clock ticked thirty, and she gripped the armrests of her console, the gloves wrapped around her fingers transmitting the feel like a second skin. There was always a little bit of the plastic moulding along the side of the right armrest that always annoyed her, a defect, a ping-pong paddle shaped tag. She'd catch herself picking at it sometimes, and she had to remind herself not to now. She didn't want her hand hanging off the side of the rest in a 10g burn. She liked her arm in one piece.

“Secure immediately for high-g burn on the mark. Ten, nine… main engine ignition… seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. Mark.”

Thirteen fusion torches roared to life, the disembodied hearts of a small constellation arresting the velocity of the titanic warship’s eternal fall past Akrotiri, transforming the gentle drift of an autumn leaf into a penny’s rapid plummet off a skyscraper.

She crashed against the aging pleather-clad gel-matrix of the bucket chair, feeling the water and blood reservoirs squeezing against her body, a fluid g-suit working in synergy with the drugs running through her veins to keep her alive, awake, and aware, ten gs of weight crushing down on her.

Three minutes to engine cutoff, ten minutes to line of sight, twenty minutes to contact. They could have cut the time down more, but the spaceframe could only take so much, and every one of them knew this old bird had her hours, minutes, and seconds numbered. Over and above any abuse she could take, however— it was the crew that was the real limiting factor. If things went sideways, there would be a lot more, likely shorter burns in their future— and if things really went to hell, there might be one or two very long ones after that. They had to pace themselves. Everybody only had so much in them.

“Captain?” The Systems Coordination Officer, a synth from Tynekill named Cooper Amendola with a large link cable trailing from his head, turned his optics package over towards her station. “Gravitometer readings are going crazy. I don't know what the hell happened… influx in thirty seconds!” He paused, updating the charts. "That's a much sharper approach angle than we initially modeled..."

“Dammit!” She shuddered under the weight of the burn. “Thank you, Mr. Amendola, but we're going to miss our mark!”

“I'm working with SENS, Cyber, EWAR, and Comms to see if we can burn through the jamming, get eyes on it. No joy so far.” Commander Amendola turned back to his console— largely a formality for a SCO. “What's the play, ma’am?”

“I don't like this, but it looks like we're out of options. We're going to have to trust them not to do something really, really stupid. Comms, get on the horn with the Blues. Send a warning, order them not to fire on any ship crossing the blockade or we will respond in kind.”

“Aye, ma’am!”

Olsen stared over the console’s top, locking eyes with her, a private channel open. “Think they'll listen?”

“All we can do is find out.” She sighed, and the engine cut out behind her.

“Confirmed influx!”

Ten minutes was an eternity in times like these. They had assembled, by tonnage, the single largest meeting the two navies had seen since Second 61 Cygni, with all the flash and fury that had entailed. It was quite the party. The time had finally arrived to find out if the Reaper had made the guest list.

“Fuck!” SENS shouted. “Eyes on, ma’am,” The officer chirped over the radio with a gulp. “Piping the EO feed to your display now.” One of the electro-optical telescope mounts onboard the warship— a turreted ball mount amidst a forest of sensors— slewed onto its target, what should have been a modern colossus, a behemoth vessel ferrying the needs and wants of human civilization across the stars. What they laid eyes upon was a ruined shell, a broken, scattered, drifting arc of fragmented metal and composite, the great skeletal remains of some prehistoric beast.

Her heart dropped, and she was afraid.

She watched as debris slipped past the sensor’s zoomed-in field of view, twisted and shattered fragments thrown aside as dust in the wind. Are there survivors?

She switched the camera to thermal and searched for any particularly bright spots. A few splotches stood out, and the telescope slewed to the closest one, having filtered out the RCS plumes of several UN probes. Swapping to visual, the telltale transparent shell of a depressurization harness wrapped around a man’s figure, half cast in shadow; his face called out for help, for rescue, and failing that, for memory. As the debris floated around him and a panel of shattered titanium hull drifted by him, the veil of shadow parted to reveal his fate, a tramway track and portions of its associated deckplate cutting his silhouette in two.

The CIC stood in echoing silence.

“It appears there are no discernable survivors, ma’am,” SENS remarked, a flatness to her voice very much unlike her. “My department is moving to track the debris.”

“They shot them,” she blinked. “They fucking shot them.”

“Appears so, ma’am.” Olsen nodded, his gaze distant and cold. “Let's think this through, though.”

“I know, just… hard to see what else this could be. I mean, this is already damn close to checking all the boxes on our RoE—”

“Captain, incoming on an open channel.” Comms cut in. “It's the Blues.”

She switched to her XO’s private channel. “I'm going to try to be peaceful, and diplomatic about this,” Rama nodded across the console. “But I'm not going to throw our mission away, Erik.”

He looked up from his console, and nodded.

She pushed the TSCREEN ENABLE button on the side of her console, and opened up the radio communications window with a tap of her finger. “I'm listening, Comms.”

“It's Commodore Nacif, she wants to talk to you.”

“Put her through.”

“Aye, ma’am.”

The radio crackled. “Minervan warship Medina Ridge, do you read? This is Commodore Kelly Nacif of the Martian Federation Navy.”

“I read, Commodore. This is Captain Kaylin Rama of the Federated Minervan Republics Navy, and I must tell you, I am in no mood for pleasantries.”

“I was afraid you would say that, Captain. We would like to first let you know that we did not fire on that ship. That wasn't us.”

“Anyone in your place would say that.”

“In order to assure you of this, we are conducting an investigation into the cause of the ship’s destruction, and while I am certain my superiors will frown on this, in the interest of peace and de-escalation, we are preparing to share communications logs, sensor feeds, and Stores Management reports from several of the ships closest to the ship at the moment of the incident.”

“I'm sure you will permit our own, independent survey.”

There was a brief pause. Perhaps her long-winded Martian counterpart was catching her breath.

“I'm afraid I cannot.”

“Commodore, tensions between our two countries are at an all-time high—”

“Tensions between our many nations and yours are indeed at a breaking point— which is precisely why we must conduct this survey alone.”

“I don't know what you mean.”

Olsen locked eyes with Rama. “Listen to her, no one talks like that. She's stalling for something.”

The Commodore cleared her throat. “Between two sailors, I don't believe it takes an astropolitics professor to realize that it's within your country’s best interest for us to have killed them,”

“You think we're going to fake it.”

“I think you may, and that possibility is enough to make such an arrangement unthinkable to me— to do so would risk the safety of my squadron and its assembled crews.”

“How do we know you won't fake it?”

“Unfortunately, all I can give you is my word, for now. When you receive the data, authenticate the timestamps.”

“Then it's one word against the other. You can't ask me to stake the security of our nation on your word alone.”

“I have to.”

“I’m giving you ten minutes.” She paused. “We are on a trajectory that will bring us into contact with several of your ships. I know that information shouldn't take long to pull if you're not editing it. Ten minutes, and you have two options. Exonerate yourself or allow our own investigation. If you don't we shoot.”

“I'll have it to you soon, Captain.”

She hung up the connection.

“Do you believe her, ma’am?” Erik looked down at his console.

“I did,” he paused. “But, ma’am? One of their torpedo tubes is hot.” He flicked over an IR image of one of their TARUGA-Class frigates— the new ones— and zoomed in on her weapons module. One of the torpedo tubes glowed white. “You know I urge caution. I still think we should hear them out instead of going in blazing. It just, reminds me too much of something else.”

“Go on.” Rama nodded.

“Back in the sixties, before the war, there were a few accidents in some Frontier systems of ours the Blues wanted, but since we couldn't always maintain permanent presences out there, sometimes the UN would just stumble on some horrible tragedy that would just clear up the system for themselves.”

“No, yeah, you're right…” She glanced down at the image, squinting. “That kind of just happened back in the day, though, didn't it? Frontier’s iffy.”

“Not that iffy, ma’am. And I don't know how they're going to spin this, but they pulled this exact shit back then. They loved ambiguity. We can't give them that now. If we give them that ambiguity, they'll live in it forever, and they'll bash us over the head with it and run all over us...”

“You still want to wait for the data?”

“Of course… we have to do our due diligence. But we only wait to shoot until then. I think they're hostile as of now.”

“Ma’am?” Comms cut through on the emergency line. “We just got word from one of the Roohawk shuttles. Several other formations are about to come around the planet, and they've been burning hard for us. They're massing their forces, initial orbit analysis is reading them to converge on us in thirty minutes.”

“That's not building my hope in their innocence.”

“Weapons still look good, ma’am.” Commander Olsen nodded.

“Another update,” Comms nodded. “Download has started. We're sandboxing it and putting Cyber on heightened alert. They're prepping our own package in case this goes south.”

“Good. They had six minutes left.”

Commander Amendola, the Systems Coordination Officer, piped up. “We're all set to start analyzing, ma’am. We'll get you our findings before the shooting starts. It's tight, but we're running our systems hard. Give us three minutes.”

The ships drifted ever closer in the boundless night, the seeds of ruin scattered on solar winds.

“We have the preliminary analysis, ma’am,” Amendola nodded from his seat. “Take a look.”

The images that came up on her screen were several— but one was front and center. “Look at this footage of the influx. See? It comes out as debris already— but there's something wrong.” A chain of shattered metal, composite, and surely among it bodies, fuzzy and reflected as if lost in a kaleidoscope looking into a house of mirrors, poured forth from a rift in the fabric of space and time.

She shook her head. “I don't get it, this looks exonerating... A lot of slip lensing, though... Like, a lot of it. Never seen this much, not even in the Hwangbo accident footage.”

“Lemme put some filters on.” Amendola sighed. “They gave us a fraud. See those streaks? And that pixelation?”

“You're sure that's not the lensing?”

“Yes, ma’am. I'd put my life on it,” the synthetic sailor nodded. “Slipstream dimensional lensing is a pretty common way to hide edit attempts, because it already has many of the telltale signs in a clean photo… the timestamps verify, but there's also additional editing to degrade the general quality of the image, and… no infrared information. That's not the most damning, though.”

“What is?”

“We've identified the ship closest to the influx as the Pavonian Defense Forces Navy ship Agamemnon. It's one of the new class of frigates, the Taruga-Class. This appears to be their first deployment.” He paused, bringing up the Stores Management reports. “They didn't send us any SMS records from any of the Tarugas… and our own sensors did capture a still IR frame of the Agamemnon with one of her bow tubes hot... which, would indicate a recent launch.”

“So, we go, then.” She blinked. She didn't know what else to do.

“Ma’am, if there's any way we can stall for time and more answers—”

“No,” Erik spoke up. “She's right. We go.”

“It looks bad, but we only had three minutes, and while I think it's more likely than not—”

“Commander Amendola,” Commander Olsen held up a hand. “You all know I’m a cautious man. This is more difficult for me than you know. But they lied to us. By omission or manipulation, they lied to us. Doesn't matter. At this point, there is only one thing that matters. They will be ready for us, in three minutes’ time. If we're still bickering here, instead of being on our shit, we're going to die here.”

Rama nodded. “I agree.”

“Besides,” he paused. “We gave our word. If we backtrack now and start stalling, it will just tell them our word is flexible. We want our word to mean anything, we knuckle down, and we fight.”

“Shit,” Amendola sighed. “So, that's it? We're doing this?”

“Yes, Mr. Amendola,” she nodded. “Instruct the cyber department to prep something good, and select targets for electronic attack. TAC, send me those target lists one more time. I concurred already, I just want to see it again. Comms, send no further reply and cut the channel. Don't need them sneaking anything in.”

“Aye, ma’am,” the SCO called in.

“Aye, ma’am,” the TAC called in.

“Aye, ma’am,” the Comms called in.

Silence hung over the CIC. It would not be broken until the thunder of torpedo launches and point defense gunfire shook the structure of the ship. She met Erik’s eyes, and nodded. There was a cold resolve in them. That was good. They'd need that.

“Targets are locked on tubes one through fifty, ma’am.” TAC stared down the display. He gulped, and clutched the armrests of his acceleration chair. “Firing solutions for the main guns are being continuously generated, and we are entering guns range.”

“Thank you, TAC. Program the torpedoes to come about from a side aspect attack, and adjust spinal targeting solutions to compensate for the juke.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“SCO, you are cleared hot for offensive SCREW, pass the word to our interdictors.” Captain Rama nodded. “TAC, once you have those solutions ready, I want you to fire on my mark. Make sure to target their interdictor first.”

Amendola nodded. “Rerouting nonessential power to cyber and electronic warfare.” Her display lit up with red lines, outgoing lasers carrying malicious payloads or false contacts designed to dazzle and scramble enemy sensors.

“Ma’am,” TAC nodded. “Solutions ready.”

She watched as the range band shrunk down on the display, a dashed line marked NEZ— No-Escape Zone— creeping ever closer. She waited and watched, and she called it with roughly a fifty-five seconds to go before reaching that critical range.

“Shoot tubes one through five-oh, and orient for followup shot.”

“Aye.”

The hull shook as fifty heavyweight torpedoes shot off, the nuclear warheads and bright thruster plume of the shot ensuring they'd be detected by the Blues’ sensors. There was truly no going back now. Somebody was going to die today, and probably quite a few. She looked around at the people beside her, and locked eyes with Olsen.

Not us. Not now. Not here.

“Engage according to the firing solution, TAC.”

“Aye.”

The Helm shouted out. “Bringing us around for shot one!”

“System is locked, fire control on automatic!”

“Alignment green, check timing!”

“Torpedoes closing on hostiles.”

“Hostile launch, spikers inbound. Spikers inbound. Count eight-six spikers, medium-weight.”

“SPACTGRU Five-Seven, this is Rama,” she punched a button on her console. “Free engagement is authorized. Fire at will.”

“They're juking, ma’am!”

The fire control system had what it wanted, and the ship shuddered under the kick of one of her spinal coilguns, a massive shell punching through the void at incredible speed. Rama’s display held the Blues’ cyberwarfare ship, a RIGEL-Class interdictor that had lightly been trying to worm its way into their systems for the last few days, square in her sights. She watched as lasers lit up the infrared camera view and as bright tracers peeled off the craft, RCS thrusters pushing the ship out of the way of the missiles without breaking the lock of her massive, overpowered comms lasers. That was exactly how she wanted it. The coilgun shell slammed home. Her display was awash in light as the the torpedoes detonated next to the bisected hulk of the ship. “Splash one, eight remaining! Our solution’s broken on the others, though, they pushed harder than we calculated for.”

“Spectrum is clearing up, jamming’s out!”

“Fleet point defense engaging inbounds!”

Rama keyed the console. “TAC, you're cleared for torpedo free fire! Prioritize the frigates, their sensors are newer.”

“Aye, ma’am!” The room rocked under the fire of torpedo drives. “Shooting tubes five-one through one-six-five.”

She swiped at the controls, painting targets. “Get me guns solutions on these targets, TAC, and prosecute.”

She got an AFFIRM notification in response. Too busy to talk, she supposed. She watched the console as inbound missiles shot towards them, blinking off the scopes one at a time as the fleet’s point defense did its job. She checked the CYBER page on her console, and the SCO and his teams, on this ship and the interdictors IFRIT and GORGON, were hard at work getting inside the digital defenses of the Blue fleet. Everything, it seemed, was going well.

“Longford reports hits on destroyer, Denver reports two splashed frigates, and Kilimanjaro reports one more frigate on the drift.” Comms radioed in. “Elvirhavn reports three nuclear hits to her radiators, they're dead in the water until they can bring up aux. They are committed to present trajectory.”

“Shit,” Rama grit her teeth. “Detach Bajacalifornia and El Morro, form them up to screen for Elvirhavn. Do not lose that ship. These guys were just the beginning.”

SENS turned around and nodded at her. “That'd be the rest of them now, ma’am. They're all burning for us. Sprint burn, lower teens g. They're pushing hard. Expect company in fifteen minutes.”

“Final headcount?”

“Twelve Taruga frigates, twelve Orion hunter-killers, four Dauntless escorts, and three Rigel interdictors.”

“Hot damn.” Olsen wheezed. “Lotta firepower…”

“So are we, Commander Olsen.” As if on cue, one of the five main guns sent shivers down the spines of both the ship and her crew.

“Splash one frigate,” TAC nodded. “Harlem also reporting one splashed destroyer.”

“Hostile launch, spikers inbound.” SENS cut in. “Spikers inbound. Count five-four spikers, medium-weight.”

“Thank you, SENS.” Captain Rama glanced to her right. “SCO, how goes cyber?”

“Uphill battle, but we’re making progress. We haven’t made any intrusions to their wider network, but we’ve got ins on a few specific vessels. We’ll send the special package when we get the chance.”

“Understood. Keep it up.”

“Aye, ma’am.”

She could hear the point defense guns open up as the structure of the ship shook, decades-old titanium alloy and composite shuddering under the hollow ring of the magnetic autocannons.

“Heat spike in destroyer contact India-Four!” SENS shouted. “It’s in the weapons module, ma’am, they’re firing spinal—!”

The ship rocked under a great and horrible crash.

“Hit to the port forward plate!” Damage Control shouted out. “No penetration, ma’am!”

“Shit!” Rama shouted. “Secure for rapid maneuvers, and get me sandshot!”

She locked eyes with Olsen. “I didn’t think their spinals could hit that fast, not this far.”

“Neither did I.” Olsen grit his teeth as a wave of acceleration hit from the evasive burn. “That’s gotta be a new gun, then. The ones in the War couldn’t.”

“Comms, advise all, Orions present have a longer spinal range than previously estimated.”

“Aye, ma’am.”

“Be advised, volley out from four destroyers… one miss, three hits. Carraroe and Gorgon reporting damage…” TAC breathed. “Istwith is not responding, ma’am.”

“Get me eyes!” She stared down at her display. Debris trailed from behind the destroyer, seemingly struck right down the middle of her modular core by the hypervelocity slug. “Is she on the drift, or dead?”

“Assessing, ma’am, attempting to reconnect with Istwith CIC.”

An eternity passed in that moment.

“We have signal from Istwith backup systems. Shot right down the sweet spot, she’s out for the count. Reactor’s out, she’s on the drift and out of power... Crew is abandoning ship.”

“Fuck…” Rama stared as precious few shuttles and a great many lifeboats poured out from the drifting hulk of the destroyer, ants abandoning their hive in the cold, long night. “Bring primaries to bear and fire, I want this taken care of for when the reinforcements arrive.”

“Aye, ma’am. Aligning spinals, fire control on automatic.” RCS thrusters kicked the ship into the proper direction, and the fire control computer waited for just the right lead to drift into place. The capacitors spooled up, and a loud buzz filled her helmet.

“Shit! Catastrophic fault in Gun One. Reassigning gun and firing.” The ship’s maneuvering rockets fired again, and a deep rumble shot down the central column of the ship, a tombstone on the way to adorn the coffin of approximately one hundred and sixty five people. “Gun One is reporting a total loss of cooling. She’s FUBAR, ma’am.”

“Scramble a damage control party, get it working!”

“No use, we can’t fix it here, Captain!”

“Fuck!” Rama gripped her armrest.

“Heat spike in destroyer contact India-Seven—” SENS fell silent. “Pongraesan reporting hit to her reactor, ma’am.” The sailor turned around and glanced back at the Captain. “Pongraesan’s hailing us on emergency comms!”

“Put them on!”

“Medina, this is destroyer Pongraesan, we've lost all essential systems, including point defe—”

The transmission cut out just as the shudder of a spinal gun shot up her spine, just that slim second too late. A flurry of torpedoes had already broken the back of the Minervan destroyer.

“Ma’am, splash one, but we lost Pongraesan. Doesn't look good. Count five-two lifeboats. Denver and Longford report kills also, and the last destroyer is on the drift, total mission kill. Space is sanitized. Enemy reinforcements are twelve and a half minutes out. Do we disengage?”

She glanced back to Olsen. He shook his head.

“Too many of our people down there. We back off now, we throw them to the lions. Pass the word to the fleet— Do what you can to fix yourself up in ten minutes, pick up all the lifeboats you can, and be ready to engage.”

“Understood, ma’am,” Comms nodded.

She took a breath, and stared at the lifeboats floating in the dark.

Twelve, twelve, four, and three.

The two fleets flung towards each other, falling endlessly in the snare of the planet’s pull, eleven Minervan, thirty one United Nations. As they closed in, sensors locked, missiles spilling from their sides, great clouds of warheads and boosters scattered in the light of a dying ember, the cold luminance of a white dwarf bathing the warships in sickly radiance. Coilgun shots cracked through the void, first spinals and then secondaries; lasers burnt aside armor and swatted down missiles and drones; all the while, the abandoned hulk of the Excessively Large Radio Space Telescope watched on in thoughtless horror.

That mournful leviathan drifted on, metal and composite flower scattered on the final resting place of countless souls, lifeless and hollow; fated eternally to peer out into that great void with no one to hear her findings.

Auroras danced on the skies of the planet below as nuclear explosions silhouetted the great dance of Minervan armor-clad chisels and Solar alligator-headed beasts. Blue-striped, wasp-waisted destroyers cracked asunder, applique-rigged armor panels blew off Minervan ships. They pirouetted in the stark luminance, weaving around each other as needles in the tapestry of the night. A coilgun round struck true and cracked the torpedo room of one of the Blue destroyers; a stray neutron beam warhead later, and she was consumed in a ball of blinding light, taking another of her sisters with her.

A hole in space-time tore open as one of the UN ships broke formation, dumping every bit of power she could muster into her drive, no doubt on her way to summon more ships to the fray. The two formations broke ranks, and against her will, the Captain called it off. They had bloodied the Blues’ nose, if not broken it— only nineteen of the forty-ship blockade still stood. They had lost some of their own, and they would no doubt grieve for them, but they would do so in a safer place. The ceasefire order had come from Admiral al-Hajj himself, her fleet CO. She'd wanted to argue that her orders were worth more than his— hers came from the President. She knew better than to do so. The President had made it clear that she did not want war, and they were playing with fire. Perhaps, if they yanked their hand out now, they wouldn't get burned.

Rama stared down at her display, an image of the colony below gradually coming into focus. Bodies laid out, scattered across the ground, as alien creatures walked amongst them.

She blinked in disbelief.

“Ma’am, gravitational influx inbound, looks like a cluster, one-six-eight kilotons total, that's a UN battlegroup, on our doorstep!”

“How'd they get here so quick?”

“Probably kept a group on station to surge if something like this happened.”

Erik looked up, teeth grit. “We have our orders, ma’am. We have to leave.”

“What about our guys?”

“We have all the lifeboats that launched from Pongraesan, Istwith, Carraroe, Elvirhavn, and Gorgon on scopes. We can recall them to dock with us and get about sixty percent of them before we really have to get the hell out.”

“And on the ground?”

“On the ground?”

“The colonists.”

“I've been looking, but I don't see anyone. There's some… a few heat signatures, but the atmosphere makes it hard to make anything out for certain. And I have no direct evidence that anyone down there survived. There's signs of a battle,” Olsen’s face fell. “They're gone, ma’am. We did what we could.”

“I hate putting our people's lives at the mercy of the Blues.”

“Me too.”

“Fuck,” Rama sighed, glancing down at the readout of the inbound slipspace contacts. “Recall the lifeboats, and get us out of here.”

“Aye, ma’am.”

The office of the President was a spartan one, cramped by the standards of worlds new and old alike. Nia Baughan was an uneasy resident of the Office at the End of the Hall, and no amount of cushion on her chair or extra height in the doorframe would put her at ease. The unpolished concrete of her desk, seal of the Republics inlaid in Seongnam trinitite, ensured that. Every once in a while, when she went home and shut the lights, she swore it would glow. That didn't make any sense to her, but the unburied ghosts of ash and glass had always held a strong presence just over her shoulder.

Today, they had come in force, and they stood in silent vigil over the documents laying on the glass-paned writing surface that had been laid atop that dreadful concrete brick. They cried out for vengeance, for more of Minerva’s sons and daughters had joined them, adrift in endless sleep among distant starlight and sundered steel. They cried out for vengeance, for now once more Minervan blood hung crystalline in the skies above and soaked the roots of alien fields below.

“I won't do it,” she muttered. “I will give you justice, I will give you peace. But not vengeance.”

“I'm sorry, ma’am?”

She bolted upright, and stared back at the door. “Oh, I'm sorry. Come in.” She sighed, looking back down at the documents. “I suppose I have left you waiting.” She nodded to the bodyguard near the door. “Some privacy, please?”

Admiral Hathaway Lee doffed his cap as the bodyguard made his exit. “Madam President.” He saluted.

“Ach, I've no need.” She waved a hand at the door. “Hathaway, we've worked together for how long? I remember when you outranked me, I do.”

“It wasn't that long ago, ma’am.” He sighed. “Ma’am, may I ask something improper?”

“Yeah, Hathaway, you may.”

“Do you mind if I smoke in here?”

“No,” She leaned back in her chair, staring up at the ceiling. “As long as you share.”

“This whole situation is fucked.” He handed her the cigarette, and she took a drag. “I’m glad I quit dip, but… I broke being clean last week. Hard not to, with that news. I wish I had some of those old school paper ones, though. Had one. Real tobacco. Smoked it already. You’ll have to do with the electric.”

“It’s all so… distant, that.” She stood up, looking back through the rear and only window of the office, down into the Consensus Chamber below. “They have so much in their hands out there. You lot, sailors. So far away… even the smallest spark, just so very astray, could send the whole thing up.” She sighed, gesturing for the cigarette again. “And we'd be too late to tell them no.”

“Well, that's what the fleet commanders are for.” He placed the metal stick in her hand. “You've thought about it, I take it?”

“Vaughn and all his men want me to respond with another show of force. A tit for tat blockade of Gleise 486.”

“That's… down, end of the Ophiuchan Run.”

“Nowhere near the Triangle, but still a claim we don't recognize. A hell of a provocation, that.”

“You won't do it.”

“Of course not. We don't recognize it, no. We don't claim it, either.”

“I'm with you, ma’am. This needs to stop somewhere, or else we're dusting off the war plans.”

“I think Vaughn already has them in his back pocket. You remember Colonel Hesp, no?”

“How could you not? The prick. Always so smug.”

“Him and Riahi have been excoriating me in the Committee. In my Committee. I think he smells blood.” She watched the vapor curl up off her lips in the reflection against the dimly lit, unoccupied meeting hall. “I need to survive a vote, this year. My only saving grace may be that they move too slow.”

“Hm.”

“It doesn't help, you know. That I'm a foreigner, to them. I was a child when I came here, but you can hear it in my voice. See it in my build. I'm still the Solar in the End Office, to them. And they are a fickle bunch, at that.”

“This is why I never got into politics,” the Admiral shook his head with a shrug as he stared out with her into the empty Chamber.

“No,” She turned, and his eyes met hers. “Only its end result.”

He snorted.

“And what will you do if he wins them over?”

“Well, then,” She broke his gaze, and shook her head. “Then, I suppose, I'll take the fall, I will. But this, I can end.”

“I hope so,” he scowled. “I think I've had my fill of dead friends. Still,” he paused. “You do this, ball’s in Liu’s court now.”

“Well,” she sighed. “It goes both ways. Some point, somebody has to play.” She handed the cigarette back to her old friend.

He took it in hand, raised it to his mouth, and took a deep pull in. “I admire your faith, ma’am.”

“Sometimes, I wish I did too.”

He nodded, and headed to the door. “Goodnight, Nia.” He smiled. “See you tomorrow.”

“Goodnight, Hathaway.”

She looked down at her desk, and with an incredulous sigh picked up the cold metal of the cigarette, watching as the ghosts of Akrotiri hung in the vapor on her breath.

The Colonel looked up in stunned silence. Rows and rows of tubes, seemingly hewn— or grown— from the metal itself pulsed with an eerie light underneath frost. The shoulder light on his Hoplite rig cut through a lingering mist, hanging uneasy in the long night of the void outside.

“What the hell is this?” Lieutenant Teague raised her rifle. “I don't like this, Colonel!”

Colonel Winters reached out a hand and pushed the barrel of the L14 down. “Stand down, Marine.” He shook a helmeted head. “We're guests here.”

“Guests?”

“Look around, kid. This stuff doesn't look Minervan.” He paused. “I think you and I both know we're not in Kansas anymore.”

Lieutenant Teague walked up to one of the tubes. A misshapen form lay on the other side of the metal-glass. It was long, lanky, and grey, as if a squid had become human. It floated and bobbed inside the vial, rolling around as three inky pools of blackness came into full view of her.

“No, sir. I think… I think we're somewhere much weirder.”

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“Cut!”

The cameraman sighed, the gaffer lowered the boom mic, and Colonel Vance Winters shook his head, took off his helmet, and became Martyn Glassner-Fontana again. Martyn glared down the two writers on set, and cocked his head with a raised eyebrow. “Not in Kansas, eh? We're riffing on the bloody Wizard of Oz now?”

“We wanted a few takes for the reshoot, and… well, we're still workshopping that one.” Avery shrugged.

“By the by. Who’s that bloke?” Martyn gestured at a tall, lanky man hugging the shadows with his salt-and-pepper stubble, wearing a well-fitted Serapis Ridge University sweatshirt and a Navy ballcap. He caught his gaze. It was a sharp grey, one that belied a honed, refined wisdom that had been brought to bear on problems and people unfortunate enough to have crossed him. Martyn took a step back without even noticing.

The director, Michael Kromhoff, spun on a foot and stumbled back in shock. “Woah, what the hell are you doing here, man?” He walked up to the man, slapped him on the shoulder, and brought the now smiling stranger in for a hug. “Bring it in, Cap’n!”

“Woah, Mike. I’m just Jake to you. No need to get all formal.” He glanced over to Martyn. “Oh, shoot, I loved you in Bond.”

“You actually watched those?” Glassner-Fontana strolled over, a quizzical look about him. “I didn’t think we had an audience for our lovely little 1960s period pieces. Not back then, anyways, before the… well, you know. That dreadful technogroove craze.”

“You did, and it was me and my wife Amanda. And that, to my knowledge, was about it.” There was a warmness in the man’s eyes he hadn’t quite seen before— a chuckle breaking across his face. “I liked ‘em a lot. It was good to see some good old fashioned First Cold War espionage on the silver screen instead of the same ol’ slop these days.”

Martyn mumbled under his breath. “Well, I hate to disappoint, now.”

“Oh, come on.” Jake smiled. “I’ve known Mike since elementary. Born storyteller. I trust him. So. Tell me about the new project, Mike. Tango Green, that the name?”

“Really? You haven’t heard yet? Navy’s been real cooperative… They’re letting us film with real stuff. It’s saved us a fortune on props. And the advisors they’ve been giving us. I mean, wow. Utter professionals. And fun guys, too!” Mike grinned.

“Those are real Hoplite suits?” Jake raised an eyebrow. “I think I might have to report this to the bean counters. They’ll be wondering where so much of our money went.” As if on cue, one of the cleaner-shaven men standing around the prop table walked over, eyes wide in disbelief.

“Captain Starling?”

“And here, you’ll see why I wear a ballcap in public.”

“Anonymity? Jake, it says NAVY on it.” Mike elbowed his old friend. Jake rolled his eyes.

“Sorry, sir. Big fan of what you’ve done.” The sailor, one of the show’s military advisors, gulped. “I’ll get out of your hair.”

“Don’t worry, son. What’s your name?” He slipped a coin from his pocket into his palm, admittedly a bit clumsily— he hadn’t done this in a while, and he was never very good at it.

“Habib. Habib al-Tayeb. Morrocan Navy, sir. Just finished a tour out in the Frontier. I’d love to serve on one of the Tharsises, one day, it’s a beautiful ship you’ve built.”

“Hold on a tic, Captain Starling. I’ve heard of you. You’re the guy all those nutters won’t shut up about.” Glassner-Fontana looked him up and down. It looked like he could be a particularly tall face in any East African crowd, perhaps excluding the characteristic lanky build of an Outer Planets kid.

“Yup, that’s me,” Starling didn’t even turn to face Martyn, opting instead to give Habib a firm handshake, the commemorative coin slipping out from between their hands. “Ope, my bad.” He shook his head, disappointed, as he crouched down to pick it up. “Haven’t done this in ages. Forgive me… and I didn't build that ship. Elysium Island did, and they did a damn fine job.” He gave his head another shake. “That is me, though, Martyn. Mr. Deep State himself.” He glanced over, giving Martyn a sly grin. “Or so every wackjob on Chirpsong and the talkpods would have you believe.”

“Oh, actually, Jake,” Mike tapped Jacob on the shoulder. “If you’re in for a few days, ya gotta meet Tess. Oh, she’s great, you’d love her. We got her from the Marines, she’s one of our military advisors, but she’s a total creative sounding board. I just mean, wow. I don’t think I’ve ever met somebody with her creativity. We rewrote a lot about the aliens because she’d just keep coming up with this deliciously funky stuff. I just don't know what to tell you. She's got the juice. I’ve actually gotta get her a writing credit now.”

“Oh?” He raised an eyebrow. “I think I ran into her on the way in. Tess Hart, right?”

“That’s the one,” Mike nodded. “Huh, that’s weird. I didn’t think she was in today.”

“I think she said she was just popping in to get something,” Jake chuckled. “Quick in-and-out, y’know?”

“Yeah, I guess. Shame, I was hoping I’d be able to talk to her soon, I had a few rewrites for the Tyrexi podship scene I wanted to run past her. We’re in reshoots. Some of it’s cheaper to do digitally, but you know how I feel about in-camera work. I want as much as I can get physical. Only real shortcut we took was using this crazy new holography tech for a lot of the scenery and in-camera mocap work. It’s nuts stuff, man… We should get you in as a Tyrexi!”

“A… what now?” Jake stared with his mouth ever so slightly ajar.

“Tyrexi. The aliens. Bad guys. Well there’s some good guys, but most of ‘em are bad. Got all these other alien species under their boot. Nasty customers. We’re going to the stars to go meet new friends and set ‘em free out from under the Tyrexi.”

“We invite the Minnies?”

“Not really, no. They met the Tyrexi too but they got convinced they were the good guys, and they get swept up as puppets.”

“Damn. We could use some reconciliation these days, even if it’s just on a TV show.”

“Yeah, Tess said so too, but Minervan antagonists screen well. You seen the focus group numbers? The people want evil Minnies.”

“That's a shame.” Jake shook his head.

“How's Mandy and Jessie, by the way? And Chris! You’ve barely told me anything about him!”

“Oh, Amanda’s good. We've been spending a lot of time together since we had Chris. It's been nice, paternity leave. Mars is treating us well, Jessie’s starting at U Bradbury. Chemical engineering.” Jake threw up his hands. “Chris is Chris, what else can I say? He's less than a year old. He's adorable and he's been easier than Jessica, and that's all there is to it.”

“And that first one didn't scare you off? Proud of her, though, she always was smart. Good to hear. When am I going to meet Chris?”

“All in due time, man. All in due time.” He shrugged. “Hey, by the way, how's your catering?” Jake nudged Mike. “I didn't exactly brown-bag it today, y’know.”

“Look at you, Jake. Captain in the Navy and you're still bumming lunches off me. Never change, man. Never change.” He shook his head. “Nah, man. Fuck catering, I oughta treat you to something local. Something iconic. We're hitting In-n-Out.”

“I thought you’d have a good caterer. Hollywood production and all.” Jake scowled. “You wanna take me to a fast food place?”

“Dude, it's groovy as fuck.”

Jake shivered. “Say that again and I'll drop-kick you.”

“You two enjoy yourself,” Martyn sighed. “I'll be eating well.”

“Can I get roadkill fries with that?” The two Ganymeders towered over the counter and the teenaged cashier at the register, the leading lady of a poppy Draconis Daze tune emanating from a phone set down by the grill.

“Uhhhh… we don't have anything called roadkill fries, sir.”

“Yeah, you do, I get it here all the time.” Mike put his hands on his hips and leaned in ever so slightly, squinting at the kid’s nametag. “Brian. Quit messing with me.”

“I uh,… I dunno, sir. Do you… do you mean animal fries?”

“No, I mean roadkill fries. You're. You're fucking with me, Brian. You've gotta be.”

“This is my third—”

“Everybody knows what fucking roadkill fries are. They're animal fries with a fucking burger crumbled in—”

“Mike. The kid’s shivering,” Jake shot his old friend a glare with a tap on the shoulder. “You’re better than this, man.”

“Ope, shit. I. Uh, sorry, kid. Let my temper get away from me.” He tapped the 20% button on the register. “Yeah, sorry. Brian.”

“Sixty five dollars and sixty-two cents,” the kid at the register gestured to the reader. Quaint, having a kid at a register. Jake guessed it was essential for In-n’-Out’s brand, or some corporate slop like that. Whatever. It keeps the kids busy.

He tapped his friend on the shoulder. “I'll go get us a table, Mike.”

He walked over to a corner table, sitting in the booth against the wall. He looked out the window into the sky, that endless blanket of blue and white that enveloped this world so gently. A deep jealousy panged in his stomach.

Mike sat down across from him, and he kept looking to the clouds. “They don't know how good they have it here, do they?”

“Huh?” Mike raised an eyebrow. “Oh, here. On Earth. Yeah, no, they really don't. It's not all cozy and comfy, though.”

“I know. But it's… different, here, man. Back home there was no ‘outside’. You go outside and you're a goner.”

“It took me a while to get used to. Not having a roof over your head.” Mike paused. “The first time I got here, I couldn't look up. I was afraid the air would float away. You're doing better than me, brother.”

He turned back to his friend. “I won't lie to you, Mike. I've been here a few times before, on business. I just can't get used to it.”

“Oh?” His eyes lit up. “Where to?”

“Washington, Brussels, Luxembourg, and Abuja.”

“State or DC?”

“DC. Pretty city. Got its demons, though.”

“Don't we all.” He turned his gaze, once more, to the clouds.

“So… what have they got you doing these days? You're on that big ship, right?”

“MFV Tharsis, yeah. Only one like her. For now.” He grinned, shuffling in his seat to face his friend. “One point six kilometers of freedom and democracy.”

“For now? So you won?”

“Yeah, they actually listened to our recommendations. Thank God. That was a brawl, and it's still not really over. Destroyer Mafia’s looking over our shoulders for even a whiff of incompetence or failure.” He shook his head. “So everything has to go perfectly. We only got what we wanted because Orions shit the bed in ‘06. I mean, they were a century old, but the principles are the same. I won't bore you with the details.”

“No! This is interesting,” he leaned in. “You'd love Tess, man. She's on your wavelength.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, another time, man. I'm here to see you.”

“Whatever. Continue.”

“Well, basically, I’ll give you the abbreviated version of what I gave the Navy Times. the issue is that the destroyers need to dramatically outnumber a capital ship in order to win a fight. There's just too many weapons, signals warfare, and defensive mounts on capital ships for subcapital ships to really have a chance against them except in overwhelming numbers, which from our wargames, we're looking at eight to one to take out even a last generation Minervan battleship.”

“Shit,” Mike’s eyes widened. “That's no good.”

“Nope. Especially because the new generation destroyer designs— even though they're good, and we still need them— only raise those odds to five to one. But our carriers have a significant edge. By using massive fighter and decoy swarms, we can overwhelm sensors and processing systems.”

“So you throw too much stuff at them to track at once.”

“Yeah, basically. There's a lot more to it than that, but that's the basics, and that's not even getting into how they match up against Minervan carriers. They've advanced a lot in the last while, and… odds aren't good for the little guys.”

“Damn, and here I was hoping Vince Wolf was right and you really were a secret agent. Shame. You’re a fucking nerd in a uniform.” He grinned.

“Don't believe everything you hear on talkpods, Hollywood.”

“Oh, but it's so much more fun.” Mike grinned, pulling his phone out of his pocket. “Food’s up, by the way. Order sixty-five.”

“I’ll get it. No worries.” Jacob stood up, taking in the white-and-grey tiled floors, the red accented moulding, the smell of fries, burger grease, and grilled onions.

He stretched his legs in the fullgee gravity of Earth— it wasn't quite as bad as the first time, but it always took some of the vigor out of him. THARSIS’ gravplates were designed to hold .7 to .8g even into a 12g burn, so he'd been accustomed to most of the gravity this time. He walked over to the counter and looked through bags of food until he found two bags marked 65, and two cups for the fountain.

He brought the bags back to the table, nodding as he set them down. “I’m gonna go get some pop.”

“No one calls it that here, man.”

“Oh, whatever. You know what I mean.”

He walked up to the soda fountain, pushing the button for ice— only three cubes, any more and it'd water down the drink— tapping the option for orange soda before letting out a sigh. He looked into his reflection in the screen, before being shaken out of it by a yell.

“Hey!” A man next to him, grabbing some salt packets, grit his teeth. “You're that fucking Minnie-lover.”

Really? He sighed. I really, really don't want to do this. “You must have me confused.”

“Oh, go fuck yourself, man. I know you're Starling. I've seen your face too many times not to. I've had it with people like you Deep State shitheads, making our military soft and bleeding us broke.”

He took a step back, putting the orange soda in his left hand and reaching around for a holster that wasn't there. Shit. “Listen, why don't we sit down and talk. This is all just a misunderstanding. Things aren't what you think they are.”

“You think I'm fucking stupid?” The man was shorter than him, barely coming up to his collarbone. A local, then. He took a breath out and glanced over to the countertop. He stanced up. “I ain't stupid, man. I know you're following in the footsteps of your traitor fucking gramps, selling us out to the Minnies, but I ain't gonna stand for it. I ain't gonna let you fucking Skinnies—” An onlooker, watching with a phone in hand, gasped.

He grit his teeth, dumping the open cup of orange soda over the other man’s head. Captain Starling smirked, staring down the belligerent, sopping Californian. The other man dropped the salt on the floor, audibly fuming.

“Get fucked. You're bringing my family and my homeworld into this? C’mon, man. Get the fuck out of my face.” Jake glared at him, malice in his voice. “Yeah, we are taller out there. What of it? Fuckin’ asshat.” Jacob puffed out his chest, and in his moment of smug superiority, got clocked across the face by a fist sticky with orange soda.

“Ah, what the fuck, man?” He stumbled back, falling on his butt against the floor tile. The Californian sloppily kicked at him, as he scooched back to grab the countertop on his way back to his feet. He took another step back, rummaging the condiment rack for an improvised weapon, ducking under a stumbling haymaker and grabbing the first bottle he could find, a tiny squeeze bottle of Tapatío sauce. Seriously? Was glass too much to ask for?

He scrambled back and opened the bottle of hot sauce, shoving a hand forward towards the man’s eyes, and doing his best to empty it. The sauce fell impotently on the ground, weighed down by the force of Earth’s gravity. The Californian stopped for a second and cocked his head with a confused squint.

“That, uh. Would have worked back home.” He glanced back at the empty bottle, the sombrero-sporting man grinning back towards him.

The Californian shuffled towards him, a balled fist raised for a swinging punch. “Are you fucking re—” He slipped on the small pool of Tapatío at his feet and smacked his head on the wall tile with a crunch. Jacob jolted back.

“Ope,” he blinked, walking away cautiously from the man before, panged with guilt, putting two fingers on his neck. “He's still alive, everybody. I'm calling an ambulance.”

He speed-walked through the crowd of onlookers, nervously chuckling and pulling down his ballcap as he saw the sheer number of lenses turned his way. He grabbed Mike by the shoulder. “This burger better be fucking delicious.”

Mike sighed. “This is what I get for not going through the drive-thru.”

The first season of Tango Green (2520-2527) drew a combined 30 billion viewers across the United Nations for its premiere, dropping off to 8.3 billion by its finale. Panned by reviewers as little more than a ridiculous fantasy in spite of precious few strong performances, it quickly gained a cult following, doing especially well with fans of science fiction and the age 12-23 demographic. Some criticisms of the show’s first season called it a thinly veiled recruiting ad at best, and outright propaganda at worst. There was, noticably, a slight boost in COMPMARFORCOM constituent services’ recruiting in the year 2520, but little serious scholarship exists to suggest meaningful correlation in light of mounting tensions between the UN and FMR. The show’s first season would win the 2520 Primetime Emmy for Best Visual Effects, and was nominated for Best Sound Design the same year. Iago Pritchett, who played the alien defector Sumaktri, was nominated for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series, but lost to Son Dae-Hyun in the critically acclaimed sword & spell K-drama Sword of the Alchemist (2512-2525). It was not until Season Five that it developed a following in Minerva, let alone a significant one; the addition in Season Six of a Minervan character, Major Amanda Guan-Decker, played by Minervan actress Imahara Kei, reflected the new viewership demographic. A tie-in movie, Tango Green: The Tyrexi Menace (2530) was produced to tie up loose plot threads that would have been conluded in the show’s completed but lost eighth season. It is, however, an enduring piece of UN popular culture, with Colonel Vance Winters having entered the pantheon of sci-fi heroes, and the show maintaining a cult following, only reaching the peak of its popularity sometime after it left the air.

Hi there WAYBOUND readers!

Been a bit of a longer silence than I’d like since The Akrotiri Journals came out.

We’ve been moving behind the scenes on the next short story as well as a lot of art content! I’ve been drawing, and I’ve enlisted the help of an old friend of mine, Snazz. You may know their work from the Extremely Large Radio Space Telescope drawing, and they also did this doodle of what the battle over Akrotiri looked like from the ground.

I’m really happy with how Upon My Shield Rests the Heavens came out. It’s really a first-class lore post and I’m especially proud of it because it’s the first thing for Waybound I’ve completely written while working a full-time job— and it’s good.

I wanted to give everybody an update on when the next short story is coming and give everybody some updates on where I’ve been, and why the silence, and show a peek behind the curtain to show you some coming content. I'd like to encourage all you subscribers (or readers, too— I'm not picky) to leave your thoughts on what you've seen so far and on today's discussion both in the comments here and on the WAYBOUND Discord server. (Check out the buttons below.)

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Pardon The Interruption

So I started a full time job earlier this year. I know I’ve said that before. You’re probably sick of hearing it! WAYBOUND is a labor of love and moreover it’s something that happens in my spare time— I don’t, as much as I wish I did, have the PTO banked up to take days off from work to sleep in and write. So everything WAYBOUND related now happens between the hours of 5-9 PM on a select few weekdays when I’m not busy and also on weekends when I’m not busy engrossing myself in college football and Celtics basketball (by the way this is a total plug for the Podcast and their Substack for those of you vaguely interested in sports, which I think is just me. By the way, sorry if you get a notification about this, Commish!)

Once the CFB season is over I think my writing schedule should become a lot more regular. However if this pace continues it’d result in about four short stories a year, which is much lower than my intended pace… I would love to get Volume One finished and polished up so that I can get it in front of a publisher and get cracking on Volume Two and All the Old Dreams. I’ve intended the print/paid version of Volume One to contain around eight short stories that I’ll have posted for free here on the website and like two or four completely original ones that you’ll just have to pick up a copy for. Don’t worry, I won’t be paywalling your favorite characters dying or anything cruel like that. I’m not evil, I’m just a writer.

The good news is I have a little time off from work coming up. We’ll see how much that moves the needle. The other good news is that I’m about six thousand words into Sign of the Times, and I have a pretty good plan on how to get it done.

I've also realized the reading order may be a little confusing for new readers— I'm planning on making a Getting Started page. More to come.

Artistic License

So I’ve broadly divided WAYBOUND art into two categories: Ship Art and Stuff Art. I’m no good at Stuff Art. Stuff Art is anything that isn’t a spaceship. I’m still working on my Ship Art, too, but it’s serviceable enough that I use it. We’ll start with Ship Art.

I’m doing more Ship Art! Expect some cool stuff soon like maybe a fleet… or a poster, perhaps. Also expect some Minervan ships to join the fold. Thanks to the modeling help of my friends Dennis and Zfall99, I’ve got references to draw off of for these ships— check ‘em out:

Now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for. Stuff Art. I’m no good at drawing people, places, or non-spaceship things. That’s why I’ve brought in Snazz (@lordquince on Twitter and @heroicmeep on Tumblr), who is a polymath but for art. A polyart? I don’t know, but we go back, and they’re actually really freaking good at a terrifying number of artistic disciplines. They can draw, paint, design, and did I mention she’s also a freaking incredible author? Yeah, you should be seeing a Guest Story from them at some point. I know I personally cannot wait. They drew the cool picture at the start of this UNOW, too.

Ever wondered what Santi, Clara, and Joey of Blood in the Snow looked like on Europa?

Yeah, get ready for some cool art. Snazz is cooking.

Community Outreach

Hey, did you know that we have a Discord?

Woah! A Discord! Who'd have thought?

That’s right! WAYBOUND has a Discord!

Come stop on by. We’ve got a good group of people who hang out and chat, but we’d love to connect with other WAYBOUND readers (like you, dear reader!)

Also— we’re planning on setting up Community Game Nights for several video games, from party games like Jackbox and Gartic Phone to classic FPSes like Halo and even some fun co-op stuff like Satisfactory or Lethal Company. You can also just come drop by and game separately with us. We’re also looking at perhaps a movie night or two. Who’s up for Master and Commander, Hot Fuzz, or the Amazon series Patriot (2015)? Maybe throw in some Star Trek: Enterprise or Deep Space Nine as I work through those. (Cerritos forever, by the way.)

Either way, we all wind up hanging out in VC a bunch. Come say hi! We really love hearing your crackpot theories on just what the hell happened at the end of The Akrotiri Journals or about your favorite politician or who you’ve got to win the 2523 RBL Champions’ Tournament. My money’s on Suri and the Vipers, but you never know.

In Closing

Thanks for sticking out the radio silence, and for helping us grow to new heights. We just passed sixty subscribers the other day and I know I was over the Moon. Upon My Shield Rests the Heavens was a banger and there’s far more to come… Sign of the Times is in the oven and we are cooking.

If you've enjoyed Waybound, feel free to drop a comment below about who really shot Mint Abawi; tell your friends about us; join our Discord; yell at me on Twitter (@njmksr), and if you haven't already, drop a subscription here! It's free. It's fun. It won’t sign you up for the draft in Canaveral Republic!1

We hope you're having as much fun with this as we are. Let us know what you think, and we'll see you around.

내 방패 윗 온 천당 1

Origins

The Federated Minervan Republics Navy (FMRN, founded 2349) is one of the component services of the Federated Minervan Armed Forces, founded in the nascence of the Minervan state in the aftermath of the 2337-2343 Minervan War of Independence. (Many Minervan sources, including the Navy itself, point to the establishment of loosely-coordinated pirate raiding parties such as Shepard’s Raiders aboard retrofitted civilian vessels which harassed UN-affiliated naval and commercial vessels to little success in 2327 as the date of the service’s establishment. Few serious scholars earnestly believe the two organizations hold any sort of continuity at all.) It is the primary spacefaring arm of the Minervan military and the outstretched right hand of New Ruacnoc, under whose aegis the Minervan ideals of unity, equality, and democracy have spread under the light of distant stars.

In late May 2343, in the aftermath of the nuclear bombing of Seongnam, a day now known as Martyr’s Day to Minervans and Ash Wednesday to the rest of inhabited space, the situation on the ground for United Nations MERIDCOL forces was dire. Minervan fighters had— thanks to local ingenuity and defections on account of horrified UN personnel— assembled a proper anti-orbital defense that could successfully prosecute and hold at threat any transatmospheric attempt at landing; and they were now behaving a lot more like a proper military than a scattered insurrection. Pushed into a corner, an already desparate and increasingly paranoid General Havelock ordered his men to descend the space elevators, the orbital components of which were one of the few areas of operations in Minerva’s orbit that the MERIDCOL still had continuous access to. The result was a bloodbath, as the troops were slaughtered when the climber cars reached the terminal, and this bloodbath shook MERIDCOL forces to their core. Increasing numbers of their brethren were deserting and defecting, many of which were taking their equipment. Fighting for a paranoid butcher of a General, who almost every country on Earth, the Moon, and Mars, was calling for the removal of, became an increasingly untenable prospect. Independence Forces representatives successfully negotiated for the ROKS SANGJU (EFK-35), a Korean INCHEON-Class Corvette, to pledge not to obey any order that would involve attacking Minerva. Similar agreements began to spring up with several other ships, and this pledge eventually led to the SANGJU, her Captain Rhim Joonho, and much of her crew defecting to the Minervan Independence Forces just before the signing of the Treaty of Bradbury on August 11, 2343. While Minerva would not properly have an organized Navy for another six years, it is generally regarded that SANGJU was the first proper warship of the Minervan Navy, though in truth SANGJU was used more for technical exploitation than as a warship in her own right.

Beginning as a small fleet under the command of Admiral Rhim of domestically produced ships commonly decried by UN navalists as ‘ripoffs’ of the INCHEON-Class Corvettes, and growing over the ages into the the overwhelming armada and logistical behemoth of the present, the Federated Minervan Republics Navy was born in fire and has been tasked with upholding the rights, freedoms, and protection of the citizens of Minerva and her Republics. It is an awe-inspiring task, and she is more than up to it.

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A Word on Doctrine

The doctrine of the Federated Minervan Republics Navy (FMRN) may best be summarized by the term tempo. Organizing their forces into echelons, the FMRN had in mind a strategy of sustained, constantly advancing operations to prevent the "Great War To Come" from ever spilling into Minervan space, lest the bloody lessons of their War For Independence repeat. These echelons, subdivisions of a Minervan fleet, would each have different roles to play in a carefully-timed and meticulously-planned series of attacks against an opposing UN-UNC force, each designed to strip away another layer of their defenses or to lead them into a more unfavorable position, and timed to arrive at just the right moment. In order to coordinate this, as well, the Minervan military has thrown a great deal of resources into precision slipstream mapping and infrastructure, and enjoys an asymmetrical advantage in communication and transit speed due to these closely-guarded military secrets.

In order to keep up this "Unrelenting Offensive", as dubbed by Admiral of the Navy Keo 'Maestro' Hughes, Minervan ships are designed to be easily resupplied, serviced, repaired, and maintained in the field, without returning to specialized stations— and to facilitate this, the FMRN's Fleet Logistics Office has become a powerful force within the organization, managing and maintaining an equally impressive fleet of Forward Repair and Resupply Vessels. Most Minervan capital ships are armored with a series of modular, paneled applique armor around a central core hull, and this enables the field-deployed replacement of damaged armor by a Forward Repair and Resupply Vessel, allowing a Minervan ship that has taken considerable amounts of armor damage that may otherwise result in a mission kill of the warship to be rapidly repaired and returned to a high level of combat effectiveness in at most a couple of days, with the core hulls typically similarly modular to a lesser degree. In the early days of the Fools' War, UN-UNC sailors came to refer to the Minervan fleet as an 'armada of the undead' due to some sailors realizing they were once again fighting the same ships they'd mission-killed not three days earlier.

The introduction of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) guns, a Minervan invention, to the main battery of the MYEONGNYANG-Class Fast Battleship in 2502 led to a revolution in Minervan naval technology. Capable of both functioning as a regular coilgun and with a shorter-ranged mode which melts the slug before shooting a magnetically-confined bolt of hypervelocity molten tungsten, MHD guns are capable of tearing through modern armor with relative ease due to their combination of thermal and kinetic energy and are thus sometimes also known as thermokinetic energy weapons. Their installation in the main battery of the MYEONGNYANG-Class resulted in the legal reclassification of the Fast Battleship to a Battlecruiser, as the armor of the vessel could not withstand its main battery (a requirement to be legally considered a Battleship under the 2465 Treaty of Newport). In a similar fashion, the now ubiquitous technology has led many modern Minervan ships in an already Cruiser heavy navy to be reclassified as Battlecruisers, much to the protest of the United Nations. As such, it was widely considered (and later proven) that the FMRN possessed a greater degree of firepower than the UN-UNC, though less accurate in its delivery methods. 

By focusing on heavily specialized Strike Craft and warships capable of rapid repair and rearmament, the FMRN hoped to keep war away from its territory; a tactic that largely worked for the first year of the War but began to suffer as the losses mounted and the tempo, ultimately, broke, leading to the pre-Reclaimancy War stalemate. In this Guide, we hope to familiarize you, the reader, with the vessels that fought the Fools' War as part of 'Admiral Hughes' Grand Orchestra', in a neutral and unbiased manner; both in memory of the people who fought and perished aboard them for the independence and sovereignty of their country, and in hopes that such bloodshed shall be avoided among humanity in the generations to come.

—Kane’s Fighting Ships of the Fools' War, pg. 5 (2539)

Admiral Hughes’ Grand Orchestra

Admiral of the Navy (Wonsu) Keo ‘Maestro’ Hughes (January 22, 2372-December 31, 2499), father of the FMRN Fleet Logistics Office and the Forward Repair and Resupply Vessel, was an unlikely candidate to be a transformative leader in the Minervan Navy. Graduating from the Naval Academy as the Anchorman of the Class of 2393— the graduating Midshipman with the lowest grade point average— Hughes was never a particularly good student, and lacked the luxury of high priority in selection for posting. He found limited success in the fleet as an engineering officer aboard the ISTWITH-Class destroyer MFRS LAODICEA (D301), noted for his hardworking tenacity, a down-to-earth nature, and willingness to listen that created a good working relationship with the enlisted Sailors in his department. He was, however, abrasive towards superior officers, and would frequently find himself in conflict with his Destroyer Squadron’s commanding officer, then-Captain Jacob Kneale.

Destroyer Squadron SEVEN FIVE was forward-deployed to patrol Serendin, a somewhat remote habitable planet in Wolf 25, then one of the furthest reaches of Minervan power into the Frontier. The ISTWITH-Class DDGs of the Squadron were frequently subject to long maintenance availabilities in the shipyards at Naval Station Wakefield over the planet Yukon (Chara II), an inhabited, fairly well populated world on the edge of legally Minervan space. Destroyers in the yards at Yukon would often be fighting for authorization to strip components off of another squadron’s ships in order to return them to operational status, with new-built Destroyers often arriving at Yukon and being plucked for parts within the first week of their stay. For decades, this had been the way of the world— and then-Lieutenant Hughes could not stand it. He lamented the lack of spare parts, the ill-managed and overworked supply chain that simply dumped a given number of spares a year at the feet of the Sailors there and expected them to sort it out for itself, and while no one was happy with the arrangement, some were better at navigating it than others. Captain Jacob Kneale could navigate it exceptionally well, giving Squadron SEVEN FIVE one of the shortest turnaround times of any DESRON due to his exceptional navigation of office politics and his willingness to dabble in favors to grease any particularly squeaky wheels. Hughes (at the time) could stand this least of all— and got into a particularly nasty series of arguments with Captain Kneale that would lead to his reassignment to the Fleet Logistics Office— then a small, perpetually overworked, and frequently ignored group in the central command structure back on Minerva.

Kneale had given Hughes one last order as his commanding officer— “do something about it.” Hughes wasted little time. For a group used to being ignored, Hughes was anything but soft-spoken. He would work his way up the ranks while remaining entirely within the Logistics Office— with then-CO RADL Sasha Boyajian remarking that Hughes “…[was] the only one who wanted to be here.” By 2411, Hughes and Kneale’s paths would cross again, with Kneale having ascended to the position of Chief of Naval Operations. Then-Commander Hughes had devised a radical plan to revolutionize the Minervan military logistical chain, to transition away from the simpler ‘push’ system that had long been in place to a new ‘pull’ system, where units would see their logistical needs met on their own terms, rather than a rigid system simply throwing a fixed quota of supplies at them and telling them to make it work. In tandem, he had envisioned a new way of naval warfighting and an enabling asset to make it so. Having grown up in the ash-charred shadow of General Havelock’s devastation, Hughes had long feared the return of the United Nations, and long feared what he had dubbed ‘The Great War to Come.’ He had envisioned a well-provisioned, nimble, agile, and most of all, persistent force to be the only thing that could successfully fend off the then-greater naval might of the UN— if they could not win on the UN’s terms, they would simply set the terms themselves, constantly pressing Sol’s forces on the backfoot and siezing the initiative to batter them with it. The backbone of this “Unrelenting Offensive” would be the Forward Repair and Resupply Vessel, or the FRRV. Intended as a mobile spacedock capable of replacing the applique armor that was then coming into vogue for Minervan ships in the field, the FRRV would also be a mobile supply and repair station carrying spare parts, supplies, ammunition, and best of all, capable of depot-level repairs; Minervan ships under Hughes’ vision would transition to a more modular design in order to fully take advantage of this. This joint force support ship would form the backbone of what onlookers quickly came to call Hughes’ ‘Grand Orchestra’, a hundred instruments each playing their own part; production, logistics, maintenance, and battle— each in tune with the other and each supporting the rest. Bringing his vision before his old CO, Kneale nearly ran Hughes out of his office upon seeing the price tag. Soon, however, the UN’s bloodless siezure of 61 Cygni in October 2411 from the Minervan miners who were ostensibly under the protection of a Minervan DESRON— which was then spread thin due to many of its ships being in a maintenance availability— forced Kneale’s hand. He promptly promoted Hughes to Captain, handed him a blank check, and put the backing of his office— and his myriad political connections— behind him.

Logistics, Hughes said, began with the defense-industrial workforce. He set out expanding and transforming the sector with jobs and training programs intended to produce a new generation of skilled Minervan machinists, welders, fabricator technicians, and all sorts of tradesmen for every industry, not just in defense. With a new wave of state-owned arsenals and defense production plants opening under his plan, including the famed Kennedy Arsenal and the El Morro Naval Yard, the Minervan supply chain would finally start to see the increase in production necessary to alleviate stock issues— and the increased investment into transport and spacelift vessels would ensure that stock would find its way downchain. The first VEGETIUS-Class Forward Repair and Resupply Vessels would come online in 2419— the year when Captain Hughes would finally pin on his first star. The freshly minted, young Rear Admiral (Lower Half) would find himself in constant struggle with almost all of his fellow flag officers, with many of them seeing the Fleet Logistics Office under Hughes as a threat to their authority, with many calling the Hughes Plan’s restructuring of the military a ‘palace coup’. In fairness, they were not far off. With the backing of a still-influential former CNO, Consensus ties2 that shielded him from almost any internal backlash, and having so thoroughly convinced Admiral Herman Croall— the present CNO— to buy into the vision himself, he had effectively placed one hand on the levers of power and the other on the tiller of the institution. In no uncertain terms, Keo Hughes had become the most powerful man in the Minervan Navy. This was his Orchestra. Everyone under him called him the Maestro, but never once to his face.

As the Hughes Plan came to fruition, the Minervan Navy began to hit operational tempos that few had ever considered possible. The Minervan Navy was always considered a second-rate fleet, one that existed largely for the purpose of gumming up the works of the UN war machine with viscera, bone, and prayerful hope. Few, if any, had forseen the transformation that would send shivers down the spine of every Sailor under the powder-blue standard of Sol— the creation of a modern, ferocious, ready Minervan Navy, armed with a shark’s grin of teeth— razor sharp, with an inexhaustible set of spares ready to shift into place and tear in for the kill.

Keo Hughes would never serve as Chief of Naval Operations himself, nor would he leave the Rear Admiral billet of the Director of the Fleet Logistics Office. He did not need to. His name carried its own rank, and the shadow he cast was long. When he retired, he was intending to retire a Rear Admiral. Out of gratitude for the service he had done his nation, the Consensus would not let him. Promoted to Admiral of the Navy, a rank created for the express purpose of paying him a larger pension, he retired one day later, on June 7th, 2448. He would die in a vehicular accident on a mountainside road at the age of 127 on December 31, 2499, driving into the city of Seongnam from his villa in the outlying country to meet his grandchildren for the New Year’s Day celebrations. No one else was harmed. His driver’s license, found at the scene of the crash, was expired.

He is remembered as a patriot, a hero, and ‘…an insufferable hardass of unimpeachable character’ by many who worked with him. Few can argue with his results. Many critics, however, highlight the danger that was presented by one military leader holding so much sway over the democratically elected Consensus by sheer politicking alone, with many contending he broke several military-civil affairs laws in the process that have since been repealed in the Gray Wave brought on by President Amelie Nwajiobi in the 2470s.

The FMRN Today (2523)

In the wake of Hughes’ transformation of the service and the subsequent modernizations thereof, the FMRN stands at 5,808 ships, with a non-insignificant portion of these being orbital defense cutters, as Minerva does not separate its cutters into a Coast Guard like the UN does. Were one to remove those ships from the equation, the true size of the Minervan Navy becomes evident as 4,883 ships, of which still a non-insignificant portion are corvettes and fast attack boats. The subcapital ships of the FMRN are dominated by the D555 FALL RIVER-Class Destroyer, a multimission guided missile destroyer introduced in the 2450s but kept relevant by a dizzying series of updates, and complemented by the D770 BAJACALIFORNIA-Class Destroyer and the Q250 IFRIT-Class Interdictors introduced in the early 2500s. The majority of the capital ships are cruisers of some form— with a particular concentration in the aviation cruiser such as the C2093 NANSHAN-Class Aviation Cruiser and her newer successor the C308 FAIRFIELD-Class Aviation Cruiser. Line cruisers also include the C181 PROMACHUS-Class Cruiser and the C290 HUASCARAN-Class Cruiser, both fielded in large numbers. Many of their modern battlecruisers, additionally, are in fact fast battleships, such as the feared C272 MYEONGNYANG-Class Battlecruiser, the replacement to the B075 MARIANAS (or MARIANAS TRENCH)-Class Battleship4. The average composition of the FMRN and its Space Action Groups tend to skew towards newer platforms, such as the ones introduced in the partial fleet modernization of the early 2500s. However, while the Minervan Navy was for decades projected to surpass the fleet size of the UN-UNC— and did, for a short time— the building spree brought on by FLTDES 2500 has once again made the UNC the larger of the two services.

The Federated Minervan Republics Navy was born out of desparate necessity and has transformed into a logistical and warfighting behemoth the likes of which the worlds have never seen. Capable of fighting anywhere, anytime, and on their own terms, they are determined not to let the precious independence their forebears hoped, fought, and died for, wrought in nuclear fire and quenched in martyrs’ blood, from fading from the light of the many suns it now prospers under. Unrelenting, meticulous, and always prepared, upon its shield rests the heavens, and the many wonders and horrors contained within and beyond these distant stars, a protective aegis between the people of Minerva and anything that may come between them and their hard-won liberty.

Hi there Waybound readers!

So, how about The Akrotiri Journals? That was a much more experimental piece but I think it came out great. I hope it left you with some lingering questions alongside some answers. Kylie may be one of my favorite characters to have written so far. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it (or preferably, more so!)

I wanted to give everybody an update on when the next short story is coming and give everybody some housekeeping updates. This is going to be a shorter one, but I'd like to encourage all you subscribers (or readers, too— I'm not picky) to leave your thoughts on what you've seen so far and on today's discussion both in the comments here and on the Waybound Discord server. (Check out the buttons below.)

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Coming Attractions

We already have the slate for the next few short stories planned out. The next short story is called Sign of the Times and will be another look at the Akrotiri Crisis of 2506— this time from the skies above rather than the ground below. We’ll be following along with Northstar Spacelines cargo handler Wyn Lebasque and the crew of the C/S Siren’s Song, as well as the infamous Captain Kaylin Rama and her MFRS MEDINA RIDGE (B101).

A lore post for the Federated Minervan Navy, For Liberty and Country, to mirror United in Duty, Unmatched in Resolve is also in the works. This one might take a bit. Not quite sure.

Unfortunately, I recently graduated college and started a full time job. This is good news for me but bad news for my writing schedule. I write in short bursts of inspiration and unfortunately my schedule has forced me to head to sleep much earlier than I’d wished, and I haven’t been the most productive with my weekends yet. This is going to slow the pace of writing, and I no longer think the once-a-month model is even an accurate goal to shoot for. I’ll keep trying but for now, assume Waybound shorts will be out when they are out. I would personally expect Sign of the Times sometime in early or late November. No promises.

Arc Flashes

Now we’re firmly in the Akrotiri Crisis sub-arc of the Interbellum Arc, and I hope things are starting to come together for everybody. As more pieces of the puzzle fall into place I fully expect there to be more questions than answers for a while. That’s good. Stew on them. Let ‘em marinate.

Something big is cooking. Feel free to theorize in the comments, here and on the pieces themselves.

Guest Stars

I mentioned Guest Stories in the last UNOW, and the roster is expanding. I won’t name names yet, but as time goes on you should start seeing some stories from authors I trust to write WAYBOUND well, and trust me, these authors all are great. No ETA on the first one, but sometime in the future you’ll see their work to help fill in gaps in the release schedule.

I love ‘em, and hopefully, you all will too.

In Closing

Thanks for bearing with me for how long The Akrotiri Journals took to write. I’m really enjoying the flexibility and versatility that anthology storytelling is giving me, and I can’t wait for what’s to come. I hope you enjoyed the story, especially the ending.

If you've enjoyed Waybound, feel free to drop a comment below about whatever the hell you think was going on at the end of that last story; tell your friends about us; join our Discord; yell at me on Twitter (@njmksr), and if you haven't already, drop a subscription here! It's free. It's fun. It has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration to diagnose, treat, prevent, and cure cyberplagues1, but that doesn’t mean it won’t work!

We hope you're having as much fun with this as we are. Let us know what you think, and we'll see you around.

The following primary source records were left behind by several individuals at Akrotiri, and are collated from the emails of Kylie Cermakova (INDIVIDUAL 11), a Minervan colonist from Calvados Republic, and the personal logs of Dr. Andre Deriviere (INDIVIDUAL 32), a NASA Goddard radio astronomer.

SUBJ: update

Created: 03/08/04 06:47:35 UTC

Last Modified: 03/08/04 08:31:21 UTC

SENDER: Kylie Cermakova <kaysera12@quikmail.org>

RECIPIENT: Christopher Rappaport <crappapo@smau.edu.mnv>

SENT: 03/08/04 09:36:12 UTC

Hey, Chris. Surprise! Hope you don't hate me. I'm on Akrotiri. You probably don't know where that is. It's in the middle of nowhere. Right next to the Gulf. Sorry I didn't talk to you since the fight. I don't, well, I don't hwte you. I like you a lot. I miss you a lot. I wish I hadn't said that shit and I hope you'll just. Let me act like things are fine? Okay. Let's begin,

This place is beautiful. It’s so full of life. Untouched. Pristine. And the sun literally never sets. Ever. It’s an eyeball planet.

When we first stepped out on the surface, I couldn’t think of anything about how many trees there were. These weren’t stocked, brought from outside like home on Calvados. They were from here, lived here, died here. Hundreds of years old, probably. Teeming with alien diseases for the organics here to catch, I’m sure. I saw something that looked like a giant yellow-striped armadillo crossed with an anteater yesterday. It was kind of cute. I want to name him Chris, like you. It had your bigass nose. I'd send you pictures but the bandwidth we got on our comms beacon is too low for anything but text.

You’d love it here. Since you’re a biologist I bet they’d even let you name it after yourself. Schnozicus crappaportis. You could come live in the little container houses we have for now until we properly unload the fab hub. They’re so small and dinky. I swear if I lean on the wall wrong it will dent. I don’t mind. It’s so much better here than back home. Calvados City is a town of resorts and beaches, not steel and concrete, and yet there aren’t any clouds in the sky. Here there are too many. I can see the silhouettes of places and people in them. It’s gorgeous. I want to lose myself in them.

How’s Santa Maria Assunta? Minerva everything you hoped? Fall River’s a lot bigger than New Brixton, but everywhere is bigger than here, our little clearing by the shore. We'll be leaving the propulsion segment in orbit but the prefab is all coming down with us.

I'm going to miss New Brixton a ton. Undergrad was good to us, wasn't it? I miss being out til four, starting our night at the Bernie Grant and ending it somewhere new every time. We'd always find something cool. I hope you still are.

I know you might not super want to hear from me after that meltdown last spring, but. I'm better now. And I'm in a better place. I don't think you'll decide to read this. But if you do, know that I didn't come with you to Fall River because I don't want to be somewhere big anymore. That outbreak of nerv scared the shit out of me. They wanted colonists who wanted to get the hell out of inhabited space, and only were taking people who were clean. A beautiful new planet far away from everybody else with a guarantee of no cyberplague sounded great to me. So I bailed. On our plans. On my grad degree. On civilization.

I wish I'd told you sooner. I hope you're okay. I hope you don't hate me. but I get it if you do.

Love you, Chris. Miss you tons.

—kylie

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PERSONAL LOG 08/04/2504

USER: a.j.deriviere@nasa.gov

Created: 08/04/04 12:54:32 UTC

Last Modified: 08/04/04 13:00:03 UTC

<BEGIN AUDIO RECORDING>

We’re on our way. It feels good to say that.

I never quite sat right with slipspace. Or ships. The air on ships always gave me these little headaches… and a slightly runny nose. Ibuprofen and antihistamines have been my best friends. Oh well. Gotta stick it out for a few more weeks— the ‘tides’ are looking good. Everything is in conjunction— an opposition type trip would take years. Good news is that forecasting says the orbital mechanics should stay favorable for the next few years. The Cygni-Draconian Current should be aligned with the Hyperian long enough for the station to be established, and we can let the long-haulers and full-senders stay if they want once we start moving out of conjunction. I’ll be going back home. Spacing was never for me. But the stars beyond always were— and thanks to the Excessively Large Radio Space Telescope, we’ll be able to see stars we had never dreamt.

[SNEEZE]

Oh, jeez. Lovely. We’re under a steady burn right now, about 1.6g. I just sneezed mucus onto my shoe. That would have missed back home. There’s that runny nose for ya. Just because I like looking at stars doesn’t mean I like going to them! I already miss Greenbelt— not that it’s anything special, just another DC offshoot— but I miss open skies and gravity that doesn’t, ah, change. I was brushing my teeth last time we were about to cut drives. I’m glad they gave us a warning. I don’t want to choke on toothpaste.

I— I don’t think that’d have been likely, or anything. I’m just a little… ah, scared, of zero-g. It’s a shame that thrustgrav and a cramped centrifuge section is good enough for government work. I would love to see what it’s like on one of those plategrav yachts. Hell, even the military’s had it since the ‘30s. They’ve even had it reliably since the ‘60s! I should be careful what I wish for. Knowing Goddard, if we wanted a plategrav ship, we’d only have the budget to get the De Gaulle, and not even to scrub the blood off the walls. We’re lucky we convinced them to splurge on it for the station.

It was nice of them to remember that radio astronomy exists long enough to get a budget at all, let alone enough to build our precious child of a space telescope here. This thing only existed on napkins. It was a drunk half-idea of what we’d build if they left us in charge for a day. I literally sketched it on a cocktail napkin at a bar in Chengdu after that IAU conference. I think it was Dr. Lu who gave it the real name. The one we call it. The Really Fucking Big Radio Space Telescope. Emphasis not mine. It’s funny. Lian doesn’t do well with English when she’s that many shots in, but she nailed that phrase whenever she’d say it. I miss her. I miss Dave too. Us three, we were the ones architecting this whole thing— a NASA-ESA-CNSA project. Dave gets spacesick and Lian said she’d be running the Goddard liaison office for CNSA in Greenbelt. That left me, of the project’s original parents, left to babysit on the Frontier.

Still… I’m somehow excited to get there. I’ve heard Akrotiri looks like it has everything necessary to be beautiful. The initial probe rundown seemed great. Very heavily forested world— we’ll be building some groundside infrastructure, to support the program. Next to no wireless comms, though. Perfect for the RF-dark radio astronomer’s paradise we’ve got here— after all, no one’s ever been here before.

Maybe one day I’ll take Lian and Dave on a tour. Dave will find an excuse, though.

Landlubber.

[ALARM KLAXON]

[NON-USER VOICE DETECTED]

ALL HANDS, ALL HANDS. ENGINE CUTOFF IN THREE MINUTES. ALL HANDS SECURE FOR ZERO GRAVITY. I SAY AGAIN, ENGINE CUTOFF IN THREE MINUTES. ALL HANDS SECURE FOR ZERO GRAVITY.

Shit. That’s my cue. I gotta clean my shoe before the schmutz starts floating.

Uhhh… what sounds like something a real spacefarer would say at the end of one of these… Uh, yeah!

[THROAT CLEARING] Ahem.

Deriviere out.

<END AUDIO RECORDING>

SUBJ: RE: RE: update

Created: 12/08/04 09:54:15 UTC

Last Modified: 12/08/04 10:04:31 UTC

SENDER: Kylie Cermakova <kaysera12@quikmail.org>

RECIPIENT: Christopher Rappaport <crappapo@smau.edu.mnv>

SENT: 12/08/04 10:24:10 UTC

imsorry im really sorry man i shouldnt have run. im sorry i was so scared. You have no idea whatit was like.

Have you ever seen someone get NerveANA? I know you haven’t had it. just. I can spell it out for you if you’d like— ganics never get it is2g. this is like super brain cancer plus dementia plus a dash of huntington’s. on steroids.

i lost a close mentor in that outbreak. you remember Professor Franklin? I mentioned her, I’m sure. in the psych department with me.

i want you to imagine what it’s like to watch a brain fall apart. not like dementia. well okay a little like dementia. dementia stumbles around in the dark and breaks everything by bumping into it and knocking it over. nerv is running through your brain with a flamethrower. it has agency and direction and dreadful dreadful passion. it revels in killing you. it strings it out to spread. im lucky ididn;t get it. it learns. it grows. it bends your mind into a farm full of swords, using the fertile ground of your own intelligence to dig up new and fascinating blades to cut you and the ones you love into ribbons cast aside in the wind.

it is a monster that lurks in the dark of my nightmares.

that’s why i ran chris. i ran from that. the boogieman. the devil. i don’t know what to call it. it’s evil. i hate it. watching her die from behind the faraday screens burned me. it broke me. i couldn’t talk aboutwhat i could only think of in screams. i couldn’t talk about what i would always see in dreams.

i care about you, man. i really do. i’m so sorry for what i did but i had to. i was soscared you have no idea. im sorry for sending you this mess of amn email but you have to understand why i feel this waynd what its like to live in fear like this. this was a fresh start away from all that.

i love you chris. i always have. i miss you and im sorry.i really am.

I’m not going to ask for much but I am going to ask you for this. If you don’t want me a part of your life anymore, please tell me. don’t ghost me. please. after all we’ve been through please give me that.

—kylie

PERSONAL LOG 08/21/2504

USER: a.j.deriviere@nasa.gov

Created: 08/21/04 14:10:33 UTC

Last Modified: 08/21/04 14:15:59 UTC

<BEGIN AUDIO RECORDING>

Ahem. Researcher’s log, August 21, 2504.

Always loved Dad’s old 20th-century TV. Good stuff. Glad to be able to do it all in real life... explorers on some vast, untamed frontier, going out in the name of peace for all humanity. It really barely feels real— I was writing grant proposals four years ago, not checking my bags for landing on an alien planet full of strange new life.

Almost there. Just about a week to go. Wild to me.

I like radio astronomy because I loved history— real history, not “King Gurbensnatch IV hits his head on a lintlepiece and dies, leading to the most devastating war in European history”. I like the history of everything. How did stars form? How did the universe form? I can see the Big Bang’s remnants in the radio spectrum, and the resolution of our pet project here is going to answer some real cool questions about neutron stars, quasars, background radio emissions, and the formation of well, everything.

I can’t believe some of the team members, ahem, some of my close friends, want to use the ELRST for a ‘hello world’ to ‘alien civilizations’. Want to spend a whole week doing it, actually. Lian. I told her a day would be fine for her PR stunt. A week is killing valuable transmit/recieve time. I know the Drake Equation, Lian. I’m not convinced an alphabet soup of unknowns is meaningful. Plus? We’re not going to have a budget forever! I don’t think Capitol Hill quite understands how many zeros they gave us on the check.

I kind of want to figure out how the universe came into being before they realize.

Thanks.

<END AUDIO RECORDING>

SUBJ: RE: RE: RE: RE: update

Created: 29/08/04 12:19:03 UTC

Last Modified: 29/08/04 12:24:47 UTC

SENDER: Kylie Cermakova <kaysera12@quikmail.org>

RECIPIENT: Christopher Rappaport <crappapo@smau.edu.mnv>

SENT: 29/08/04 12:24:59 UTC

thanks ;-;

I don’t really know what to say, I. I don’t really think I deserve this, but I’m glad you’re trying to learn more about it.. it’s a pretty scary thing. I wouldn’t blame you if you just, y’know. Moved on. Put this behind us. As best we can, anyway.

Maybe you could come visit? The currents are in conjunction and it’s only a few weeks to a month away!

haha. yeah. that’d be nice. too bad you’re smart and actually mentally stable :)

before you say. “kylie you’re smart too!!!” bitch i went to school for neuropsychology because i was bored!! i made a horrible decision!! being resort staff in the special econ zone sucks but at least you get some good sun. and I don’t get sunburnt. You're smart. I made a really dumb decision, leaving behind something kinda easy that sucked for something hard that also sucks.

ugh. At least this is easy and relaxing. The only issue is that there's really nothing to do but work and survive. Maybe I can work on my music? I brought my guitar.

It’s still got that chip in the headstock from when you tripped on it, remember?

Once we have the bandwith for audio I’ll send you a song.

Miss you. Oh! Right, an update. We brought all the supplies and the hab modules down from orbit. We’ll actually have a fabricator soon! Looking forward to having a real roof over my head instead of this prefab that’s bound to cave in if ya look at it funny. Some of the ganic colonists have already caught some of the local diseases. Mild, at least. We have the meds for it. I think. Apparently that’s pretty normal on planets like this— and it passes pretty soon. That’s what the docs keep telling them. Not really my business.

They have me in the agricultural rotation. So now i’m a farmer. they got me growing rice in the aeroponics bay and potatoes in the ground. Right now we have an ag tent with all the aeroponics setup but my boss says she wants to see if we can just chuck the rice in the dirt too cuz we’ve been having some issues with the sprayers.

Talk soon. Miss you. I know I just said that.

—kylie

PERSONAL LOG 09/05/2504

USER: a.j.deriviere@nasa.gov

Created: 09/05/04 14:12:34 UTC

Last Modified: 09/05/04 14:14:00 UTC

<BEGIN AUDIO RECORDING>

We’ve arrived. We’re… here.

Took us long enough. I want to throw up from that braking burn.

Okay, I already have. The crew tells me I’ve hit 750 milligarns, whatever that means. I think it means I puke a lot.

…how much puke makes a, y’know, regular garn, then? I shudder to think. Ugh. Lian will never let me live this down. Ever. I’ll be Sir Andre, the Green Knight forever.

[NON-USER VOICE DETECTED]

Hey, you the expedition chief? The scientist guy?

Yeah, what’s— what’s going on?

We just made orbit. There’s something you should see.

Oh?

Ah, well. Gonna have to cut this one short.

Report back soon.

<END AUDIO RECORDING>

PERSONAL LOG 09/05/2504- SUPPLEMENTAL

USER: a.j.deriviere@nasa.gov

Created: 09/05/04 16:15:21 UTC

Last Modified: 09/05/04 16:15:24 UTC

<BEGIN AUDIO RECORDING>

Fuck.

<END AUDIO RECORDING>

SUBJ: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: update

Created: 05/09/04 17:03:21 UTC

Last Modified: 05/09/04 17:24:05 UTC

SENDER: Kylie Cermakova <kaysera12@quikmail.org>

RECIPIENT: Christopher Rappaport <crappapo@smau.edu.mnv>

SENT: 05/09/04 17:26:08 UTC

hey chris!!!!!

what’s up? I’ve been good. Been working on my guitar!! I got my groove back!! We’ve got a little container that we use as a rec room and this guy Cooper who played bass in a band back on Calvados has been showing me some chords. He seems nice. You’d like him. We got noise complaints! And then we made moonshine. Out of plants!

I couldn’t drink with them because I broke my simtox gear while I was kind of binge drinking waiting for you to email; but they DID give me a bottle. I just, y’know, wouldn’t get anything out of it. They sure got something out of it. Mostly food poisoning. Apparently local flora is very very mildly toxic. Fun! A whole new kind of wasted. Next time we’ll try to use some of our own crops.

They’ve put me to work helping set up our fab plant. Once we get it online we can build the stuff we need to properly set up our high-bandwidth transmitter— then you can hear the sounds of Akrotiri’s hottest cover band. I don’t really know much about this stuff, but the lead engineer used to be in the military. dude rocks. His name is Noah and he’s so old I think he might be the one from the Bible. hah. He doesn’t usually speak english. I think that’s croatian or something?? but he talks to us fine. just mutters to himself a ton. probably nothing positive about my skills in the manual labor department. Look. I’m strong, sure, this is a good chassis. But also I worked at a resort as a bartender. and then studied psychology. i dunno how to do this shit!!

i gotta fix my simtox gear. i don’t really want to admit to anyone else that i overheated it on a binge so i just kinda said i would be designated babysitter for the night? look i am keeping my hot messiness to myself, and i envy you ganics who can get sloshed without extra neuro-impairment hardware. You count your blessings christopher.

—kylie

PERSONAL LOG 09/05/2504- SUPPLEMENTAL (2)

USER: a.j.deriviere@nasa.gov

Created: 09/05/04 17:45:29 UTC

Last Modified: 09/05/04 17:51:05 UTC

<BEGIN AUDIO RECORDING>

So. The project’s not totally fucked. Just. Partly.

We’re not the first at Akrotiri. Somebody beat us to it. No drive plume so we can’t match it to the UN database.

Just. Jeez. This whole project was predicated on being there first, and keeping people out. We can’t do this if they suddenly flick on a big freaking RF blasting antenna and start throwing a rave for all of the absolute fucking nobody and nothing out here. Whatever. Whatever. We can work with this. We can work with this…

So far we just found a propulsion segment for a long-haul cargo-transport ship. There have to be people on the surface. Right?

Priority has changed from on-orbit telescope construction and groundside infrastructure setup to planetary surveying for a search mission. We’re only reading short burst transmissions from the surface— up to the propulsion segment and off to a slip beacon— but thank God they’re out of our target wavelengths. The project can continue. For now.

But we need to find them fast. And then?

We need to have a talk.

<END AUDIO RECORDING>

SUBJ: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: update

Created: 06/09/04 13:00:56 UTC

Last Modified: 06/09/04 13:14:08 UTC

SENDER: Kylie Cermakova <kaysera12@quikmail.org>

RECIPIENT: Christopher Rappaport <crappapo@smau.edu.mnv>

SENT: 06/09/04 13:17:35 UTC

Bad news, Chris. (I know you haven’t gotten my last one yet, but… important developments!)

There was a rockslide while we were installing the high bandwidth antenna— we had to put it up on the side of one of the mountainsides so it could see the sky above the forest canopy, and it got taken out by a rolling stone. funny. i was just learning gimme shelter.

You won’t get to hear it for a few more months…

is what it is ig

well, you know where to find me. just a shot away :)

—kylie

SUBJ: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: update

Created: 06/09/04 13:22:29 UTC

Last Modified: 06/09/04 13:23:51 UTC

SENDER: Kylie Cermakova <kaysera12@quikmail.org>

RECIPIENT: Christopher Rappaport <crappapo@smau.edu.mnv>

SENT: 06/09/04 13:23:55 UTC

ok i completely forgot what those lyrics were about oml having listened to the song again that joke was in really bad taste sorry!!

PERSONAL LOG 09/11/2504

USER: a.j.deriviere@nasa.gov

Created: 09/11/04 14:42:23 UTC

Last Modified: 09/11/04 14:55:02 UTC

<BEGIN AUDIO RECORDING>

Well, we finally found them.

The sensors on this ship are old, and one of our telescopic cameras was jammed from a micrometeoroid strike, but we finally got eyes on them. The forest canopy made it tough, but we found the clearing they were camping in. We’re assembling an away team now… We have to make some kind of deal to relocate them, or something.

We can’t move, after all.

I’m going. I’ll see what we can do.

<END AUDIO RECORDING>

PERSONAL LOG 09/11/2504- SUPPLEMENTAL

USER: a.j.deriviere@nasa.gov

Created: 09/11/04 17:12:43 UTC

Last Modified: 09/11/04 17:14:01 UTC

<BEGIN AUDIO RECORDING>

Oh this is all just great. They’re Minervans from Calvados. Somehow the fucking Beach Boys scrounged up enough clout and backing for a colony ship. So we have no chance at getting them to move off of government authority. They won’t recognize our authority, we won’t recognize theirs. Nice nice nice nice. Just lovely stuff, people.

We could try to force them out. And start a war. Great stuff.

How am I gonna break this to Lian and Dave?

Agh. I need a drink. A gross, zero-g beer. Cuz we’re not burning the drive. The taste is all fucked up in zero-g. It’s the worst.

At least the planet’s pretty enough from behind a full-face respirator. Biosafety protocols my ass.

<END AUDIO RECORDING>

PERSONAL LOG 09/11/2504- SUPPLEMENTAL (2)

USER: a.j.deriviere@nasa.gov

Created: 09/11/04 18:15:44 UTC

Last Modified: 09/11/04 18:16:59 UTC

<BEGIN AUDIO RECORDING>

Oh, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me. We just got the election results from yesterday. Leave it to comms delay to let me find out the bogan fucking won on the worst day of my life.

Just one hell of a day, huh?

At least they haven’t finished counting yet. He’s just projected to have won, right? The results from India and Imbrium still haven’t come in yet. And some of the colonies!

Fiorenzano can still win. At least give me that, God.

<END AUDIO RECORDING>

PERSONAL LOG 09/16/2504

USER: a.j.deriviere@nasa.gov

Created: 09/16/04 12:52:41 UTC

Last Modified: 09/16/04 12:53:59 UTC

<BEGIN AUDIO RECORDING>

Shit.

Fiorenzano really fucking choked it, huh.

Well, there goes my blood pressure.

<END AUDIO RECORDING>

SUBJ: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: update

Created: 12/09/04 00:22:01 UTC

Last Modified: 12/09/04 00:25:31 UTC

SENDER: Kylie Cermakova <kaysera12@quikmail.org>

RECIPIENT: Christopher Rappaport <crappapo@smau.edu.mnv>

SENT: 12/09/04 00:26:03 UTC

Hey chris!!

Today was pretty weird. We had visitors.

YEAH that’s right. Visitors. I thought we were it out here? Nope, apparently. They’re Blues from NASA. Scientists. And they wanted us to leave.

Yeah, nah. I’m good. Director Nielsen had us all vote, and we wanted to stay. So that’s that.

We’re working out a deal, but it feels really sketchy to me. I don’t know if we can trust these guys.

I’ll let you know if things get worse.

—kylie

SUBJ: a walk in the woods

Created: 21/09/04 21:21:21 UTC

Last Modified: 21/09/04 21:25:56 UTC

SENDER: Kylie Cermakova <kaysera12@quikmail.org>

RECIPIENT: Christopher Rappaport <crappapo@smau.edu.mnv>

SENT: 21/09/04 21:26:23 UTC

hey chris!!! CHRIS!!! I SAW THE WEIRD ANTEATER THING AGAIN! CRAPAPORTIS!! he’s so cute you’d love em. no idea if its a he but i project you and your weird face onto it, ergo he. i rest my case your honor

so you know how i mentioned he’s brightly colored and very large? yeah i followed him into the forest. it was fun! his name is al;so Chris, so i followed Chris into the forest and hung out with the animals for a bit. i don’t think they’ve ever seen synthetic life before. at least i sure hope not i leave a great first impression :)

some of them were very large and i did run for my life a few times. tripped on a laaaarge root and ate shit before i picked myself up and ran some more. INVIGORATING. I’m telling you you’d love this place.

I think Chris might be toxic. not you honey you’re lovely. the anteater thing. he’s brightly colored and larger native life runs away when they see him sometimes.

proud of me? biology!! yeah!

Your Esteemed Colleague,

Kylie Cermakova
A Real Biologist
Akrotiri, Federated Minervan Republics
kaycera12@quikmail.org

PERSONAL LOG 09/22/2504

USER: a.j.deriviere@nasa.gov

Created: 09/22/04 15:16:17 UTC

Last Modified: 09/22/04 15:19:52 UTC

<BEGIN AUDIO RECORDING>

Okay. So. We got in touch with Goddard. They said they’re sending it up the chain. Whatever that means, whatever that’s worth, especially with the administration changing. This could be a diplomatic crisis. Handled wrong we could go to war. We’ve never recognized Minervan claims in the Triangle, sure, but we sure as hell deconflict our activities. Just no proper channels taken here. They said they were staying and we’d have to get their government to tell them to leave— but we did, at least, manage to make a deal about comms. They’ve promised to route certain comms bandwidths through our system we established to ensure minimal RF contamination. It’s a bandaid on a bullet wound. When, though? Who knows. They haven’t even started sharing any info about their comms infrastructure yet. Some neighbors.

Maybe they’re busy.

Ugh. I hate the waiting.

<END AUDIO RECORDING>

SUBJ: RE: RE: a walk in the woods

Created: 30/09/04 20:54:29 UTC

Last Modified: 30/09/04 21:09:32 UTC

SENDER: Kylie Cermakova <kaysera12@quikmail.org>

RECIPIENT: Christopher Rappaport <crappapo@smau.edu.mnv>

SENT: 30/09/04 21:10:00 UTC

it’s a sad day, chris. i saw one of Chris’ friends get eaten today.

the good news is that i am pretty sure i was right— they are toxic! The giant lizard thing that ate it died pretty quickly after.

The animals here are so fascinating. You’d love them. I really wish I could send you pictures. The vistas are so stunning and the sun never sets. like literally. it doesn’t. ngl that was a little weird at first but i’m getting used to it.

I’ve started realizing that most of the wildlife just looks at metal and composite with curiosity, rather than trying to take a bite. I’m not as nervous to go far out into the forest anymore. I think I don’t smell like food.

I'll let you know how it goes.

—kylie

PERSONAL LOG 10/15/2504

USER: a.j.deriviere@nasa.gov

Created: 10/15/04 12:11:11 UTC

Last Modified: 10/15/04 12:14:55 UTC

<BEGIN AUDIO RECORDING>

Okay. So. We got up the chain. That was…Shockingly fast. Didn't expect to be on the freaking Bogan-in-Chief’s desk within a month. But I guess the Liu administration is taking the “move fast and break things” approach. They've done the first part surprisingly well. Let's see if they do the second. Knowing our dear friend Jimmy we could be at war over this. Poor guy’s frothing at the mouth for a reason for one, right? I bet his dad would love it. Kid Nakos himself in the Glass Office. I'm sure he won't be making use of those connections.

Goddard told us a diplomatic solution was being explored. That's a good one. Very funny. We need them off that planet, but we need them off there delicately, and I trust Jimmy Liu with delicate like I trust a bull with my grandma’s china.

I hope my worries aren't anything real. I really do. But I just have a bad gut feeling about this guy. He's a real slimeball, and the peace seems to sit wrong with this guy.

I don't like this.

<END AUDIO RECORDING>

SUBJ: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: a walk in the woods

Created: 31/10/04 15:41:47 UTC

Last Modified: 31/10/04 15:46:33 UTC

SENDER: Kylie Cermakova <kaysera12@quikmail.org>

RECIPIENT: Christopher Rappaport <crappapo@smau.edu.mnv>

SENT: 31/10/04 16:00:01 UTC

Hey chris,

I had a kind of weird day yesterday. I got caught coming back from the woods by our chief of security, and he basically interrogated me over it. He told me I couldn't go out that far into the forest either alone or unarmed. So my choices are to carry a rifle or to bring a friend with one.

Calvados doesn't do conscription so I've never held a rifle before today. Chief Jacobs ran me through the basics on an AK he printed. I asked him why we weren't using a Minervan design, he said he didn't think we made good rifles the old way. Said only our coilguns are worth using. And he said he liked the AK for how easy the piston system was to run and maintain over the AR’s. Some of the other vets were giving him sideeye for that one but I don't fuckin know what any of that means. Calvados is pretty far away from all that stuff— I don't think I ever saw a gun outside the holster of a cop. I think he pirated the print files actually. I've never seen “cracked by” on the side of a print before. Funny. I didn't think he had the ol’ yo ho in him. Yarr, matey.

You did your time before college— you know what it's like to shoot. I never knew how much it kicked— and yeah I know the old school stuff kicks a lot more, but it almost dislocated my shoulder the first time. Dug right into the joint. I didn't have the stock seated right. I don't really think I like it. And I don't want to shoot anything.

I don't want to shoot any of the chrises or their friends, especially. Maybe one of those giant lizard wolf things if it tries to eat a chris. I think I'll call them michaels. Yknow like your intro orgo TA you hated.

Hope everything is going good!! Tell me all about how SMAU is going. also ignore that last email lol i was a lil fucked up

—kylie

The display lit up with 4,263 new contacts. Infrared. The SCO and computer were working overtime to sort out decoy from genuine threat, and Sensor Technician Second Class Alaina Hartwell, Republic of Canada Navy, found herself cycling through menus and typing commands faster than she thought was physically possible. Tracks appeared on a group of what was identified to be approximately 300 medium-weight torpedoes, TANGENT-type. The cornucopia of death split into a shotgun cloud streaking for various targets along the UN battlegroup, and tracks turned red as sixty-two aligned with the path of the Peruvian Navy Ship NUEVA CASTILLA. “Spikers inbound!” She shouted into her headset, working to acquire their track with a second sensor. “Six-two TANGENT tracks India, pushing to PD. Six minutes to impact. Establishing Mike tracks.”

“A-firm SENS, sixty-two tracks India. Engaging inbound spikers. Six minutes to impact.” The Point Defense Coordinator nodded his head at his display a few consoles down. “Skipper, this is PD. Requesting battle short, CLaW batteries one through four.”

“Granted.” The Captain nodded. A few button presses later, the lights in the CIC flickered as the fusion reactor of the ORION-Class destroyer paused to catch its breath before getting back in the races. Four Close-in Laser Weapon batteries spit fire far beyond their rated specifications. She clicked through options on sensor packages and brought every ounce of detection capabilities the ship had to bear on the inbound TANGENTs. One by one, red tracks dropped off the scope— and so did a blue arc named THESSALONIKI. Her heart skipped and her breath sped.

“Two-eight spikers passing into guns range. One-two-zero seconds to impact.” Her tone was calm. Her mind was not. Twenty-eight four-hundred kiloton nuclear devices packed into shaped-charge warheads were not her favorite company, and they were altogether far too close for comfort. The hull shook under the thunder of point defense guns shooting guided projectiles to take out the remaining missiles, lest they too meet the grim fate of a torpedo room cookoff or get plunged into the hard vacuum of space. The depress harnesses would keep them alive. Right? All they'd need is to get noticed and scooped up. She just had to focus on doing her job. Just keep finding sensors to fuse. Just keep establishing Mike tracks. With a multispectral track of the inbound it'd be more accurate—

“One-six spikers inbound, engaging. six-five seconds to impact. Recommend evasive burn heading zero-five-zero flank. Dropping flares.”

“Flight, do it.” The Captain nodded.

“Aye. Evading at flank burn.”

Accelican™ coursed through her veins as she was slammed back into her seat at ten g’s, her blood replaced by the milky substance. NUEVA CASTILLA rocketed off in a tangent, laying streaks of point defense fire and invisible beams of lasers attempting to cut the sixteen remaining torpedoes to ribbons before they got the chance to land a blow.

Under the red battle lighting of the combat information center, the green Accelican™-tinted sweat rolled down her forehead a blackened streak. She prayed, silently, that they would emerge unscathed. Even in the company of St. Rita, St. Barbara, and her heavenly Father, she didn't like her odds. Miracles were best ordered in advance.

“Eight spikers, impact three zero seconds!”

She breathed heavy under the weight of ten worlds, watching red boxes blip off her display.

“Five spikers, impact one-two seconds!”

“Three spikers, brace for impact!”

She heard the break of thunder in the howling night.

PERSONAL LOG 12/25/2504

USER: a.j.deriviere@nasa.gov

Created: 12/25/04 06:16:13 UTC

Last Modified: 12/25/04 06:20:51 UTC

<BEGIN AUDIO LOG>

I miss home. We had Christmas dinner with the program team, and it was nice— they even brought out real turkey from the freezer— butI miss home.

I miss a good Christmas ham. I miss the annual blowout fights with Uncle Max. I miss those scowls on Mom and Dad’s faces for me starting it with him. What the hell is wrong with me?

We’re gonna start establishing a regular transit service between Earth and the station we’re building— the Telescope’s foundations. I can’t wait to be on it. I need to see my parents. They’re getting old. I don’t want to run off to some system half the galaxy away and forget about them. Like Mom was worried I’d do.

I miss her.

I’ve been sending her pictures, video logs. But with one and a third days of comms delay out here— even on the superluminal comms— it’s hard to feel connected, even though we can communicate.

I’ve signed up for a three-month leave. It’ll be good to see Lian and Dave again, and update everyone back home on the project. And maybe unfuck this situation with the bogan.

The trip will really only leave me one month on Earth, but that’s okay. It’s time on terra firma. Terran terra firma.

I’m counting the days.

<END AUDIO LOG>

Klaxons wailed. The red battle lighting of the CIC blacked out before kicking in once more. Metal lurched and groaned. Alaina unclenched her eyes, scouring her station for any more inbound threats.

Nothing. Merciful, sweet nothing. The battle raged all around them, a constellation of new and fleeting stars joining in the chorus of the binary suns’ light. Yet it did not reach out for them. Monstrous history tore mother from daughter, father from son, friend from friend and lover from lover as the second horseman came riding in. Yet he did not come for them. Not anymore.

“Sir, we’re spinning!”

“Flight, cut drive and stabilize!”

“Aye, sir!”

The Damage Control Assistant radioed in from Engineering. “Impacts on drive cone, deck seven, and the port radiator. Scrambling DAMCON teams now.”

“Flight, secure the throttle.” The Captain nodded. “DAMCON, get me a report as soon as you can. I need to know if we can fly. SENS, how we looking?”

“Scopes clear of inbound threats,” Alaina forced out between ragged breaths. “I’ll keep you apprised.”

“Good. They aren’t trying to finish us off.” His shoulders sank in his acceleration seat. He glanced at the damage control board, a string of red aglow on the aft, driveward compartments of the destroyer. “Tell the crew to don their pressure suits if they can reach them, and the emergency ones if they can’t.” He nodded, unstrapping from his seat. “That goes for us, too.”

Alaina unstrapped from her seat, the Accelican™ injector seated along her spine engaged, digging under her skin just so slightly uncomfortably and pumping the milky fluid through her veins in lieu of blood. It was easier to pump than the blood stored in her wraparound reservoir— somehow— and had novel properties that made it excellent at oxygen transfer. It’d buy you a few more g’s in exchange for a few measly years off your life. You weren't gonna do much with those anyways, were you? She threw open the box at the base of her acceleration chair and rushed into her pressure suit, taking a deep breath and wiping away a glistening green-black trickle of sweat from her forehead before donning the lightweight helmet. It felt like someone else was moving her arms. She was smooth. She was sharp. The drug was doing its thing. She was glad. She was glad Alaina wasn’t here right now. The Sailor who was here right now was better. It would be addictive if it didn’t suck.

She scrambled back into her seat, scanning the display for inbound threats. “Nothing, sir. Scopes clear of inbound.”

“Good.” He nodded. “Now we fight the ship.”

SUBJ: band

Created: 28/02/05 18:12:23 UTC

Last Modified: 28/02/05 18:26:43 UTC

SENDER: Kylie Cermakova <kaysera12@quikmail.org>

RECIPIENT: Christopher Rappaport <crappapo@smau.edu.mnv>

SENT: 28/02/05 20:00:23 UTC

ATTACHMENTS: draconisdaze_donewithyou_mp7.eczip [Evolved Compression-ZIP Archive]

oh you won’t believe how much fun i’ve been having in that band we started. chris we actually have a drummer now. we made a bass drum and a snare on the fab. im the lead guitarist and cooper is our bassist and vocalist and christiano is our drummer. i also do vocals and we got chief jacobs on the synthesizer. turns out he plays a mean keyboard and i do mean mean

we’ve got the whole Falling Sideways album down. yknow from Polar Shepherds? that triphop-darkrock band? and we do some funkopop too. chief jacobs fucking loves funkopop. didn’t think hed be the funk and bubblegum type given the way he’s always talking about guns and shit but he’s fun when you get him talking about music!! he opened for Quincy Quinn once back on Calvados. if you don’t know or don’t remember him that’s good because it means you’re not mentally ill. he only had like two good songs anyways but that’s funkopop for ya. if you’re not a megastar you’re nobody.

anyways we are the brightest stars on akrotiri. we even sent some of the UN dudes building the telescope thing our mixtape as thanks for letting us use their long range comms— way better than the ones we brought by the way. they said thanks. unfortunately we only get a small quota per week so I can't send you photos of the animals I named after you… but I can send you exactly one bitcrunched to hell audio file.

enjoy Done With You from Falling Sideways. As much as one can at this quality, anyways. From the hottest cover band this side of the Gulf, Draconis Daze.

<ATTACHMENT: draconisdaze_donewithyou_mp7.eczip>

Toronto was a pretty part of the city, but it was showing its age. It was clear where Golden Horseshoe stopped and Toronto began, because the sea of megabuildings, punctuated occasionally by parks, parted for skyscrapers just a hair’s length short of the CN Tower, getting shorter and shorter until the antique needle sat amidst a bowl of rooftops. It’d become an oasis of sorts for climate refugees when the coasts had flooded hundreds of years ago— anyone unlucky enough to lack a seawall, that is. Lake Ontario had been a slumbering giant in those days. Nobody knew if they’d need the walls here. The scientists told them they wouldn’t. That didn’t make anyone feel better. Alaina couldn’t help but notice that some parts of the city quay were just that little bit higher.

She passed by fans wearing Raptors jerseys and dejected frowns filing out of the Bell Centre’s Mayor Aubrey D. Graham Memorial Arena, and more upbeat Shanghai Sharks fans. The usual, then. A thrashing. No. The deeper frowns on the faces of the crowd, the fistfight that broke out mere feet to her left, the wailing in the lines forming outside the bars— they’d made it to overtime. She headed south towards the shore.

If not for that little spat she’d had with her father hours earlier, she knew he’d be here, whaling on some poor Shanghai fan, too. She rubbed her knuckles, streaking crimson across her left hand, the snowflakes falling on drying blood. She didn’t want to walk into a Navy recruiting booth with a bloody hand. She’d have to duck into a public restroom.

Dark bags sat under her eyes, but thankfully she’d kept her face clean. She splashed her face with cold water from the browned-white sink, cracks running across the surface of the mirror. The hot water wasn’t working anyways. Clearly the Urban Renewal Program hadn’t reached Eaton Centre yet. Her left hand’s knuckles tinted the paper towels a slight pink.

The vidscreen billboards in Eaton Centre had rolled over from the abysmal results of the latest Raptors-Sharks rivalry game, and the listless, disgruntled crowd scattered to the four winds, or at least to Boreas. Through vacant stares and effusive swears she could hear the CP24 Politics anchors ranting about what the Free Tories’ gains in the polls meant for the 2466 elections. She didn’t really care. She wasn’t gonna be sticking around long. If there was one thing the Navy could guarantee you it was the ability to get off this rock, and fast.

It felt to her like everyone in this city, this country, this planet, was going nowhere fast. Locked in an eternal spiral, circling the drain, waiting for the inevitable decay. Waiting for the future to come happen to them, lost forever in a never-ending yesterday.

She didn’t want any part of that. There was no future for her here. On the ground. Only the slow rot of hopeless mediocrity.

She walked into the recruiting station, signed the contract, and it was done.

They had given her the chance to live.

PERSONAL LOG 03/20/2505

USER: a.j.deriviere@nasa.gov

Created: 03/20/05 16:06:31 UTC

Last Modified: 03/20/05 16:12:52 UTC

<BEGIN AUDIO RECORDING>

Well, we’re back. And now we have a proper station with gravity and everything. Thank God. Living on the ship was driving me insane.

You oughta see the Telescope. It’s not quite done yet, but the primary reflector dish is done with assembly. It’s massive. It’s nuts. The station is tethered right now to stage construction. I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s not that close to the observation deck but you literally can’t see anything else. It already dwarfs the station. Crista from Engineering was telling me you used to have a gorgeous view of the planet from the observation window, but now you’ve just got a view of reflector dish, spacewalkers, and worker drones. Man. This is a colossus we’re building.

I’m not a father. The only family I have back home is my parents. But I can’t help but think about the pride a father must feel, whenever I look out that window. I mean, it was a sketch on a freaking cocktail napkin! And now it’s real.

I think that’s amazing.

I’m going to go down to the observation deck now, actually. I want to decompress before I finish logs for the day.

Gonna need to. This next bit is going to give me an aneurysm.

<END AUDIO RECORDING>

They had given her a place to die.

A cold steel coffin for a hundred souls drifting in the light of twin suns. A headstone of velcro nametape. Anointed with the incense of gamma radiation and neutron bombardment.

She glanced at the dead in the seats around her. Ragged breaths tickled the inside of her pressure helm. She longed for the snow. She longed for the cold of the Earth, so different from the cold of the void. She longed for the always delayed 5 train on the Eglinton line. She longed to go back and do anything but sign that paper.

She’d had a fine time in the Navy until this year. Sure, it sucked, but everything before had sucked too. There were certainly other things she could have done. She could have moved to America, or China, or hell, Europe or Imbrium or Mars— maybe even made it out to Ganymede. Anything was better than home. Anything except an undug grave in a radioactive debris field.

PERSONAL LOG 03/20/2505- SUPPLEMENTAL

USER: a.j.deriviere@nasa.gov

Created: 03/20/05 17:21:11 UTC

Last Modified: 03/20/05 17:28:34 UTC

<BEGIN AUDIO RECORDING>

And now, the elephant in the room.

[DEEP BREATH]

They called me in to meet with Goddard leadership and brief the SecGen and the Forces Administration Council on the situation here with regard to the colonists. I wanted to shoot somebody in that room. For crying out loud, the man is a fu— damn hammer. Everything Minervan is a nail. I don’t want these people here, sure— but Liu wanted the Marines out here to throw them out if they don’t leave by September! Can you believe that? The Director of the Navy looked like he was trying to kill our dear Jimmy with pure psychic energy when he said that. Glad to know I’m not the only one who doesn’t like the guy. Which is funny, cuz Jimmy nominated him.

I really do think he’s a national crisis waiting to happen. If it weren’t for some of his own staff talking him down, I really do think he’d have told me to deliver that ultimatum.

Next on the agenda is going to be checking the radio emissions of the colony at regular intervals— to make sure they’re keeping our deal. Then we’re gonna need to sweeten it somehow. I’ve been asking around our Exoplanetary Prospecting group over at Goddard for good relocation candidates. That’ll help us figure out our counter-offer.

Fingers crossed.

<END AUDIO RECORDING>

The display showed carnage, oh so much carnage. The JESSICA A. WITTNER’s track had just coincided with a TAIPAN heavy torpedo. She pitied any poor soul onboard that. She slew a targeting camera over to the ship, out of sorrow more than anything. She watched as their sister ship’s back broke, the ORION-class’ alligator-head and wasp-waist snapping in two in the aftermath of nuclear fire. The Captain, however, had other priorities than watching the slaughter that had forgotten them.

“Alright, CHENG. Can we move the ship or no?”

“Kind of.” The Chief Engineer sighed. “The drive cone got hit, but it was a glancing blow and didn’t hit any of the ribs. So we’re lucky, there. Magnetic shaping is degraded but somewhat holding, and we can run the drive off one radiator plus the backup rollouts. We should be able to manage short burns, and we still have a fully functional slip drive.”

“But?” The Captain whirled a hand away from his chest, laying it out as an invitation to tell him more.

“Well for starters, our thermal sig’s gonna be huge. Lost a lot of the isolation panels on the outside of the torch. We’ve got radiator issues too. But the real kicker is the gimbal. The explosion knocked the engine bell off-kilter and then we got secondary spalling and debris from the port radiator— I mean, it’s just. Shattered. The shrapnel impacted the drive at the base and broke several of the gimballing actuators.”

“So we’ll just spin?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Fuck me sideways. What about the radiators?”

Alaina simply listened, and worried.

“Well, we have enough thermal capacity on the starboard radiator to sustainably run the drive or the RCS at high power. Catch is we can’t run the drive without really pushing the RCS to counter the spin. If we want to run them both continuously we need more thermal capacity than just the one radiator can provide. So we go to the backup roll-out radiators and the ESACS,” CHENG nodded. “But there’s one problem.”

“There always is.” He shook his head, hands gripping his station.

“Well, sir, the spalling that gutted the actuators absolutely shredded some of the housings for those radiators. I have an EV team trying to unjam them after drones failed, but they’ve reported no luck. I have another idea, and if you approve of it, I’d like to recall the spacewalkers.”

“I like the sound of ‘another idea.’” The Captain leaned in towards his console at the OOD’s duty station.

“Well, basically, we take the ESACS,” The engineer pulled up a digital schematic of the ship on his tablet, slaving the Officer of the Deck’s holographic display to it. “And instead of feeding our dear friend the Emergency Supplemental Air Cooling System our reserve air,” He tilted his head, highlighting a few valves on the ship’s fluid flow systems diagram. “We disable the safety protocols on ESACS and open these sets of valves— 216E, 343E, and 419E.” He gestured to the projection. “Flooding the drive coolant system with the ship’s atmosphere, and giving it a much larger cooling reservoir. We’ll have to start by overclocking the air conditioning, well… now, really. Need to get more circulation going.”

“You want to use our ship’s atmosphere to cool a star in a bottle?” The Captain leaned in, incredulous. “You could cook us all alive, even in our suits.”

Alaina gulped.

“We’re sitting ducks if we don’t! Those spacewalkers are fighting radiation and time out there, if they don’t get the rollouts unjammed in the next two and a half minutes we’re just going to have to keep sending people out there until we run out of trained spacewalkers who aren’t puking up their brains or crossing up their circuits. You wanted my professional opinion, Captain. I think ESACS is our best shot.”

An uneasy silence hung over the CIC.

“I don’t like it. But call your crew in and get them working on this. You haven’t been wrong before, Mr. Esparza.” The Captain shook his head. “Get ‘er done. Get us moving. If this gets the drive’s skew offset by the RCS, can we navigate slip?”

“Well, it’d be… tricky, but doable. We’d need Flight, NAV, and SLIP on their A-game.” He nodded at the cluster of consoles on the far side of the room. They glanced at each other.

“I can make it happen, boss. We got this,” Flight nodded.

“Alright, CHENG.” The Captain jerked his head towards the hatch to the CIC. “Go!”

Alaina took a deep breath, the weight of the moment just ever so slightly heavier.

PERSONAL LOG 10/22/2505

USER: a.j.deriviere@nasa.gov

Created: 10/22/05 04:22:28 UTC

Last Modified: 10/22/05 04:30:33 UTC

<BEGIN AUDIO RECORDING>

We’ve got another problem.

Our Lead Security Officer tells me she’s been going through the Minervan colonists’ communications. She says it’s prudent. I say it’s a violation of privacy rights. I’ve ordered Officer Yi to stop screwing with their comms and just send it. If they found out we’d been reading them, an already tense situation would get worse.

We had another talk with their leadership. Put a bunch of relocation candidates out in front of them and got a firmly cold shoulder. They say we’re not giving them enough to relocate. They like it here, and apparently we’d need to compensate them for tearing them away from their new home, as well. I’m fine with them here as long as they can stay under the noise floor, but that’s just not going to happen in the long term— especially if the colony starts growing.

I’m gonna ask Goddard if we can get the resources to match their counter-offer. We’d need to provide them with everything they’d need to settle another planet and a little bit more— I need to be really careful. We all do. I’ve heard some backchannel rumors that Liu isn’t happy with the way we’re playing this. I’m fine with a carrot, but it sounds like our buddy here wants to use the stick. We’re not working fast enough for him.

Gonna be a long few months.

<END AUDIO RECORDING>

SUBJ: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: a walk in the woods

Created: 26/06/05 23:42:03 UTC

Last Modified: 26/06/05 23:38:28 UTC

SENDER: Kylie Cermakova <kaysera12@quikmail.org>

RECIPIENT: Christopher Rappaport <crappapo@smau.edu.mnv>

SENT: 26/06/05 23:40:04 UTC

hey chris. I found something really weird…

I was out in the forest and I tripped, and when I looked down it turns out my foot had caught on some metal buried in the ground. it was dug in real good! I tried to yank it all out of the dirt but it was a bit too heavy, but I started digging nearby it a little bit and I found a few scattered chunks of metal and what looked like composite.

I think I may have just found evidence for aliens.

im freaking tf out. it’s wild man you really should have been here. when i brought back the metal I showed it to Cooper and he told me it was the wildest thing he’d ever seen. He told me I had to show it to his buddy Jayson who was a materials engineer phd at Devenish Polytechnic (gross I know) and he told me it looked like it wasn’t a natural formation. like duhhhh??? dingus. even I knew that

anyway imma talk later i got aliens to find. fuck outta here with that dark forest theory bullshit you always liked. i got a flashlight!

Alaina strapped in, breathing fast, breathing heavy. The power and force of a star’s core sat bottled up in their fusion reactor. They were about to light the candle once more, and sally forth once more into the breach between worlds to try and carve a desparate path home. Or maybe just somewhere that wasn’t here.

She stared at the sensor readout on her console. A cluster of UN ships were peeling off to leave, same as them. Torpedoes streaked at the group, decades of TANGENT and TAIPAN torpedoes chasing across the void as one lone signature split off from the rest, standing alone and untouched. Escape capsules streaked from the ship’s sides as Alaina slew the camera on the sole ORION-Class destroyer facing down the tangle of battleships and cruisers.

A bright torch lit behind her as the PUERTO RICO shot headfirst into the fray, missile and torpedo tubes unloading nuclear fire, lasers spitting invisible death, and guns firing off volleys of point-defense fire splitting the blackened night. She watched the four-hundred-twenty-six millimeter coilgun along her spine shudder the ship under the force of a point-blank burst volley, and the nimble destroyer pirouetted across as her rounds struck true— the first armor-piercing, the second a nuclear shaped charge Special Purpose Defensive Round, fighting with all the vengeful fury of today’s unburied dead left to a cold, starry grave. She watched as the bow of the mighty Minervan battleship GLOSTER HILL was cleaved in two, and explosions erupted down the length of her armor from within.

Her guardian angel had been running short-order miracles today. Perhaps, she prayed, Heaven would visit the UN sailors here with another one.

She clenched as the slipstream transition hit, and her stomach was punched into weightless oblivion.

A NOTE FOR THE WORKING GROUP:

At this point in the investigation, a third source of primary-source documents was discovered by the SUNRAY MISNOMER investigation, formerly SUNSHINE UNDERTOW prior to the activation of Special Access Program SUNRAY. STE2 Alaina Hartwell, Republic of Canada Navy (INDIVIDUAL 261) was reported Missing In Action, Presumed Dead following the presumed in-slipspace loss of the Peruvian Navy Ship NUEVA CASTILLA (DDK-705) at the Second Battle of 61 Cygni (2470). Recent investigation from the SUNRAY MISNOMER team has revealed the true fate of the NUEVA CASTILLA and the mutiny among her crew. The following primary source information will now include relevant personal logs by INDIVIDUAL 261 where applicable.

It is, however, the recommendation of this Agency that the true fate of the NUEVA CASTILLA and her crew not be revealed to the families or the public writ large, in order to maintain the secrecy of this investigation and due to the sensitive nature of following events.

SUBJ: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: a walk in the woods

Created: 17/10/05 03:00:03 UTC

Last Modified: 17/10/05 03:10:37 UTC

SENDER: Kylie Cermakova <kaysera12@quikmail.org>

RECIPIENT: Christopher Rappaport <crappapo@smau.edu.mnv>

SENT: 17/10/05 03:11:01 UTC

i found the aliens

they’re fucking humans

that was boring lmao

more to come

i got held at gunpoint tho!! and shot at. :D taking it well

CREW LOG 19/10/2505

SHIPBOARD PERSONNEL ELECTRONICS AND COMPUTING SYSTEM v 121.23.93r © 2462 KENDALL SQUARE SYSTEMS

USER: alaina.hartwell.21@forces.gc.ca [STE2 ALAINA HARTWELL RCN]

CREATED: 19/10/05 20:20:22 ZULU

LAST MODIFIED: 19/10/05 20:28:35 ZULU

ORIGIN: DDK705 [BAP NUEVA CASTILLA]

<BEGIN AUDIO RECORDING>

Well, that’s not good, the intruder we had got away. We’re definitely not alone anymore… So we’re torching some of our drives. If they’re UN, we’re fucked. If they’re law-abiding ones, anyways. If they're Minervan, let's hope they don't tell the authorities. I hear Minervan prisons are nice, though.

No records… better for everyone involved.

One thing’s for certain, though. We need to talk, them and us. Sooner the better. We’re gearing up search parties, and provisioning ‘em for a long hike. We barely have the supplies for it, but we gotta. This is life and death.

We’re working on trying to bring some of the ship’s recon drones back online, but… well, they took a beating in the crash. So did everything else. They’re mostly designed to fly in vac, but… they’ve got enough thrust for here, hypothetically. That’s what JD tells me. Christ, we’re in it now. We need the dropship for power, but maybe we’ll get her flightworthy again too…

I haven’t been this stressed in a while, I can tell you that.

<END AUDIO RECORDING>

SUBJ: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: a walk in the woods

Created: 21/10/05 03:21:09 UTC

Last Modified: 21/10/05 04:43:31 UTC

SENDER: Kylie Cermakova <kaysera12@quikmail.org>

RECIPIENT: Christopher Rappaport <crappapo@smau.edu.mnv>

SENT: 21/10/05 04:44:59 UTC

okay so this is going to be a bit of a doozy to explain but uhhhhh its been a long week or two

so i was following the metal in the forest for a few days, and i just kind of kept following it until eventually i found what all the scraps had fallen off of.

so there’s a crashed un ship on akrotiri. it’s old. like old old. i have no fucking clue how it happened but there’s a bunch of blues just chillin. about like eighty kilometers away from us in the deep forest. it’s rad. they saw me snooping around with a rifle on my back and of course that makes ME the bad guy. one of them tackled me and took my rifle— i didn’t even want it!! remember!!— and they started pressing me for information with a fucking rifle to my face. i didn’t tell them we were minervan. i was so fucking scared. they made me lead them back to the colony but i managed to break away and ran into the forest. i think they shot at me but everything was going so fast i barely evebn remember i was pretty lost for a few days. but i found my way back!

I told Chief Jacobs and he told me nobody’s allowed to go into the forest anymore, and now ive gone and fucked up my one escape. farming is fucking boring man. i loved my nature walks. and the alien search was unmatched. this shit sucks man. why’d they have to be humans???

ill keep you posted chris. i miss you and like. everything.

SUBJ: aliens

Created: 22/10/05 11:29:19 UTC

Last Modified: 22/10/05 11:35:56 UTC

SENDER: Kylie Cermakova <kaysera12@quikmail.org>

RECIPIENT: Christopher Rappaport <crappapo@smau.edu.mnv>

SENT: 22/10/05 11:36:38 UTC

ok so update: we’re meeting the blues. fuck i hope they don’t remember what i look like— Chief Jacobs has me hiding in the only basement we have. Apparently me showing up after running away while getting shot at by them could ‘inflame tensions’. And here I thought it was shooting at people which did that, actually!

ive never seen so many guns in one place. ngl im kinda terrified . only a little. only a lot it’s all good over here. just gearing up for a fucking old western shootout. hopefully we don’t do that. that’s not the plan. the plan is just to talk to them, which has thus far in my experience worked out great. They’re military!! they think we’re the enemy— normal blues already hate us enough, hell even the ones who come out to trade at calvados wouldn’t be there if they couldn’t make some quick quid. hope they don’t go Cruise on us

shit. the guys just saw em. i gotta hide

i miss you so much chris

—kylie

CREW LOG 22/10/2505

SHIPBOARD PERSONNEL ELECTRONICS AND COMPUTING SYSTEM [MOBILE] v 141.03.25r © 2465 KENDALL SQUARE SYSTEMS

USER: alaina.hartwell.21@forces.gc.ca [STE2 ALAINA HARTWELL RCN]

CREATED: 22/10/05 18:38:32 ZULU

LAST MODIFIED: 22/10/05 18:42:33 ZULU

ORIGIN: DDK705 [BAP NUEVA CASTILLA] - PERSONAL HAND TERMINAL

<BEGIN AUDIO RECORDING>

Nobody died today. Thank God.

We’ve hammered out a deal with them. Turns out that one, the war’s over, and two, they’re Minnies, and there’s a huge bullet dodged. Kinda figured the war would be over by now, but apparently it didn't last super long after Second 61 Cygni. With everything we saw there, all the dead in drifting silence… good. Apparently everyone got to the table and hashed out their differences after all my friends died. Some fucking consolation.

Deal’s simple. They don’t snitch, and we don’t fight. Easy. They sure had a lot of hardware though. Mostly chem rifles, but I did see an older coil or two. That’s not a great sign for us. Christaps had a neat idea— we can cut out the outer ceramic hull armor from the less damaged portions of the ship and shave them down into... admittedly heavyweight plates, but ballistic plates nonetheless— if we ever think that shit’s going south with the Minnies, and the forest between us is a good natural cover. Problem is that goes both ways, and if I know Minervans, there’s more trained riflemen in a group of Minnie civvies than there are in the entire crew of a Navy destroyer. Not my ideal situation, especially given the fact that we only have about a third of one.

The good news is that as far as we can tell, they honestly don’t care that we’re here as long as we don’t bother them— though, there does feel like there’s something they aren’t telling us. Something big. I don't know if it's about the postwar landscape, or what, but I know this. I don’t trust a Minervan further than I can shoot ‘em. Never did. Never will.

At least we’ve made amends with that intruder of ours. Girl named Kylie. Poor thing. They thought we wanted to kill her. She did too, wouldn’t stop shaking. Sweet girl, just very clearly in over her head.

I hope she’s okay.

<END AUDIO RECORDING>

SUBJ: RE: aliens

Created: 22/10/05 18:59:12 UTC

Last Modified: 22/10/05 19:05:51 UTC

SENDER: Kylie Cermakova <kaysera12@quikmail.org>

RECIPIENT: Christopher Rappaport <crappapo@smau.edu.mnv>

SENT: 22/10/05 19:07:08 UTC

i met them, the blues, today. well really i met them a while ago but i don’t really count it as meeting somebody until after they stop tyrying to kill you. Yknow. gotta give a fair shake.

they’re okay i guess.

i still think they want to kill me.

maybe it’s the getting shot at, though.

im okay. i will let you know if this changes <3

—kylie

there’s a hill in my dreams where sometimes i see you.

there are forty-three minds that make up the image, the simulacra, that i call my own. the hill is of a geography that does not exist. it is the lucid dreams of a wistful machine. once, it was known to some or all of my donors, a tapestry made from what was and what might have been.

dreams are dangerous to my kind. they are portals beyond the scope of our identity. they are where we trip and fall over ourselves while our sandbox lies broken, the walls being raised up once more by a subconscious too busy to stop us from exploring our many disparate pasts, the nooks and crannies carved into our patchwork souls by those who had given us life and consciousness.

mine always comes back to here. to the hill by the river with the trees, where sometimes i see you calling out to me, and sometimes i run to you, and always i reach out my hand and try to hold on to what i have thrown so callously away and then the river splashes up into a tidal wave that takes me downstream.

i dont know if ill ever see you again but every time i see your back turned to me before you have taken notice of me, when you are fruitlessly trying to read your textbook with your eyes flicking towards the setting sun and your legs crossed in the shade of the maple tree i want to stay in that moment forever. i want to go back to when i decided to run and decide to fight. for you. for me. for the future we could have had.

i want to make sure i never break that moment again, even to talk to you, even to draw your attention, for when i do it sweeps me away from the hill that doesnt exist and dashes me against the rocks of my failures and all the failures of those i bear. and a deep, dark monster cocks its head at me and caresses my face and scrapes away another layer of my hope and learns finer the tone of my scream.

one day i will leave this world, the world i fled to. but this time i will not run.

there is a fight for me, beyond these distant stars, a battle to live and to love and to carry high the light of hope.

i will take my stand, and i will light that fire in my heart, and i will not be overcome.

PERSONAL LOG 12/12/2505

USER: a.j.deriviere@nasa.gov

Created: 12/12/05 04:27:28 UTC

Last Modified: 12/12/05 04:30:33 UTC

<BEGIN AUDIO RECORDING>

Today’s the big day. All elements are in place, and the reflectors are aligned. Lian even made it out. She’s astoundingly proud. So am I.

We’ve navigated office politics and international politics to get here. Yeah, we still don’t have a deal with the Minervans. Yeah, we’re working on that. I’m just trying to focus on this big moment right now.

We’re gonna have the best view of the cosmic microwave background anybody has ever seen, and we start in half an hour.

The Really Fucking Big Radio Space Telescope. It’s real. It’s done. It’s… ours to share with all the worlds.

I still have the napkin.

<END AUDIO RECORDING>

SUBJ: farming help

Created: 12/12/05 12:19:02 UTC

Last Modified: 12/12/05 12:23:50 UTC

SENDER: Kylie Cermakova <kaysera12@quikmail.org>

RECIPIENT: Christopher Rappaport <crappapo@smau.edu.mnv>

SENT: 12/12/05 12:24:12 UTC

youre a biologist right

well we have a biology problem

our crops are failing! on an eyeball planet. there is literally nothing but constant sunlight. i don’t know what im doing wrong here. we’re giving them plenty of water. the only thing it could be is the soil, right? it’s the only thing we’re using from the planet itself.

maybe there’s like. bugs. or something. i’ve seen the Chrises sticking their big anteater mouths down into the ground so i think there are bugs.

we’ve got our science guys working on it but idk if they’re gonna get us an answer. and we kinda need an answer fast. the aeroponics tent is having trouble cleaning the sprayers— apparently somebody poured the wrong mix in the nutrient solution and we gotta flush the whole system. if we don’t figure out how to grow here, we’re kinda boned.

talk soon.

—kylie

PERSONAL LOG 12/12/2505- SUPPLEMENTAL

USER: a.j.deriviere@nasa.gov

Created: 12/12/05 18:16:21 UTC

Last Modified: 12/12/05 18:18:00 UTC

<BEGIN AUDIO RECORDING>

That was a wonderful dedication ceremony.

We had it in zero-g, floating in the observation deck, the station coupled in its proper place on the backside of the antenna. From the windows you could see what felt like all the stars in the galaxy. There’s nothing to take your eyes off them except the edge of the primary reflector, which dwarfs the station and makes you feel like an ant under the lip of a massive bowl of cake batter. I still can’t stand zerograv but I could for our accomplishment. I let the napkin float in front of me for a while, next to the bowl’s rim. Lian floated up to me, elbowed me for being sentimental— which doesn’t really work in zero-g by the way, she just started floating away from me a bit— but she made fun of me for still having that cocktail napkin. Joke’s on her, though, she was crying. I was too, though. We’d earned it.

Shame Dave missed it. I did some flips and almost puked in his honor. We sent him the video, and the picture of where Lian taped up the napkin sketch that inspired this whole project.

Miss you, Dave. He’s probably at the pub right now…

<END AUDIO RECORDING>

it lurks and it waits and it watches me.

it wails in the dark and follows me.

it casts its shadow over me in the endless day.

PERSONAL LOG 12/12/2505- SUPPLEMENTAL (2)

USER: a.j.deriviere@nasa.gov

Created: 12/12/05 19:10:42 UTC

Last Modified: 12/12/05 19:11:30 UTC

<BEGIN AUDIO RECORDING>

Okay, what the fuck? Lian pulled me aside and told me she’d heard through the grapevine something we weren’t supposed to know— that the Navy is putting together a fu— a blockade of Akrotiri. That’s ridiculous, even on face value— They’re not reliant on supplies from abroad and they haven’t been planning on taking deliveries anytime soon! At least, from our conversations. I gotta run this by some contacts, but if this is real, this is bad. This is exactly what I was worried about. Liu hasn’t met a problem he can’t see as a nail, and he loves his hammers. The guy has one mode, and that’s aggressive. And we’re gonna be stuck with the consequences when the Minnies decide to respond.

I gotta talk to my friends in Bradbury.

<END AUDIO RECORDING>

SUBJ: RE: RE: farming help

Created: 16/12/05 12:36:42 UTC

Last Modified: 16/12/05 12:42:00 UTC

SENDER: Kylie Cermakova <kaysera12@quikmail.org>

RECIPIENT: Christopher Rappaport <crappapo@smau.edu.mnv>

SENT: 16/12/05 12:43:15 UTC

yeah we have another biology problem. this one almost killed jordan though

sooooo it turns out the Chrises, the Cermakovia Crapaportis as I’ve been calling them, well, they’re. not anteaters. and they’re not as far down the food chain as i thought they were! also im actually quite scared of them now!

so a few hours ago jordan was refilling the protein synthesizer, and so it’s a really big tank outside, right? with that kind of slurry stuff. he left the cap off the tank while he went to go get something from inside, and apparently a pack of Christophi smelled the slurry and thought it was food for them. so they kinda bum rushed jordan and knocked him over and climbed on top of the tank and stuck their big ole noses in the vat and got slurping while another group of them started ransacking our little field looking for native wildlife. It looked almost like it was coordinated. They were making all kinds of noises, these mooing noises like cows or something.

Chief Jacobs got us some rifles and we shot ‘em. i was devastated for a few minutes. they’re honestly still adorable even when they’re terrorizing us. well they were adorable until i found out they have massive fucking teeth. like sharp ones. like oh shit man. they're fucking terrifying. im sorry for naming them after you, especially after they bit jordan’s foot off. clean off, through the bone and everything. it was the most fucked up thing ive ever seen. I've never seen the inside of a ‘ganic. I mean, like, I know what it's supposed to look like, but the reality is a little. Squishy. And bloody. I was sobbing for hours, real shaken up. This shit is miserable, man. I wanna go home. Real home, not my little pod apartment here.

I had to shoot three of them. I didn't want to, but I didn't hesitate much after Jordan got his foot chomped off. And I saw the teeth. Fuck, man, that's gonna be nightmare material for a while.

Worst thing is, we found out which part of a Chris is toxic. It's the blood. And the blood is currently scattered everywhere around our crop supply and got puked up into our protein slurry tank when Chief Jacobs shot a few with their noses in. We don't know yet if the compounds are toxic to organics, but I stuck my finger in it and they're also mildly corrosive to steel and aluminum. These guys are wild. We're so boned. I don’t even really know how to process this, honestly.

Stella ran the numbers. At this rate, we run out of food in a year, on just the aeroponics bay alone based on our current consumption and the production rate with a few of the sprayers still shut off for flushing. Six months based on just what we have on hand.

The Council sent off a request to Calvados for them to send us food transport. Earliest it can get here is February— and that’s implying they actually send it tomorrow. You know, a ship they don’t have available tomorrow.

I’m betting March at the earliest.

I’ll keep you posted. But I know even if the others want to stay I’m looking for a way out right now.

—kylie

PERSONAL LOG 12/19/2505

USER: a.j.deriviere@nasa.gov

Created: 12/19/05 16:56:42 UTC

Last Modified: 12/19/05 17:04:29 UTC

<BEGIN AUDIO RECORDING>

Just heard back from my friends in Bradbury. ‘Tis the season to be jolly, and I’m nothing but anxious.

Jimmy actually did do it. He pulled the fucking trigger. The ships are en route. They’re pulling a bunch of ‘em from patrol duties all across the Frontier, and they’re going to blockade Akrotiri. No traffic in or out without UN approval.

Nice of them to fucking tell us.

Did they even ask a single person on the ground? Do they even have any idea how much of a wrench that throws in the works out here? No. Politicians are the worst.

They didn’t ask any of us. Just went over the heads of everyone involved.

I gotta look into this more.

<END AUDIO RECORDING>

PERSONAL LOG 12/25/2505

USER: a.j.deriviere@nasa.gov

Created: 12/25/05 03:38:12 UTC

Last Modified: 12/25/05 03:45:27 UTC

<BEGIN AUDIO RECORDING>

Yi, you bastard. I told you to stop snooping on the colonists.

So Lian and I just spent the early morning doing a little snooping of our own, through the station communications system. I have admin access, so I figured it’d be a good idea to see if anyone had been talking to Bradbury behind our backs— and bingo. As of October 21, 2505, our lovely Lead Security Officer Elodie Yi has been chatting it up with the French contingent at the European Embassy to the United Nations in Bradbury. I wonder why she’s been doing that, huh? I have the email address, too, c.theroux@diplomatie.eu.fr— gonna run that by my friends in town to see what they can find out.

I’m going to ask to meet with her after I figure out who this Theroux guy is. I’ll let you know how that goes soon.

Fuck me, mad on Christmas. Not a good look, Andre.

We’ve gone through her access logs, though, and we found out that she actually forwarded copies of some of the colonists’ emails to Theroux in October. My money is on someone in the Embassy’s less diplomatic side. Station chief, maybe? One of the alphabet agencies? Lian is pulling up those emails right now, actually.

[NON-USER VOICE DETECTED]

Okay, Andre. Got the first one.

I can’t— Lian, move the freakin’ screen— the glare’s all in my face.

Really? Glare? Andre, c’mon.

C’mon, right there. Okay, yeah, I can— huh?

Fuck.

Yeah. I, I think we’re gonna need to run a more focused survey.

If that’s true, that could… that could fuck everything up.

Yeah.

We’re walking on eggshells here, aren’t we?

Have been for the last year, Lian. Just didn’t know it yet.

I’ll track down the survivors’ crash site, and do it quietly. You meet with Yi like we wanted to. Sound good?

Sounds like a plan.

Well, there you have it… for the record here, the email’s alledging that neither us nor the Minervans got here first, but a third group, a group of UN-UNC sailors stranded from a battle of the Maybe War. If that’s true… they’ve been here a long time.

And if they didn’t send a distress signal… they might be deserters. Which would make them fugitives.

Which could make the Minervan colonists harboring fugitives if they didn’t tell us. I think. I don’t really know. I know that’s how Jimmy’s gotta see this.

Is this gonna be his fucking excuse— and did we just give it to him on a silver platter?

I dunno. But it’s not good.

<END AUDIO RECORDING>

PERSONAL LOG 12/25/2505- SUPPLEMENTAL

USER: a.j.deriviere@nasa.gov

Created: 12/25/05 18:23:02 UTC

Last Modified: 12/25/05 18:36:28 UTC

<BEGIN AUDIO RECORDING>

Okay, I got the recording running. Meeting time. She’s always early… by about five minutes. Okay.

[DOOR CHIME]

Come in!

[NON-USER VOICE DETECTED]

Really, Andre? On Christmas?

It was urgent, Elodie. And I know you don’t care about Christmas.

So I do not. I enjoy the time off.

Something came up.

And it could not have waited until tomorrow? I was planning on going back to the cafeteria for seconds.

Look, let’s cut the shit. We’ve had our tensions. But I have to ask you a question here. Why’d you keep spying on the colonists even after I told you not to?

I was doing my job, in spite of your insistence I do otherwise.

They have a right to privacy. Article 12, Yi.

Cite the Declaration all you want. It’s what we fight for, not how we fight. I was instructed to maintain a close eye on them as soon as the news broke that they were here.

And you couldn’t tell me that?

You’re… you’re a scientist, Andre! I do not need to rope you into all security matters— your work is important. It is important that you do not become overburdened by administration—

Oh, Bull. Shit. You just don’t trust me.

Au contraire. I don’t trust how trusting you are of these… Minervans. They are not your friends. They are an active security threat.

Why’s that, what have they done?

They are liable to breach the radio silence zone at any time. You of all people should know that. You almost had an aneurysm the first day you realized they were here.

That’s not why you care, Ms. Yi.

Oh, mon ami, since you know so much about me, why don’t you tell me yourself?

I know you’re passing the emails. Who’s Theroux?

An old friend of mine with a particular interest in this kind of riveting story.

See, I talked to my old friends. In the Civil Service. They tell me it’s an alias. For a counterintelligence operative of the DGSI.

You have good friends.

So I do. So, why’d you do it?

You’ve read the emails, haven’t you? Then you know exactly why I did it. I would be an accessory to treason not to.

Treason? Treason, Elodie, they’re deserters from thirty years ago. Listen to yourself! They got away with it already! It’s over! They’re… they’re not bothering us. We… we found their ship, their communications hardware is beyond destroyed. They don’t have the ability to threaten the mission of this observatory. There’s at most, forty or sixty of them down there. They’re a rounding error, not a threat to the United Nations. Let them live in peace! All you’re doing is turning this planet into a powder keg for the next war, and you’re giving Liu the match!

Of course. You’re… an academic. You’re soft. You wouldn’t understand duty—

Duty? Elodie Yi, you are a private contractor, not a soldier. Not a sailor, not a Marine. You get a cushy check from Pilot Light for services rendered to the UN governments. He is going to blockade this planet. He’s already given the orders! What are you gonna do when these skies become a battleground? How are you going to secure this station, Elodie Yi? How are you going to stop a nuclear missile? A coilgun round? A laser beam? You’ll be the most damn powder-blue, patriotic corpse on this entire station!

The blockade will get the colonists off this planet, and the deserters with them. I am sure of this. You tasked me with securing the station and the radio silent zone. Do not get all… high horse at me because I am not doing it with a smile and a fucking curtsy.

You’re doing it with the barrel of a God-damned gun pointed at the head of the worlds! What happens when the Minervan Navy comes? When they start killing each other? Are you gonna live with that?

There have been bigger flashpoints than a stupid fucking telescope in the middle of nowhere.

So you’re fine with turning my life’s work into fuel for the fire?

You worry too much, Andre. I will tell you what will happen. I will leave this dreadful place in a month. The blockade will come. Given your track record, you’ll… probably throw up a few times. The Minervan Navy will arrive, they will stare at each other, and be all in a huff. You will puke again. The colonists will take the offer to leave, the deserters will be arrested, you will have drowned in your own puke, Lian will have the observatory all to herself and I will wipe my tear at your funeral with my… ahh… ‘cushy paycheck.’

Oh, you piece of shit—

Get over yourself, Andre. You’re a coward. Do it. Do it if you have the balls. Punch me. Punch the private security contractor, scrawny little doctor boy. I am done here, and I must remind you. You are not the one who signs my checks. I will do what I fucking want, for the security of this station and of these United Nations. Joyeux Noël.

[DOOR CHIME]

Fuck. Oh… just,

<END AUDIO RECORDING>

it moves in shadows and lies in in-betweens it seeps through memory and time and crawls in half wrought thoughts and undercooked feelings it dulls me, it binds me in silken chains it sinks sinuous claws into me one by one and pulls me under into its domain

SUBJ: happy new year!!

Created: 31/12/05 23:36:42 UTC

Last Modified: 31/12/05 23:45:10 UTC

SENDER: Kylie Cermakova <kaysera12@quikmail.org>

RECIPIENT: Christopher Rappaport <crappapo@smau.edu.mnv>

SENT: 01/01/06 00:00:01 UTC

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! 2506 BABY. the year we get back together. im willing it into existence baby. lets make it happen.

There's another ship coming in May to drop off more colonists, but unlike ours it's not a one-way voyage. They may accelerate it and pack it with supplies because of the food shortage. I could try to hitch a ride with those Blue scientists but they're, well, they're Blues. And I'd have to hitchhike across UN space to get back and jump the border. And most places in the UN don't take the won. So I'd be kind of fucked financially lol

Anyway I feel like I should give you an update on the food crisis— we’re still fucked, but things are stabilizing. Cooper tells me that the organics here have started rationing, and are trying to see if they can make a deal with the Blue astronomers to get some more food. The ground around the ag tent and cafeteria is still saturated with the Chris blood— it’s not very viscous and it kind of gets everywhere. We’ve laid down tarps so it’s safe to walk for everyone— apparently, plastics are fine. Or at least, fine enough to last a day or two. We’ll see. Our crops are ruined, though.

Five more months. Then I’m coming home.

I miss you. Happy New Year, chris.

—kylie

how do you trap a shadow? how do you drown the sea? how do you grasp the thunder?

i am forced to flee to the corners of my dreams, haunted, hunted, chased by a patient hunter. a cold, calculating devil unburdened by the humanity i hold dear and driving thousands on thousands of cuts into my deepest self, one by one, slowly and confidently. i am surrounded by the faces of the dead as guilt and hurt sinks raven claws into my mind, tearing me away from the surface as i swim and swim for the light. my dreams are no longer safe. they never were. but now they are not dangerous like a cliff but they hold the danger of the sword. of the claw. of the jaws of a predator.

i cANNOT LET IT BREAK THROUGH. I CANNOT LET IT DRAG ME INTO THE DEPTHS. I CANNOT LET IT REACH ME.

DRAFT: im sorry

Created: 14/01/06 00:08:21 UTC

Last Modified: 14/01/06 01:58:11 UTC

SENDER: Kylie Cermakova <kaysera12@quikmail.org>

TO: Christopher Rappaport <crappapo@smau.edu.mnv>

Type to compose your message…

PERSONAL LOG 01/18/2506

USER: a.j.deriviere@nasa.gov

Created: 01/18/06 12:10:58 UTC

Last Modified: 01/18/06 12:16:27 UTC

<BEGIN AUDIO RECORDING>

Just heard back from Bradbury. Lovely chat with Jimmy. There’s no turning back, no convincing him otherwise.

If I’d have told him about their food crisis, would he still commit to the blockade? That might just embolden him further. It might make him think he needs to do it.

This is going to kill people. A lot of people. All over what? A radio telescope none of them cared about before we told them they could shoot each other over it? My life’s work was to discover and study, not bring humanity to a shooting war again. The world has gone mad.

Yi still hates me. Whatever. She’s leaving in a week. I can’t fucking wait. I hate her guts too.

Sometimes I think about getting on that ship and going home too. But then I’d be leaving my work behind. The data is fascinating. We’re seeing the texture of eternity. And I’d be leaving everyone here to the whims of Jimmy without a second thought. I built this team, Lian, Dave, and I. I can’t abandon them just for my own safety. Besides, they need a few more cool heads out here so that when the Navy gets here, we can make sure that they don’t pull anything stupid. Hopefully.

It’s time to stand up and be the adult in the room. These next few months will test us all, but what has been put in motion I fear cannot be stopped outright, but first must come to pass. I’m staying here to make it pass smoothly. Get them out of here as soon as possible.

I’ve decided to share some of our food supplies with the colonists— a limited amount of amino-protein mix to partly replace their tainted supply— because, frankly, we have plenty. We’ll have to scale back on wings night. Big deal. A small hit to our morale is well worth these people’s lives.

I hope the freighter they sent beats the blockade. They don’t know yet. I… I don’t know if I should tell them, or if I could even get away with it if I did. I think I should. They have a right to know, no?

I… I’ll have to stew on that.

<END AUDIO RECORDING>

PERSONAL LOG 01/25/2506

USER: a.j.deriviere@nasa.gov

Created: 01/25/06 18:19:28 UTC

Last Modified: 01/25/06 18:26:30 UTC

<BEGIN AUDIO RECORDING>

I was running out of time and Yi’s gone. We got a new Pilot Light guy but I took the opportunity to lock them out of certain systems. I took a shuttle down to the surface and talked to the colonists in person. I told them about the blockade. I couldn’t bring myself to tell them that I’d known for months.

We agreed to skim more food off our supplies for them to help them stave it off. But if we look like we’re helping them run the blockade the Navy might storm in and arrest us. Our hands will be tied pretty soon. So we gave them what we could creatively account away and fixed their aeroponics bay with a mix of spares from our own ag lab and their fabricator.

Naturally, they’re not taking it well— I mean, who could? But at least they don’t blame us. Not their leadership, anyways. I don’t know what they say behind our backs. If anything, it seems like we hate our SecGen more than they do.

I wish them the best of luck. They’ll need it— we all will.

<END AUDIO RECORDING>

SUBJ: im really scared

Created: 26/01/06 16:08:21 UTC

Last Modified: 26/01/06 16:11:11 UTC

SENDER: Kylie Cermakova <kaysera12@quikmail.org>

RECIPIENT: Christopher Rappaport <crappapo@smau.edu.mnv>

SENT: 26/01/06 16:11:39 UTC

chris theyre blockading us. the un. the ships haven’t gotten here yet but they’re coming. im so scared man i don’t want to get stuck here. i don’t want to lose you

im sorry im sorry this is just too much im so scared. what if they nuke us? like they did in the independence war. have you ever beenm to seongnam the walls from the old city are still scorched. i dont want to be a silhouette on a wall i dont want to b e ash on the wind.

idk if the news has brojken for you guys yet so. tell people. dont let us die here

good luck, chris. i love you

CREW LOG 10/02/2506

SHIPBOARD PERSONNEL ELECTRONICS AND COMPUTING SYSTEM v 121.23.93r © 2462 KENDALL SQUARE SYSTEMS

USER: alaina.hartwell.21@forces.gc.ca [STE2 ALAINA HARTWELL RCN]

CREATED: 10/02/06 18:25:32 ZULU

LAST MODIFIED: 10/02/06 18:36:35 ZULU

ORIGIN: DDK705 [BAP NUEVA CASTILLA]

<BEGIN AUDIO RECORDING>

So after we made contact with the colonists, we brought a few systems back online. One of them was the gravitometric sensors— the portside amidships backup, anyways. They were a bit damaged, but we started picking up slip influxes pretty quickly. Slaved the electro-optical system to ‘em, too, so we would know who it was— turns out we’re even less alone than we thought. There’s a civilian observatory in orbit. The slip jumps were NASA, ESA, JAXA, CNSA, and a few other space agencies. Supply runs. That was cause for alarm enough, but we don’t want to get in a firefight with the colonists because they didn’t tell us about that. This, however, is a different matter.

We started getting a lot of influxes today, and when we put the cameras on ‘em, there was no mistaking it. Gatorhead nose, wasp waist, twin rear radiators. Orions. Just like us. Like we used to be. More of ‘em are filtering through in groups every few hours. Not a particularly coordinated group slip. But why would they need it? Just us out here in terms of military. And I don’t think we really count. I saw some frigates I didn’t recogize, too. Bit of a sleeker shape. Radiators baked into the hull, engine shrouded. It’s been a while. Probably new. Blue stripes, all, so they’re ours. Well, we’re not really theirs anymore.

Did the colonists tell them? Did the observatory notice us? Are they here for us or the Minervans?

We need some freaking answers.

We’re going over there. We might be a little less friendly this time.

<END AUDIO RECORDING>

SUBJ: RE: RE: im really scared

Created: 10/02/06 19:05:22 UTC

Last Modified: 10/02/06 19:12:18 UTC

SENDER: Kylie Cermakova <kaysera12@quikmail.org>

RECIPIENT: Christopher Rappaport <crappapo@smau.edu.mnv>

SENT: 10/02/06 19:13:01 UTC

ATTACHMENTS: ship.acgf [Advanced Compact Graphics Format]

chris this is fucking terrifying. there’s a bunch of warships in orbit. Chief Jacobs printed a telescope on the fab and we can see em that way. they look like alligators.

its wild that we’re number one trending. we don’t exactly have up to date socials out here— a lot more bandwith than email. We see three weeks ago’s trends usually if anything at all. it’s been a bit of a cleanse for me but i really wish i could know what’s going on right now.

from what it sounds like everyone’s really pissed with the un. and everyone in the un is really pissed at us. that’s. bad. like really bad. they should be mad at the un. they’re the ones instigating all this. even their scientists like us!

i hope they leave soon. or our guys show up— they won’t bomb us if the navy shows up. once they do they’ll back off, right? they can’t possibly want to pick a fight with us.

keep trying to spread the word. Tell our story!

I’ve got a picture we took through the telescope. look. it’s a blue warship.

I miss you so much. thank you for everything you’re doing.

—kylie

<ATTACHMENT: ship.acgf>

PERSONAL LOG 02/10/2506

USER: a.j.deriviere@nasa.gov

Created: 02/10/06 20:31:11 UTC

Last Modified: 02/10/06 20:39:40 UTC

<BEGIN AUDIO RECORDING>

This is pretty fucking bad. The situation is absolutely fucked. They sent way more ships than they had to. It’s a colossal show of force. I mean, the number they had to send is zero, so… But they even outstripped my worst fears. There’s a small fleet here. A tad excessive for a planetary blockade. The good news is that they’re alone so far. No Minervan reply yet. Maybe we can get them to go home.

[NON-USER VOICE DETECTED]

Hey, Andre. There’s an incoming communication on an open channel, that’s just. On repeat. You may want to give it a listen.

Oh, shit. Let me get that.

Thank you, Brock. I’ll have a look immediately.

You got it, boss.

Alright. Lemme open up my comms panel…

Hit play.

To the Minervan colonists on Akrotiri. I am Commodore Kelly Nacif of the Martian Federation Navy, operating under the authority of the United Nations Unified Naval Command’s Destroyer Squadron THREE. You are an illegal settlement in United Nations space obstructing civilian science activities and harboring dangerous, military fugitives from justice, in possible posession of nuclear weapons. This blockade will prevent all traffic to and from Akrotiri except where approved by the United Nations. You may end this blockade at any time by handing over all wanted persons, directing us to the location of any missing UN-UNC materiel and agreeing to our amenable resettlement package. This message will repeat. Respond on receipt of message. Nacif out.

Oh fuck. I think I need to go talk to Lian.

<END AUDIO RECORDING>

CREW LOG 10/02/2506- SUPPLEMENTAL 1

SHIPBOARD PERSONNEL ELECTRONICS AND COMPUTING SYSTEM [MOBILE] v 141.03.25r © 2465 KENDALL SQUARE SYSTEMS

USER: alaina.hartwell.21@forces.gc.ca [STE2 ALAINA HARTWELL RCN]

CREATED: 10/02/06 21:37:22 ZULU

LAST MODIFIED: 10/02/06 21:41:13 ZULU

ORIGIN: DDK705 [BAP NUEVA CASTILLA] - PERSONAL HAND TERMINAL

<BEGIN AUDIO RECORDING>

They’re here for us. They think we have nukes. Or maybe they know we got rid of ‘em all and they don't care. I don't really give a shit. They're here for us, and somebody brought them here.

The Minervans say it wasn't them. That just leaves the space eggheads. Certainly the type to be goodie two shoes enough to report people giving ‘em no trouble. But I don't entirely buy that the Minnies didn't sell us out in a misguided attempt to make things right with Mars— oh, look at me. I'm getting conspiratorial.

But I mean, somebody’s clearly out to get us.

We're kitted to fight, and we're holding out around their colony. We need real answers, and we're not leaving until we get them. We have good concealment and natural cover, a rock outcropping in the forest. Plenty of firepower, too. Anti-boarding rifles firing frangibles— plastic rounds wouldn't be much help against a military opponent, but if they storm the ground we're fucked no matter what. There's just more of them than us. They do that, we go down swinging. Not much other choice. Better than a cell at ADX Timoshenko.

We just wanted to be left alone. They could have left us alone. It would have cost them nothing. Not in money, not in time, not in lives. Nothing at all. There were never very many of us, and we've lost people. There are only forty-seven of us left. Are they going to blockade a planet, possibly kill these colonists, maybe get in a shootout when the Minnies’ Navy finally gets here— for what, forty-seven people who ‘we think’ have some of our thirty-five plus year old missiles? You can probably find more nukes in the ashes of 61 Cygni than we ever had aboard.

Fuck these people. I can't believe I ever fought for them. Killed for them. I can't believe I almost died for them.

Let's just say this: if they want to come down here and fight, we'll give the bastards one. We'll go out in style.

And if I find out the Minnies sold us out, they're coming with us.

<END AUDIO RECORDING>

im not alone in here i can feel it. i can feel its texture and its cold cold breath on my neck the weight of it along my spine. it is lurking in the blindspots and rendering errors of my dreams but it is starting to seep in as frost on my soul. i can see its terrible design. it wishes to bury me and spring forth from my corpse a hundred terrible swords, incubating even now in my subconscious. i thought i had won but i only incurred a pyrrhic fate, defeat wrapped in the visage of triumph.

SUBJ: RE: RE: RE: RE: im really scared

FLAGGED: This message contains a suspicious attachment that has not been downloaded.

Created: 12/02/06 19:25:52 UTC

Last Modified: 12/02/06 19:31:23 UTC

SENDER: Kylie Cermakova <kaysera12@quikmail.org>

RECIPIENT: Christopher Rappaport <crappapo@smau.edu.mnv>

SENT: 12/02/06 19:32:14 UTC

ATTACHMENTS: rev9.6.eczip.acgf [Advanced Compact Graphics Format]

the blues are back. the awol ones. the navy guys are still here too but they just never left.

the defectors? are you really a defector if you don’t defect to anything? they just defected from something. i dont think that counts. anyway the heavily armed wanted fugitives with no national allegiances and who didn’t seem to let us know they HAD NUKES— okay Chief Jacobs and Cooper and most of the others think that’s just UN bullshit and they’re lying to try to get us to hand em over, iunno myself, their leader had a canadian flag and you know you cant trust fucking canucks with nukes— yeah theyre just. posted up out there. just chillin. they sent envoys in today. they didn’t exactly seem friendly last time but theyre reallllly not feeling particularly friendly right now. they have bulletproof vests and what look like pressure suit helmets now. The vests looked pretty heavy, though. and the helmets definitely weren’t designed for running around with a gun. they would have looked really stupid if i didn’t think they might kill us.

they blamed us for bringing the blues here. that’s ridiculous. we didn’t blab. i didn’t anyways. they didn’t quite believe us when we told them the truth. and they said they’d be coming back. so now we’re scared as hell, prepping our own body armor out of whatever we have on hand and can make on the fab.

i think things are gonna get a lot worse before they get even a little better.

i miss you

—kylie

<ATTACHMENT: rev9.6.eczip.acgf> [FLAGGED- SUSPICIOUS- DOWNLOAD? Y/N] > N

SUBJ: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: im really scared

Created: 15/02/06 08:52:02 UTC

Last Modified: 15/02/06 09:00:28 UTC

SENDER: Kylie Cermakova <kaysera12@quikmail.org>

RECIPIENT: Christopher Rappaport <crappapo@smau.edu.mnv>

SENT: 15/02/06 09:01:14 UTC

suspicious attachment? i dont remember attaching anything. maybe your client has a virus. you should get that checked out

anyways we got a date for when our cargo relief should show up. they said they’d set out before the blockade but decided to commit in spite of it; the C/S Siren’s Song is the name of the freighter. Owned by Northstar Spacelines, the co-op out of Rochester Republic? They’re homeported on Calvados tho and when they heard about our problem they dropped everything to help. the Calvados government is paying for this one— good to see they’re finally throwing their weight behind us. They’ll be here by March 10. You know how slipspace is tho. not like they’ve got the navy’s nav data.

they’re gonna try and run the blockade. it’s not impossible. i don’t love that but in fairness what is the un navy gonna do, shoot a relief ship? they’re evil but they’re not stupid lol

let’s see how this plays out. the defectors? defects. havent left. the blues with guns. theyre still here! lovely neighbors. they’ve been arguing with us every once in a while. we’re getting scared. honestly there’s been talk of handing them over if we could take them ourselves. if we can’t, we can’t bring blue marines down here. they’ll evict us too.

i think chief jacobs is drawing up a plan.

me? ive been a little under the weather. yknow. typical me stuff. just really feelin it right now. i haven’t been doing much. i plan on being pretty sedentary. not lookin to shoot anyone myself.

—kylie

CREW LOG 16/02/2506

SHIPBOARD PERSONNEL ELECTRONICS AND COMPUTING SYSTEM [MOBILE] v 141.03.25r © 2465 KENDALL SQUARE SYSTEMS

USER: alaina.hartwell.21@forces.gc.ca [STE2 ALAINA HARTWELL RCN]

CREATED: 16/02/06 16:38:42 ZULU

LAST MODIFIED: 16/02/06 16:43:32 ZULU

ORIGIN: DDK705 [BAP NUEVA CASTILLA] - PERSONAL HAND TERMINAL

<BEGIN AUDIO RECORDING>

JD radioed in from the Castilla. Minnies are here, and here in force. A full battlegroup.

This is where things go from bad to worse. The war was over. Now, just for forty-seven people, they’re gonna start it again.

We— force of fuckin’ habit. Liu’s got two plays here. Yeah, Liu. I was shocked when that Minnie kid told me, too. I was like, ‘Liu? Like the Disney guy?’ His kid, apparently. World’s gone mad. But he’s got two real options. Back down and talk this out or shoot first and fight this out. And from what I’ve heard from the colonists about this Liu kid, I don’t think he’s talking type. Shit.

Can’t believe this is all in the hands of some fucking princeling from Australia.

<END AUDIO RECORDING>

PERSONAL LOG 02/16/2506

USER: a.j.deriviere@nasa.gov

Created: 02/16/06 17:13:21 UTC

Last Modified: 02/16/06 17:26:40 UTC

<BEGIN AUDIO RECORDING>

This is getting so much worse altogether too quickly.

The Minervans are here now, and they brought a battleship. They’re pretty handsomely outnumbered. Either they didn’t know how many ships would be here or they’re… very confident.

I hope we don’t find out if that confidence is warranted, but it’s looking worse by the day.

The colonists also asked for their comms logs, for some reason? I’ll get to it when I get to it.

We’ve got an escalating situation, a rapidly escalating one. I’m seriously considering evacuating the station. We’ve got a ship coming in that will be staying from March 8th to the 18th. It’s got the life support capacity for most of us, and we can strip the station for everyone else.

I’m going to talk to Lian. Get my mind settled. Get the plans drawn up for what we’d need to do to evacuate. And then get a drink.

Shit, man.

<END AUDIO RECORDING>

something is very wrong

SUBJ: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: im really scared

Created: 17/02/06 00:52:42 UTC

Last Modified: 17/02/06 00:59:20 UTC

SENDER: Kylie Cermakova <kaysera12@quikmail.org>

RECIPIENT: Christopher Rappaport <crappapo@smau.edu.mnv>

SENT: 17/02/06 01:01:11 UTC

okay so the navy is here! did that make the news? like is the consensus actually putting their weight behind us?

i knew i liked baughan. i knew she’d come for us.

thanks for everything you’re doing to put our problems in the spotlight. it’s good to know that they’re looking out for us— hard to believe we’re here now. Just a matter of time before the blues realize they can’t win.

i’ll be home before you know it. <3

—kylie

CREW LOG 01/03/2506

SHIPBOARD PERSONNEL ELECTRONICS AND COMPUTING SYSTEM [MOBILE] v 141.03.25r © 2465 KENDALL SQUARE SYSTEMS

USER: alaina.hartwell.21@forces.gc.ca [STE2 ALAINA HARTWELL RCN]

CREATED: 01/03/06 12:56:24 ZULU

LAST MODIFIED: 01/03/06 13:04:23 ZULU

ORIGIN: DDK705 [BAP NUEVA CASTILLA] - PERSONAL HAND TERMINAL

<BEGIN AUDIO RECORDING>

These fucking Minnies. We’ve been camped out for a few days, watching them for suspicious activity. They know we’re out here, but we’ve been changing our position routinely so they don’t quite know where.

I don’t fucking trust them, that they didn’t bring all this on us. We were fine for thirty-five years! A little slim on food, sure, but when we learned what was and wasn’t dangerous out here, hunting put plenty on our table. Had all the power we needed off the dropship reactor, plenty of shelter in the ruins of the aft half, and a good thing going overall. Then they get here, maybe start talking to the astronomers…

Ya know what? I’m gonna ask for their comm logs. We’ll comb through them, and if they’re as clean as they say, everyone will be happy. Or at least less unhappy.

If not?

Then, at least, we know where the enemy is.

<END AUDIO RECORDING>

DRAFT: not feeling so good

Created: 02/03/06 05:22:22 UTC

Last Modified: 02/03/06 06:06:27 UTC

SENDER: Kylie Cermakova <kaysera12@quikmail.org>

TO: Christopher Rappaport <crappapo@smau.edu.mnv>

hey so i haven’t exactly been. okay. recently. ive had splitting headaches and… blackouts. its bad. i saw the med staff yesterday. they said it could be a virus contracted from the UN ship— they would have had a cyberwar suite after all and I was the closest to it. something started going around a few days ago, actually. they’re running a diagnostic on my system now, so. im isolated. i miss you. i hope everything’s okay.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

nerv, short for NerveANA (Nerve-Artificial-Neural-Annihilator), is the name of a cyberplague released by self-proclaimed neo-Kaczynskiite neo-Luddite extremists in rural Michigan on July 4th, 2276. It targets the neural pathways of simulated synthetic brains as well as the interface pathways between neural implants and organic brains. The end result is devastating for either a synthetic or neurologically augmented organic, and most frequently leads to death. The virus itself contains some rudimentary form of nonsapient AI that has learned over the years, and made it an enduring threat; leading to the ban of neuro-augments through all of human space for civilian use since the mid 2280s.

CREW LOG 05/03/2506

SHIPBOARD PERSONNEL ELECTRONICS AND COMPUTING SYSTEM [MOBILE] v 141.03.25r © 2465 KENDALL SQUARE SYSTEMS

USER: alaina.hartwell.21@forces.gc.ca [STE2 ALAINA HARTWELL RCN]

CREATED: 05/03/06 17:06:44 ZULU

LAST MODIFIED: 05/03/06 17:09:28 ZULU

ORIGIN: DDK705 [BAP NUEVA CASTILLA] - PERSONAL HAND TERMINAL

<BEGIN AUDIO RECORDING>

The Minnies— surprise!— aren’t cooperating. They’re stalling us on their comms logs. It’s an easy fucking request to comply with. Unless they’re lying. They said their comms logs are heavily encrypted. Why would they be, exactly? They’re not military. More than a little suspicious. I don’t fucking buy it. Your civilian comms aren’t heavily encrypted. Even if they are just give it to us. We can decrypt them ourselves. We have the hardware.

Question remains… do we have the time? How long before Liu gets jumpy? What if they send down a strike team for us? We haven’t been able to quite get the dropship operational. So air support will be a no. She wasn’t a gunship, anyways.

Our plates will probably stop a coilgun round, but it’ll probably shatter our ribs in the process. I think they should diffuse the ballistic impact from the chemical firearms the colonists are using just fine, we’ve padded em up pretty well. Just no amount of jury rigging that will make a coilgun not break your ribcage.

I’m stepping up our patrol tempo. Put the pressure on them to just tell us the fucking truth. Maybe put the fear of us in ‘em if they don’t.

<END AUDIO RECORDING>

CREW LOG 05/03/2506- SUPPLEMENTAL 1

SHIPBOARD PERSONNEL ELECTRONICS AND COMPUTING SYSTEM [MOBILE] v 141.03.25r © 2465 KENDALL SQUARE SYSTEMS

USER: alaina.hartwell.21@forces.gc.ca [STE2 ALAINA HARTWELL RCN]

CREATED: 05/03/06 19:09:14 ZULU

LAST MODIFIED: 05/03/06 19:11:24 ZULU

ORIGIN: DDK705 [BAP NUEVA CASTILLA] - PERSONAL HAND TERMINAL

<BEGIN AUDIO RECORDING>

Something’s going around the synths. I don’t know what it is, but Christaps has already told me he feels a bit under the weather.

Maybe they’re trying to get us to leave. The Minnies used nerv as a cyberweapon in their Independence War, after all. Who’s to say they haven’t gone back to their roots?

We’re testing for nerv right now. It might take a while because of its morphogenic properties, but if the patterns match it’s probably nerv. Symptoms are certainly some kind of cyberplague.

Just gotta get that comm log. Then we can settle everything. They say their long range comms are down and that’s why they can’t get their logs yet. Likely story.

<END AUDIO RECORDING>

SUBJ: Not Here

Created: 10/03/06 18:12:05 UTC

Last Modified: 10/03/06 18:15:21 UTC

SENDER: Kylie Cermakova <kaysera12@quikmail.org>

RECIPIENT: Christopher Rappaport <crappapo@smau.edu.mnv>

SENT: 10/03/06 18:16:10 UTC

Hi Chris,

They’re not here. The ship didn’t come. I mean, its not like it’s not possible, but it was supposed to be here by now. I’m really worried. Did they make it? Did the Blues kill them? Are they safe? Are they lost? Out here slip nav is hard, the gravitometric charts aren’t well defined and it’s not like slamming into a planet is impossible here. but without them the organics here are gonna starve.

I hope they’re okay.

The local deserters are a bit antsy today. Chief Jacobs handed out new bullets to everyone in the Defense Force today. Yeah, we have a Defense Force now, a little militia. Jacobs fancies himself a General now... bravely charging into battle against the Blues to the pounding bass and syncopating rhythms of the 2480s’ finest funkopop. He said the bullets are armor piercing. Cooper tells me they’re a lot heavier than the regular ones, about as heavy as the tungsten slugs he shot back in the Marines. A lot bigger, too.

I guess things are getting intense. I’m in isolation from other synthetics. They think I have something, so I’m dictating this email to Dr. Fripp.

Love,

Kylie

CREW LOG 10/03/2506

SHIPBOARD PERSONNEL ELECTRONICS AND COMPUTING SYSTEM [MOBILE] v 141.03.25r © 2465 KENDALL SQUARE SYSTEMS

USER: alaina.hartwell.21@forces.gc.ca [STE2 ALAINA HARTWELL RCN]

CREATED: 10/03/06 19:05:04 ZULU

LAST MODIFIED: 10/03/06 19:07:14 ZULU

ORIGIN: DDK705 [BAP NUEVA CASTILLA] - PERSONAL HAND TERMINAL

<BEGIN AUDIO RECORDING>

We’re going to meet with them now to retrieve the comms logs. If they don’t have it, we’ll find it ourselves. Rules of engagement are simple. Anyone with a weapon is an enemy.

Here goes nothing. If this is my last log, JD, you’re in charge now.

Alaina Hartwell, signing off.

<END AUDIO RECORDING>

SUBJ: GUNFIGHT— URGENT

Created: 10/03/06 19:26:05 UTC

Last Modified: 10/03/06 19:28:29 UTC

SENDER: Kylie Cermakova <kaysera12@quikmail.org>

RECIPIENT: Christopher Rappaport <crappapo@smau.edu.mnv>

SENT: 10/03/06 19:28:51 UTC

THEYRE SHOOTING AT US THEYRE KILLING US ONE OF THEIR GUYS JUST STARTED SHOOTING DR FRIPP TOLD ME TO JUST RUN FOR THE FOREST IN A DIFFERENT DIRECTION IM ALONE AND SCARED AND THE UN DESERTERS ARE SHOOTING AT US COOPER IS DEAD I HAVE HIS GUN I M SCARED I IDUNNO WHAT TO DO TELL THEM THEYRE KILLING US

CREW LOG 10/03/2506- SUPPLEMENTAL 1

SHIPBOARD PERSONNEL ELECTRONICS AND COMPUTING SYSTEM [MOBILE] v 141.03.25r © 2465 KENDALL SQUARE SYSTEMS

USER: alaina.hartwell.21@forces.gc.ca [STE2 ALAINA HARTWELL RCN]

CREATED: 10/03/06 19:29:10 ZULU

LAST MODIFIED: 10/03/06 19:34:54 ZULU

ORIGIN: DDK705 [BAP NUEVA CASTILLA] - PERSONAL HAND TERMINAL

<BEGIN AUDIO RECORDING>

FUCK FUCK FUCK. Christaps just started twitching, his gun went off— everybody started shooting, they were handing over something they said was a cobbled together log of all their comms, they were— fuck, it doesn’t matter anymore. a ton of them are dead. We’re on our way back and the tests pinged. The cyberplague going around is nerv. Christaps died from nerv, not from a bullet. Some of our guys are breaking down into twitching babbling fits as we’re running back towards the ship. This is an unmitigated disaster. I think we’re down to 39. Helen has a broken rib. Nguyen had his arm shot off and we think he has nerv too.

We all knew we were dying here when we came here. I don’t think any of us imagined we would die like this.

<END AUDIO RECORDING>

PERSONAL LOG 03/10/2506

USER: a.j.deriviere@nasa.gov

Created: 03/10/06 19:38:11 UTC

Last Modified: 03/10/06 19:41:49 UTC

<BEGIN AUDIO LOG>

We’ve started rigging up the evac ship. I got a comm from the colonists on the surface. The deserters started gunning them down and they’re running now. At this point I don’t give a shit. Lock me up, I don’t care. I retransmitted it on an open channel.

Fuck all of this. We’re leaving. It doesn't matter anymore if we photograph the oldest star in the universe, or stare into the heart of a quasar, or hear the first words of the newborn cosmos. This will always be a monument built on an ocean of blood. It’s not worth that. We’re this close to reigniting the war, and even now I can see that they’re a hair’s width off the trigger as it stands.

Maybe they’ll go away— this is what they wanted, right? No more colonists. No more deserters. Just the most brutal possible answer to their prayers.

Who am I kidding. When the lambs just want to slaughter each other, no guide is necessary.

<END AUDIO LOG>

SUBJ: RE: GUNFIGHT— URGENT

Created: 10/03/06 23:01:02 UTC

Last Modified: 10/03/06 23:02:26 UTC

SENDER: Kylie Cermakova <kaysera12@quikmail.org>

RECIPIENT: Christopher Rappaport <crappapo@smau.edu.mnv>

SENT: 10/03/06 23:02:59 UTC

im moving out of comms range soon. still running.

if you don't hear from me in a few days, i love you, and im gone

PERSONAL LOG 03/11/2506

USER: a.j.deriviere@nasa.gov

Created: 03/11/06 23:59:09 UTC

Last Modified: 03/12/06 00:05:05 UTC

<BEGIN AUDIO LOG>

This is my final log as Director of the Excessively Large Radio Space Telescope, and to all at NASA Goddard, this is my resignation letter, too, effective immediately.

We set out with noble intentions, but the road to ruin appears to have been paved in them. We only ever came in peace. But the spirit of war hitched a ride.

We did not instigate this conflict. If this is the end of our great peace between our two nations I would shudder to think that we could be held squarely at fault— I joined NASA to escape the military careers that have historically run in my family. How did I start this? At every turn we tried to do the right thing. We did not demand the colonists’ eviction at gunpoint, despite the fact that—

[NON-USER VOICE DETECTED]

IMMINENT SLIPSTREAM INFLUX DETECTED.

That’s strange. No inbound ships scheduled for today.

Computer, can you show me an optical track of the influx and its details?

Okay. Let’s… Let’s see. That’s a pretty low mass displacement— must be a pretty small ship.

SLIPSTREAM INFLUX DETECTED.

[GASP]

What was that flash?

Is that… is that debris?

Computer, is there a transponder code from the debris?

TRANSPONDER F3-C73705.

Shit, F3? Minervan. Check it against the international registry?

C/S SIREN’S SONG, FORMERLY TERRA NOVA. MINERVAN FLAGGED CARGO VESSEL. HOMEPORT: CALVADOS REP., FMR. REGISTERED TO NORTHSTAR SPACELINES, COOPERATIVE.

Oh no. Oh, no.

[KEYBOARD TAPS]

STATION-WIDE INTERCOM CHANNEL OPENED.

All hands, evacuate to the ship immediately. Do not stop for personal belongings. All who do not arrive in the next twenty minutes will be left behind— I repeat, abandon station! Abandon station!

<END AUDIO RECORDING>

SUBJ: RE: RE: RE: GUNFIGHT— URGENT

Created: 13/03/06 07:07:07 UTC

Last Modified: 13/03/06 07:13:04 UTC

SENDER: Kylie Cermakova <kaysera12@quikmail.org>

RECIPIENT: Christopher Rappaport <crappapo@smau.edu.mnv>

SENT: 13/03/06 07:19:59 UTC

yesterday i saw this world end.

i watched a symphony of death with an audience of alien anteaters, our heads turned to a sky hung in eternal spotlight, and flashes lit the sky like a paparazzi wanted to enshrine our misery for all history, to trap our suffering in amber.

i felt dizzy and in so much tearing pain as the sickness and the emps scrambled my mind. i think i am slightly better now. but i will remember the way the streaks of green-blue danced across the sky as if god had spilled his paint. i will remember the pain i shared with every lost soul in the skies as the same particles ripped through my circuits. i will remember the way i saw the stars on a sunny day.

i will never forget the death. i will never forget the way I broke the limp arm of hamadi jacobs under my foot, his hand still clutched around his rifle’s grip, with a stray step as i came back into an abandoned colony. that was his name. hamadi jacobs. chief of security, akrotiri colony. and he loved quincy quinn, his second album especially. he played synthesizer. he was damn good at it.

all of these people have stories. all of these people have families and weird tics and embarrasing secrets and favorite bands.

all of these people are gone.

there was another group that got away. but i think as i walk around the colony that this is most of our number, right here.

i’m gonna make a list of all the dead i can confirm. tell their families. it is the least, we, the living, can do.

i will not die here while i still bear their memory.

i will find a way back to you. i love you.

CREW LOG 15/03/2506

SHIPBOARD PERSONNEL ELECTRONICS AND COMPUTING SYSTEM v 121.23.93r © 2462 KENDALL SQUARE SYSTEMS

USER: alaina.hartwell.21@forces.gc.ca [STE2 ALAINA HARTWELL RCN]

CREATED: 15/03/06 07:03:15 ZULU

LAST MODIFIED: 15/03/06 07:11:51 ZULU

ORIGIN: DDK705 [BAP NUEVA CASTILLA]

<BEGIN AUDIO RECORDING>

Daily checkin.

Our systems got scrambled pretty bad by that battle— we cought a lot of stray cyberwar packages that absolutely tore through our defenses. I mean, they were made in the ‘60s. No wonder they can slip right in. It’s a miracle we got it all purged in just three days— or at least, the system says it’s okay. So it’s probably not.

We got a weird ping on the gravitometer today. I think it’s broken. It was predicting a slipspace influx for a solid three hours. And it never came, just wildly varied in its mass displacement, like it was getting bigger. All we saw was a weird bug crushed up against the lens. It looked almost like a bird with fins, swooping wings all splattered against the glass. I went out to clean the lens, and there was a weird frog lookin thing there that I hadn’t seen before. I picked it up with a glove and hucked it away— could be poisonous. Fuck if I know. I think it ate the bug, though.

After a while the mass displacement started going nuts, just, all over the place. Then it started shrinking. A full six hours of the gravitometer yelling at me. I think it’s fuckin’ broken. We definitely still have a virus.

Christaps coulda fixed this.

<END AUDIO RECORDING>

CREW LOG 01/08/2506

SHIPBOARD PERSONNEL ELECTRONICS AND COMPUTING SYSTEM [MOBILE] v 141.03.25r © 2465 KENDALL SQUARE SYSTEMS

USER: alaina.hartwell.21@forces.gc.ca [STE2 ALAINA HARTWELL RCN]

CREATED: 01/08/06 20:09:00 ZULU

LAST MODIFIED: 01/08/06 20:13:09 ZULU

ORIGIN: DDK705 [BAP NUEVA CASTILLA] - PERSONAL HAND TERMINAL

<BEGIN AUDIO RECORDING>

We’ve been making runs into their territory to find out what happened to them for a bit now. It’s a ghost town, really. There’s a lot of dust scattered where there shouldn’t be, and a few scorches— could be thrusters. We weren’t watching the skies like we should have been— just not enough people and after those EMPs and cyberattacks not exactly enough reliable equipment. I think they took a shuttle up. Left. Can’t exactly blame them. So there hasn’t been much opposition to us taking our dead back.

I’m burying them all personally. Everyone else is bringing them here, but it happened on my watch, and so it’s my responsibility to dig their graves and put them to rest.

I’m… laying down right now. Next up is Christaps Vanags. Latvian. Good kid. Could fix anything with a computer in it. Once upon a time he was a cryptologic technician. Now he’s a husk of a man.

I can’t quite bring myself to bury him. It’s not his fault we’re all in this situation, but it was his hand that did it. I can’t imagine the horror he must have felt.

I’ll miss you, Christaps.

Ugh. I hear someone coming. I’ll finish this log later.

<END AUDIO RECORDING>

A man in a black polo shirt stared out from under dark sunglasses. He dragged a Sharpie along a tag, writing up names, rates, and national affiliations. The pictures had already been taken. The graves would be here. A good discouragement for inquisitive minds. It was a horrible tragedy, but the colonists of Akrotiri and the UN deserters had, for the most part, killed each other— and while some colonists had fled, they had killed the deserters to the man.

“This is going to be one hell of a report,” he mused. “Did they get a photo? Any footage, sensor data?”

“Some from the ship, some from the colony, some from the telescope.”

“Tag ‘em. SUNSHINE all.”

“██████?” A woman in similar garb called his name, a black plate carrier strapped to her chest and a ballcap sat atop her head, raised an obscured eyebrow. “I don’t think so.”

“You’re our specialist, tell me. CWAR? EWAR?”

“I’m… not sure, ██████. Something feels off.”

“Something?”

“It’s… how consistent it is. The timestamps. This is the most advanced cyberweapon I’ve ever seen. Nothing can do this,” she shook her head. “If they have this, we’re not safe. They could trick us up and down the line of contact. SUNSHINE doesn’t cut it.”

“Well, I’ll be sure to let the boss know,” ██████ nodded. “Get it all categorized. ██████████, take a team and SSE the ship again. Check for nuclear material again. And check. Those. Timestamps. Actually, ███, go with them. You know the meatheads need babysitting.” He sighed. She nodded.

“We’ve got our work cut out for us here, ███.”

“They still want us looping in the Navy on this?” She raised an eyebrow. “The above-board stuff, anyway.”

“Send the above-board stuff to Commodore Devenish. Give the real report to Starling. He needs to know what we’re dealing with.”

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This list of characters is meant to familiarize WAYBOUND readers with some important people who appear throughout WAYBOUND's Interbellum Period, the story arc that covers the time between 2470’s Maybe War and the Fools' War (as it later came to be known) of 2523-24. It may be updated as more characters are introduced in stories and should not be considered a complete list; just a sampler platter of particularly noteworthy people who will likely appear in stories. I will add to this list as I think of them, so it may not comprehensively survey the diverse backgrounds of people involved in the politics of this time.

ON BIRTHDATES AND SUBSTRATES: “b.” (“born”) indicates an organic human. Organics are the kinds of humans you are used to. The average organic lifespan in the 25th and early 26th century is between 120 and 140 years. “i.” (“initialized”) indicates a synthetic human. Synthetic humans are fully sentient and sapient artificial intelligence based on the full simulation of the digital image of a human brain— or by the current generation, a composite image of several, and have been considered legal equals with organics since the end of cataclysmic social unrest in 2101. Synthetics will, invariably, become more and more computationally complex as they live longer, and this will cause heat generation at the microscale that will destroy their core hardware at or before 34.0481 years (2³⁰ seconds). Transferring to a new core is a risky process, and even when it does work, has exponentially diminishing returns, resulting in a maximum lifespan of just over 51 years.

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A NOTE ON THE PLANET MINERVA: The planet Minerva (ε Eridani III) is a temperate world almost hand-made for human habitation, smack-dab in the middle of the Goldilocks zone of ε Eridani. With slightly more gravity (and habitable land) than Earth, a primarily nitrogen oxygen-rich atmosphere, saltwater oceans, native carbon-based animal and plant life, and three moons, two of which, Odysseus and Aegis, are also habitable; the remaining one, Pallas, is both incredibly ilmenite (FeTiO₃) rich and outside the magnetic field of Minerva, which enables it to be an incredibly prominent source of titanium, water, and ³He fusion fuel for the Federated Minervan Republics. Pallas’ other strange quirk is an incredibly high slip-mass concentration; that is, an outsized influence on gravity when exposed to the slipstream’s higher dimensions. This makes Minerva effectively a ‘natural harbor’, and at certain times in the relative motion between the two stars in the Orion Arm, gives ε Eridani a lower Δv budget to reach from Sol than other, nearer stars due to dimensional quirks in the way eleven-plus-dimensional space folds and the proximities therein, depending on the relative motion of the stars involved. Additionally, Minerva is home to a prominent ring system— primarily composed of ilmenite and moissanite (SiC) rock thought to have been left behind from a cataclysmic impact between a primordial proto-Pallas and an extrasolar body; though there is more geological evidence for this than astrophysical, as Pallas holds a remarkably circular and flat orbit. The rocks in the rings are largely kept from impacting the space elevators that run through them by powerful electromagnetic systems; however laser systems periodically clear the way for the space tethers, and the resources in the rings are mined and used for spacecraft construction.

FEDERATED MINERVAN REPUBLICS

A NOTE ON THE STRUCTURE AND GOVERNMENT OF THE FEDERATED MINERVAN REPUBLICS: The FMR is a democratic republic that grew out of the organizing structures used to coordinate the geographically (and in many cases, ideologically) disparate cells of rebel groups operating prior to and during the Minervan War for Independence. It consists of a unicameral legislature called the Consensus that sees each full Republic send a directly elected Chair alongside multiple indirectly elected Representatives (elected by a Republic's Council, Parliament, or Congress) as well as one randomly selected layperson who must also be confirmed by popular vote within their Republic. While all full Republics are equally represented in the Consensus, not all Representatives are equal— only two of the delegations' Representatives may vote in all matters, the directly elected Chair and the randomly appointed Lay Representative. The other Representatives are all specialized to craft policy in one domain— effectively making the Consensus an exceptionally large Cabinet formed of many committees of what are ostensibly supposed to be experts. The executive functions of the government are vested in the Office of the President of the Consensus, which is effectively a separate executive branch in all but name, with the titular President, a popularly elected figure serving as the military's commander-in-chief, while the First Representative of the Consensus, a more traditionally Prime Minister-like position, is elected by their colleagues— though both share in the duties of head of state and government and fall under the Office of the President. However, the President of the Consensus also holds the distinction of being head of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, and is empowered to define and lead the nation's foreign policy (though in recent Presidencies have also exercised a great amount of influence over domestic policy). They are elected in six year terms, though a general referendum on whether or not to hold a General Recall referendum for the President is held every three years. They are seldom, but not never, successful. There are no explicit term limits, but there has always been an incredibly strong cultural norm against running for a third term, and no President has ever done so— the only instance of a President ever serving more than two terms was due to a popular movement that narrowly elected the candidate against their will.

Prior to 2472— the ‘Year of Four Presidents’— the President of the Consensus was appointed by a combined vote of the Republics’ Councils, Parliaments, or Congresses. However, as the Minervan system has developed from a guerilla insurgency’s organizing schema into a proper, popularly representative government, more democratizing reforms have become increasingly desired by the voters; the chaos caused by the death of President Hwangbo in a freak accident in early 2472— namely, the lackluster successors elected by the Republic governments and the repeated scandals associated with them— resulted in one of the more popular reforms being adopted, the direct election of the President by every Minervan citizen, starting first with President Goldsmith in 2478.

Following 2478, in the event that the President of the Consensus is incapacitated, killed, or otherwise rendered incapable of fulfilling the duties of the office (except where removed by popular General Recall, which fully replaced the Vote of No Confidence in 2478), succession is handled by a secret list of named successors from within the Consensus, nominated by the incoming President at the start of the term, who are not allowed to be informed of their nomination unless they are to be called up to finish out the remainder of the term. Several copies of this list are kept sealed by various government depositories, and checked against each other in the event of their use. This is intended to ensure that a President's policy platform will continue even in the event of their death, and that the intent of the voters will be upheld, as a successor will ideally mirror the politics of their President.

There are seventy-one full Republics on Minerva itself, with an additional 37 on Minerva's two habitable moons, Odysseus and Aegis. However, among the FMR's many colonies, a vast majority of the colonies are not represented as full Republics but as what are instead called “Unitary Republics”, which are only empowered to send a delegation of the two general-voting Representatives, on account of their not exceeding the population threshold to be considered full Republics. An additional nineteen full Republics exist within the colonies, for a total of one hundred twenty seven full Republics, and an ever-growing number of Unitary Republics.

The three major political blocs are informal gatherings of parties and political activism organizations nicknamed based on the colors of the Minervan flag: Olive, Orange, and Gray. Olives are regionalists broken into two categories: pre-2478, the larger of the two were plain old Olives, which is a label applied to politicians and activists who have been actively captured by the regional interests of their Republic, and support the use of the Consensus and the Federal government's power to benefit their economy, prestige, or standing. Pan-Olives, who are the predominant strain of Olive politics post-direct election, are politicians and activists who support devolved government with more power in the hands of the Republics. Oranges or 'Rusties' are politicians and activists who support greater federalization and concentration of power within the Consensus and the Federal government. Grays are primarily concerned with the wellbeing of military personnel and veterans; while militarism is rarely an unpopular concept among Minervans, the Grays are considerably more militarist than the other two blocs; though they are greatly committed to the occupational health of servicemembers. They are frequently associated with the membership and leadership of the Collective Security Servicemembers’ Union, a labor union that represents Minervan military personnel. Prior to 2472, the term Gray was largely used as an adjective to describe a politician with a keen interest in the military and its servicemembers, but following the tenure of President Amelie Nwajiobi, the restriction on the Collective Security Servicemembers’ Union members from running for office was lifted, creating the modern conception of a Gray politician.

Olives are primarily represented by a range of local Republic political parties and organizations, and relations between pure Olivist (sometimes referred to as Localist) and Pan-Olivist parties is ‘rarely sunshine or rainbows’, as put by President Hwangbo Lorena. Pan-Olivism, however, is represented by Populi, a coalition of local Republic political parties who have become more ideologically active and seek to devolve Federal power. Oranges are the best organized and are more of an ideological union than one of practical affairs; they have long been represented by Federation, which is widely considered the most party-like Federal political party on Minerva by outside observers. Grays are represented by a coalition of interest groups led by Collective Security, the political wing of the Collective Security Servicemembers’ Union. The Collective Security Union is the labor union that represents the members of the Minervan Armed Forces; it arose from a brief standoff in the early Republics that led to the nascent government committing to paying the pensions of all who fought in the Independence War in the face of a large, disgruntled protest movement by veterans.

The capital city of the Federated Minervan Republics is New Ruacnoc, a city in Monteverde Republic (MNT) and named for the city of Ruacnoc on Mars. New Ruacnoc is one of the four oldest cities on the planet, and was one of the hotbeds of the Independence Movement and the first place where the Consensus was convened.

Presidents of the Consensus of the Interbellum Period

Hwangbo Lorena1 (b. 2396) [Seongnam, Minerva (SEO)]- The most beloved President in Minervan history, Hwangbo Lorena of the Seongnam Partido Ulideul Daonlathach (PUD, an Olivist party) was first selected in 2458 from the Chairship of the Commitee on Public Health and Health Services in the middle of a massive deadlock between Orange and Pan-Olivist coalitions within the Consensus. Having gained the respect of her other Olive, Orange, and Pan-Olivist colleagues for her effective dealmaking as head of the Commitee on Public Health and Health Services during the budget crisis of 2447— and for being the person to unify the Republics’ disparate healthcare services under her brainchild, the Federal Department of Health Services’, newborn banner— and for her prompt and successful containment of the El Morro outbreak of neo-NerveANA cyberplague in 2453, Hwangbo was the right person for the job of unifying a Consensus that was far from anything resembling its name. Well liked by the public for her laconic demeanor and sharp wit alongside an uncanny ability to work across party lines, Hwangbo was least popular among the Pan-Olivists who saw her as an Orangist in all but party affiliation— and in many ways, they were right. By 2470, one year before the end of her second term, the outbreak of the Maybe War thrust an already beloved leader into the crucible of war. While neither side can truly be characterized as having ‘won’ the brief confrontation, the Federated Minervan Navy inflicted heavy losses to the UN-UNC in several dramatic battles, including the two Battles of 61 Cygni. This huge propaganda coup turned a beloved President into a wartime hero, and led to her selection to a third term in 2471— the only time in history— under public pressure. On January 18, 2472, in the first year of her third term, Hwangbo Lorena tragically died in a slipspace accident traveling to a conference on disease control, where the ship carrying her intersected a civilian passenger liner during realspace influx, leading to a loss of many lives aboard both vessels. This sudden accident would mark an inflection point in Minervan politics, the Year of Four Presidents.

Andre O’Brien (b. 2418) [Kilkenny, Minerva (KIL)]- Elected under unusual procedure— by the Consensus instead of the Republics— as Acting President following an emergency session of the Consensus on January 18, 2472, and confirmed by the Republics one and a half weeks later, Andre O’Brien was thought by all to be the safe bet. O’Brien had been a key ally of President Hwangbo in the Consensus’ Commitee for Procedural Review, assisting the President with ensuring her policy platform could be crafted to navigate the gauntlet of Pan-Olivist Consensus Representatives seeking to strike it down at every turn, even helping modify Consensus rules on debate to speed its implementation in the strengthening of the Minervan Inter-Republic Health Services System. Unfortunately for all involved, the Consensus’ bet on O’Brien would very quickly prove to have been a blunder— as despite the fact that the Orangist O’Brien attempted to reconcile with the Pan-Olivists many times, his “ill-wrought screeds” and his facial expressions often ridiculed as ‘overly dramatic’ and ‘funny-lookin’’ [sic] annihilated any goodwill he had gained as the last President’s overshadowed right hand, and turned a mystical wise man of the Consensus into an object of mockery overnight. On top of public unpopularity, he was derided by Consensus Representatives as “belligerent”, “impossible to work with”, and “hung up on the dumbest things”— even criticisms leveled by Federation Party allies and the First Representative, Jacqueline al-Mizzi. After just over four months in office, O’Brien was brought to a Vote of No Confidence on April 25, 2472 following a brief physical altercation on the floor of the Consensus with his Pan-Olivist rival Denzel Santini and removed from office, marking up to this point the shortest tenure a Minervan President had ever attained. After his time in office, he became the Miguel J. Hesp Distinguished Visiting Professor of Political Science at his alma mater, the University of Kilkenny, where he would serve out the remainder of his years.

Denzel Santini (i. 2435) [Ziguinchor, Minerva (ZIG)]- The most prominent opponent of O’Brien, Denzel Santini was again elected— the same day his predecessor was removed— under the alternate procedure of Consensus election and Republics confirmation called for when a President had either died, been incapacitated, or been removed before the adoption of popular voting for Presidents. A charismatic leader, Santini managed to rally off a surge in Pan-Olivist sentiment and capitalize off the unpopularity of President O’Brien to undo some of the centralization pushed by President Hwangbo and O’Brien in the first weeks of his administration. However, this very quickly caused a collapse of the Health Services System after leveraging Pan-Olivist allies on the Committee on Public Health and Health Services to abolish the Inter-Republic Health Board, which was seen by Pan-Olivists as a dramatic overreach of Federal power. This sudden abolition of the Board caused a similarly sudden shutdown of the coordination infrastructure that the various Republics had just finished the years-long project of centralizing their hospitals— and their supply chains— on. The system was taken offline on Monday, May 9th, 2472, causing later that week what medical professionals called “Black Friday”— after it was then realized that few hospitals actually had any accurate count of the stock of several critical medications, blood plasma, and other crucial resources. After initially being lauded by other Pan-Olivists for having ‘given the healthcare system back to the Republics’, and surprising Orangist adversaries for not completely abolishing the Federal Department of Health Services, as it had been before President Hwangbo, the resulting collapse of the healthcare system destroyed any goodwill the charismatic, affably wisecracking Santini had gained with his opponents and much of what he had with his allies, especially after a bank run began the next Monday. As the Minervan economy spiraled into economic trouble, daily protests outside the Consensus building in New Ruacnoc caused a Vote of No Confidence on the 46th day of his Presidency, June 10th, 2472.

Amelie Nwajiobi (b. 2413) [Groton, Minerva (GRO)]- Elected again under the alternate procedure on June 10, 2472 following the Vote of No Confidence that removed President Santini, President Nwajiobi was given the herculean task of righting the ship of state alongside First Representative al-Mizzi. The two quickly got to work, rapidly re-introducing the policies of Hwangbo and O’Brien. Nwajiobi had held a rather strongly Olivist track record in the past, using much of her early career to fight for the mining interests of Groton Republic, and was responsible for funding the construction project of the San Juan Orbital Elevator, one of the many space tethers used to additionally harvest ilmenite and moissanite from the rings of Minerva; however, during her last ten years as a Consensus Representative and the Chair of Groton’s Consensus Delegation, she had tempered her views into being much more compatible with the regional interests of the other Republics, especially catalyzed during the War to call for national unity in the face of the threat faced by the UN. The grievous injuries suffered by her brother at the Battle of Krüger 60 left him without the use of his body below the neck and further pushed her into becoming a strong proponent for servicemembers’ compensation. She would recieve an “A” rating from the Collective Security Servicemembers' Union, notably hiring much of her staff from their ranks, and also lifted the restrictions preventing members of the CSSU from running for political office. During her administration, her policies towards veterans included augmenting pensions with stimulus spending intended to target veterans and veteran-run cooperatives, starting an economic recovery program that also served to be the nascence of a new form of militarist politics on Minerva dedicated to advancing veterans’ and servicemembers’ issues in the public eye, the modern Grey movement. Despite suffering a sex scandal early in her tenure that nearly resulted in a third Vote of No Confidence in one year, her supporters in government, media, and the general public decried her Pan-Olive adversaries’ investigation of her affairs with multiple interns and staffers as a “witch hunt”, though tell-all memoirs about the scandalous happenings within the Nwajiobi Presidency were common tabloid shelf material for the duration of her Presidency and long after, with the final fallout of the scandal resulting in three divorces, including her own, and two marriages— one of which led to another divorce. She would serve out the remainder of Hwangbo’s term, avoiding recall and solidifying herself as a popular, if occasionally controversial, President— the greatest of these controversies her commitment to implementing a popularly elected President by the end of Hwangbo’s original term, which was widely considered by Pan-Olivists to be an untenable concession to Orange interests, and considered by Nwajiobi and al-Mizzi as a necessary precaution to avoid another year of instability and chaos, and to placate a decidedly furious Minervan populace.

CAPT (ret.) Xiulan Goldsmith (b. 2407) [Canaveral, Minerva (CNV)]- The first popularly elected President and a veteran of the Maybe War, Captain Goldsmith served as the commanding officer of the MFRS MOUNT XIUGULAN (B091), a MARIANAS-Class (B075) Fast Battleship. Upon leaving the service an accomplished captain with a distinguished record, he begun to raise funds and political support for a Consensus run, aligning himself with the Orange politicians of the Federal Party, seeing unity as the only way to forge a strong Minerva capable of facing the challenges of the modern world and blaming the Pan-Olivist agenda for having impaired Minervan military readiness on the Frontier. Elected to the Consensus as Representative for Defense in the mid-2470s, Goldsmith became well regarded as a leading light in the ideological aims of the Federal Party as a strong proponent of centralization initiatives and managed to keep his nose clean of scandal— making him a popular and uncontroversial President outside the realm of some Olivists and all of Pan-Olivist politics, though it should be noted that Olivist parties begun to fade in relevance following the institution of direct election.

Mint Abawi (b. 2443) [Korangal2, Minerva (KRN)]- The most controversial President in history and considered by some to have been an argument against the direct election of Presidents, Abawi may also have been the most successful serial fraudster in history. The first (and thus far, only) President directly elected from the population writ large instead of out of the Consensus, Mint was a consultant to criminal defense firms in the Carraroe area who became entangled with the Goldsmith administration’s Cabinet and Justice Department. Some caught whiffs of the skeletons in Abawi’s closet early— some senior Justice Department officials wondered why the admittedly well-spoken, charismatic Abawi was so quickly rising in New Ruacnoc’s political scene so quickly without ever holding government office themselves. Capable of articulating almost any opinion— even the ones he didn’t hold— their impassioned speeches in favor of the Goldsmith administration captivated audiences the Republics around. A fresh, young face full of energy, Abawi was often at odds with Ichiro Griffin, Jr., himself a rising star in the Federal Party’s Consensus presence, who many believed resented Abawi’s meteoric rise in popularity. Beginning his campaign an outsider, few believed Abawi could capture the Federal nomination for President, let alone the whole election— but they did, and after a brief honeymoon period, Minerva had woken up to a new national nightmare. Abawi was a magnificent public speaker but a poor governing official, and it seemed to many that he used most of his time on his official schedule granting favors to friends or otherwise abusing the office— stalling the approval of several critical defense procurement bills and at one point even causing a government shutdown because he was too busy entertaining guests at the Presidential Residence at 1 Keystone or playing water polo, a sport in which he held a recreational league championship. After a new round of opposition research ran against Abawi, 2490 quickly became a year of scandal. The Federal Party-registered President was governing with a Pan-Olivist agenda and seen eating dinner with the leadership of Populi, and regularly would butt heads with his First Representative, Samantha Noguchi. Some even wondered if Mint would change parties. In May 2490, however, the Mother of All Scandals, as some came to call it, broke. Reports with several discrepancies from institutions Abawi was allegedly an alumus of were on every screen, all the time, for weeks. Abawi had not graduated law school, let alone the prestigious one at Santa Maria Assunta University— though a fire in the server room years ago had delayed the investigation started by a curious professor at the start of Abawi’s campaign. He was not a lawyer, let alone one qualified to do the consulting work he had conned his way into. He had cheated on the bar exam. He did, however, have a BS in mathematics from Nazareth Polytechnic, leading to many referring to them as “Mint Abawi, BS”. The only truths he had actually told about himself were that he did in fact work as a consultant to defense lawyers, and he was really a water polo champion. He had even lied about his hometown, claiming to be from Carraroe, Korangal Republic— a deception that had gone unnoticed until he called a submarine sandwich a ‘hoagie’— a faux pa that revealed his true roots in Memphis, Hanover Republic, after a local food reporter from Carraroe took personal offense that he had misnamed what was clearly a grinder. Abawi would not serve a full term in office— his term being cut short on August 2nd, 2491 after he was shot in the street going to get a sandwich in downtown New Ruacnoc by assailant Jack Kennedy, a dishonorably discharged Navy Lieutenant who had become disaffected against the government. Conspiracy theories abound that the military had a hand in— or in fact conducted themselves— Abawi’s attempted assassination, and are founded on the extreme distrust the upper echelons of the military held towards Abawi, which stemmed largely from worries over a clearly unreliable and mercurial commander-in-chief. Their validity is of much debate, even among otherwise aconspiratorial types. Abawi survived the attack, but went into a medically-induced coma the following day in a lifesaving medical procedure, as the bullet had grazed their brain. When the list containing his successors was to be unsealed, it was found to have been improperly filled out— and the only name on it was one that would cause a constitutional crisis: Samantha Noguchi. Due to the conflict of several elligibility laws— namely that the last person on the list had to take the job if no one else had, and that the First Representative could not become the President, nor could they resign early in order to become the President— Minerva was left for several weeks with no President until intervention from Noguchi and the Procedural Review Committee approved a one-time exception for a snap election due to the failure of the procedure to account for such a situation. Abawi would awaken from his coma on June 5, 2523— one day before the start of the Fools’ War.

Ichiro Griffin, Jr. (b. 2432) [Nuevo California, Minerva (NCA)]- The snap election held in the constitutional crisis created by Abawi’s hand served to elevate longtime peacemaker Ichiro Griffin, Jr. from a spot on the Nuevo California Republic’s Consensus delegation as the Representative for Foreign Relations to the Presidency himself. The architect of the 2490 Landigal Summits on Arms Reduction, Griffin made it his mission to cut down on warship production in the UN and FMR in the 2490s and cement the peace that had endured since the Maybe War of 2470. Critiqued by Pan-Olivist opposition as soft on the UN, this was not enough to kill the charismatic, affable Griffin— whose well-assured air of quiet confidence made him untouchable in the media, despite the many attempts by his adversaries.

LCOL (ret.) Nia Baughan (b. 2453) [Nanshan, Minerva (NSH)]- An immigrant from Wales, Baughan entered the service of the Federated Minervan Republic Marine Corps out of college to the pride of her parents. Well regarded as a natural leader by her Marines, Baughan entered politics at their urging after her retirement in 2494. Maintaining the tenor of Griffin’s détente through her first term, she only reluctantly authorized the 2506 blockade-breaking mission to Akrotiri that would see the loss of the Minervan-flagged cargo ship C/S Siren’s Song (UN reg code F3-C71305) spark a skirmish between UN and FMR forces. She was responsible for having called off reinforcements to the FMR forces there at the first sign that it could escalate to war— but unfortunately for her, by the late 25-aughts the concept of peaceful coexistence with the United Nations and open immigration, once unremarkable, had begun to turn toxic to a politician’s longevity. Narrowly reelected in 2509, she was recalled in 2512 under perceptions that she was too soft on the United Nations.

Guillaume Riahi (i. 2474) [Aberystwyth, Aegis (ABY)]- Elected in the aftermath of President Baughan’s recall, President Riahi was the most hawkish President in recent memory. Pledging to stand up to a more interventionist United Nations and to re-establish Minervan strength on the Frontier in the face of James Liu’s administration, Riahi saw a rebirth of Minervan nationalism under his syncretic Gray approach to Pan-Olivist politics— compromising Pan-Olivist principles whenever necessary to strengthen the military, which wound up being fairly frequent. Nevertheless, he managed to hold down the support of Pan-Olivist members of the Consensus and of the public, and for the first time in a long while, wrest the support of the Collective Security Servicemembers’ Union away from the Federal Party and break the Orange-Gray coalition. Popular for a charismatic intensity and hard-nosed ‘tell it like it is’ approach, Riahi led the country through the Fools’ War at the end of his second term— a massive popularity boost until Minervan forces started losing. He had hoped for the election of 2524 to lead to the election of one of his close friends in the Consensus’ Select Commitee on Foreign Affairs, Noah Laulani, but a split in the pro-war vote along with the revelation of some inconvenient truths and the beginning of the Reclaimant Crisis threw the election to the more conciliatory Federal candidate, Emile Christenhusz.

Selected First Representatives of the Consensus of the Interbellum Period

Jacqueline al-Mizzi (i. 2433) [Nineveh, Odysseus (NNV)]- The power behind (and in front of) the scenes effectively holding the country together in the Year of Four Presidents, al-Mizzi’s firm statesmanship and unflagging resolve is credited by many with having navigated the crisis even in the face of an untimely death of a valued friend and colleague, having served as First Representative since just before the Maybe War. Managing to work alongside and around a series of three Presidents (and especially coming to blows with Santini), al-Mizzi managed to make backroom deals among Consensus lawmakers and both Republic and Federal level bureaucrats, ensuring some degree of stability. Heading up the response to Black Friday, al-Mizzi prevented a total collapse of the healthcare system from arising from the momentary chaos, and stabilized the financial system after the bank run began, and retired in 2475 once it was clear the situation had stabilized.

Samantha Noguchi (b. 2435) [Pelham, Minerva (PEL)]- Stuck between a rock and a hard place, Noguchi was considered by most a fairly unnotable and routine First Representative— not great but not horrible either— until she was saddled with babysitting Mint Abawi and preventing them from destroying the country, humanity as a whole, or both. Being the commander-in-chief of the Minervan Military turned out to be a full-time job that Abawi had little interest in, so when they turned their sights on domestic issues, the First Representative stepped up to defend her turf. Barely managing to hold the government together in the face of Abawi’s mismanagement, she nevertheless soldiered on until her true crucible was faced in the one thing she’d hoped for beyond all else— an early end to Abawi’s Presidency. Called upon as his successor but also legally barred from taking the office, Noguchi summoned all her dealmaking abilities to make a compromise that threaded the needle as tightly as it could— a one-time provision for a snap election, to prevent the original intent of the successorship system— ironically, the intent being avoiding assassination attempts, as no one would be able to tell who would be President next— from being undermined. She retired soon after, and never touched politics again— narrowly surviving a heart attack in 2523 after finding out Abawi had woken up from his coma.

COL (ret.) Alonzo Hesp (b. 2459) [Kilkenny, Minerva (KIL)]- In office for the outbreak of the Fools’ War, Hesp was a Gray politician that maintained close ties to his friends from his service in the Federated Minervan Republic Marine Corps, several of whom were Generals by the time of his First Representativeship. A distinguished public speaker and a fiscal conservative except on matters of military procurement, Hesp found favor among the narrow Pan-Olivist plurality of the pre-Fools’ War Consensus, and was voted in as a compromise with the Grays to support the Populi party’s agenda. A figure hated among Orange politicians for his policies and his blasé snark, Hesp was removed in a Vote of No Confidence in 2524 in the onset of the Reclaimant Crisis.

Political Figures

Dr. Newroz Mannerheim Psy.D. (b. 2452) [Canaveral, Minerva (CNV)]- A prominent advocate for disarmament and détente, Dr. Mannerheim pursued psychology and research into Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder after her older brother, a Sailor in the Federated Republics Navy, returned home from the Maybe War of 2470 a shell of his former self. Determined to help the veterans who had seen war and to ensure no one else would have to as well, she became a well-regarded psychologist and authored numerous studies and books before being snatched up by one of the Cabinet members of the Goldsmith administration to act as his personal advisor on veterans’ mental health, before finding herself the youngest member of the Goldsmith administration’s Cabinet as the Advisor for Veterans’ Issues, and in the first year of the Griffin administration, President Ichiro Griffin, Jr. appointed her the Special Ambassador for Arms Control, where she negotiated the 2491 Landigal Protocols on Arms Reduction alongside her UN counterpart Marcus Akinsanya. She remained Special Ambassador for Arms Control into the 2520s, and while the position has become increasingly toothless, she has only become more emboldened and determined to make peace where others only see the possibility for war.

Military Personnel

ADMN Keo ‘Maestro’ Hughes (b. 2372) [Seongnam, Minerva (SEO)]- The architect of Minervan naval strategy and the father of the Fleet Logistics Office, Admiral of the Navy Keo Hughes gained a reputation as an ‘untouchable old bastard’ and commissioned the design of the uniquely Minervan Forward Repair and Resupply Vessel (FRRV), the backbone of his strategy of the Unrelenting Offensive. By being able to create a flexible logistical chain that could repair and replenish ships without returning them to friendly territory, his ‘Grand Orchestra’, as the Navy began to be dubbed due to Hughes’ knack for immaculate planning and penchant for micromanagement, would be able to play on despite whatever the UN could throw at them in the event of total war. Nearly retiring a Rear Admiral due to his insistence of remaining head of the Fleet Logistics Office— which under his supervision became the most powerful piece of the Navy’s bureaucracy— Hughes was quickly before retirement promoted to Admiral of the Navy against his will in a tribute to the man who had singlehandedly reinvented the Minervan Navy.

RADM Kaylin Rama (b. 2453) [Buenasuerte Republic (BUN)]- A prodigious naval commander, Rama excelled in every way, including her retaliatory shootout with the UN over Akrotiri in 2506. Leaving only a handful of destroyers and frigates intact from the whole UN blockade, then-Captain Rama’s battlegroup, headed up by the MARIANAS-Class (B075) Fast Battleship MFRS MEDINA RIDGE (B101) decimated the UN forces (though not without losses themselves) in a thorough and rapid strike that to the UN proved that destroyer wolfpacks were insufficient space combatant groups against capital ship formations except in overwhelming numbers. As a Rear Admiral, Rama found herself in command of the Third Fleet aboard the MFRS FORT MCHENRY (C343), a MYEONGNYANG-Class (C272) Battlecruiser during the Fools’ War. Successfully siezing the Line of Contact for the FMR during the Tau Ceti Campaign, her Third Fleet ran significantly ahead of the planned timeline due to the successes they had enjoyed under her leadership. Faced with the choice to either pursue the scattered and defeated UN forces from Tau Ceti to Sol and begin the Sol campaign ahead of time, therefore upholding the spirit of Hughes’ “Unrelenting Offensive” doctrine, or following the letter of the doctrine, and waiting for planned reinforcements from the Eighth Fleet busy in UV Ceti A and the Twelfth Fleet in Lalande’s Star (Lalande 21185). Rama chose to push the initiative, and while initially capturing the critical logistical and repair facilities at Titan, UN forces had largely destroyed them to deny the Minervans use of the facilities. Choosing to call in her FRRV complement of the Third Fleet to the outer Kuiper Belt in anticipation of the heavy damage that her ships had taken in the battle, the seeming UN withdrawal proved to be a feint and several wolfpacks of UN destroyers, accompanying three carriers, destroyed the Third Fleet’s FRRVs at the Battle of 65-Alpha. Rama was left with two choices: withdrawing and abandoning the Sol offensive or doubling down and engaging the fleeing UN fleet at Europa. She chose the latter, trying to buy time for the Eighth and Twelfth Fleets to enter the system. It was not enough, however, and she perished at the Battle of Europa on December 17, 2523.

Private Citizens

Sifat Suri (b. 2466) [Baikonur, Minerva (BKN)]- The man, the myth, the tragic legend, Sifat Suri was the man who very nearly changed the face of Minervan basketball forever. Recruited by the Republics Basketball League’s long-troubled Toronto Vipers before he had finished college— an unusual move for a Minervan prospect— most were more surprised that he had not decided to leave Minerva entirely to play in the more prestigious and older National Basketball Association, as was traditional for Minervans who met the cutoff for ‘big men’. A 7’4” behemoth center who had grown up in the higher gravity of Minerva— the tallest recorded Minervan in history— with a grace and agility unseen even in smaller players, Suri held an immense tactical mind for the game, and led his hometown team to mediocrity from the absolute rock bottom of the league, let down by a supporting cast that ‘couldn’t beat a team of preschoolers’, as one commentator put it. Wearing No. 31 for the Vipers, however, Suri attracted attention from other players and other teams that wished to either trade for him or play with him, and by his fifth year in the League in the 2491 season, his star power had brought a supporting cast of talented players like Grant Curbeam (PG) and Marcus Francis-Brookline (SG) to Toronto, and for the first half of the season the 2491 “Miracle Vipers” utterly demolished their competition, posting a win percentage over .900. The year prior, however, the RBL had made a deal with the NBA to play an exhibition game at the midpoint of the 2491 season between the best ranked NBA and RBL team, regardless of conference. Concurrently with the Vipers’ miracle season, Earth’s Toronto Raptors were also enjoying an anomalously spectacular season, and the 2491 NBA-RBL Challenge Game soon became known as the Clash of the Torontos as the Raptors and Vipers squared off for national pride and bragging rights. Following the infamous game— which would merit an article in its own right and was called by Suri a ‘crime against basketball’— Suri tripped and fell down a flight of stairs on the way out of the arena and sprained his ankle and broke his wrist. While he recovered quickly from the injury, his play would never be the same following the accident, and he would retire after his seventh season. His number, 31, would be retired by the Vipers— and the shadow his legacy and his potential cast was so great that no other player dreamed of trying to wear the number regardless. Locked in a depressive funk for some time, he entered into an unfulfilling and controversial tenure in sports broadcasting, rife with hot takes and a hotter temper, two things Suri was not historically known for. He could not, however, stay a spectator to the game he loved, and in 2500 found himself the head coach of the Canaveral Astronauts, and once he started coaching he never looked back to any other career, winning the RBL Champions’ Tournament in 2506 with the Astronauts and once again with the Ziguinchor Roohawks in 2513. He returned to Toronto— where he says he wishes to retire— in 2515 and has seen some success as their coach, but remains chasing that elusive RBL title, locked by hometown pride to a team that has never been anything but mediocre if not for his own efforts.

Hi there Waybound readers! I figured I should probably reach out to all of you— it's been a bit, and I wanted to give everybody a bit of a look behind the curtain, and let you know what and my goals are for this anthology and where things stand. I'd like to encourage all you subscribers (or readers, too— I'm not picky) to leave your thoughts on what you've seen so far and on today's discussion both in the comments here and on the Waybound Discord server. (Check out the buttons below.)

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Personal Log, Supplemental

So this has been an exceptionally busy time in my life. I just moved back home from college, and… I'm done. I graduated. It feels a little weird and it's still setting in— and weirdly, graduating made me less productive at writing short stories than taking my final exams did. Funny how that worked out. I've finally settled back into some degree of normalcy, but this could end at any time; though it's probably pretty reasonable to expect a short story sometime in late June or early July. On that note, I should probably get to what I'm aiming at for release schedules:

Release Authorization

The goal for Waybound, ideally, (and this is likely to be an elusive target) is one short story and one lore drop roughly every month. That's incredibly optimistic, and I’ve already broken it (and will likely continue to); but I’ll try my best to keep it close or at least vaguely related to that. I'm not a slow writer, but I'm not a fast one either, and if anything, I write in bursts of inspiration that are variable in length. Blood in the Snow probably represents something on the longer side of what to expect, and A Connecticut Yankee in SecGen Liu’s Court probably represents the shorter end. Expect a wide range of topics, perspectives, and genres to be explored; I've got horror, sports, courtroom drama, more military/political scifi, first person history, and tons of other stuff cooking. I've even had some ideas I want to develop about channel surfing for something to watch on TV, and using that to explore the media landscape of the 26th century. Nothing is off limits, no topic too mundane or too grandiose.

I also intend to feature the work of trusted friends as Guest Stories, which will release on an independent timeline from my own works. The first of these will be coming Soon™ and is already a work in progress. If you've read Proxima: A Human Exploration of Mars (you should, by the way), you may know the first guest author. They're great.

The next lore post is forthcoming (Dramatis Personae Part 2: The Federated Minervan Republics and the Interbellum Period). This is a continuation of the Dramatis Personae series and will give you a bit more information than the UN counterpart, because Minerva is something that doesn't exist in real life. It should help shed some light on a country that may have thus far felt mysterious or confusing— and should clarify some of the cultural quirks of Santi, Joey, Clara, and Roz. This one has taken a little longer because there's just gonna be a lot more information. I hope you enjoy it.

Arc Flashes

Waybound, as a fictional universe, exists in arcs. Currently, we’re trying to tell the story of the Akrotiri Crisis and Fools’ War arcs, which really couple together so tightly with the overarching Interbellum that they can't all be taken out of context of each other. While the stories may start out seeming fairly disconnected, I hope the common thread will start to become visible as more stories fall into place and the anthology winds up closer to completing a volume. There's still one more big arc after the Interbellum before the time period where the novel is set, and there are arcs planned after that. Once we reach that point, though, I'll be pivoting to writing the novel; occasionally I'll keep writing short stories, but the majority of the effort will be on the book. However, that's still some ways away.

In Space, No One Can Hear You Shout(-Out)

I should probably take a second to recognize how much help has been in streamlining both my and ’s thoughts on much of Waybound’s lore, the politics especially. My wheelhouse is aerospace engineering, not political science (though it is interesting to me, I lack formal education beyond a bit of international relations), so his expertise has been groundbreakingly helpful in getting Waybound into a state where we can shove it in front of all your eyeballs. Thanks, man. You all should read by the way. You probably already do (I've seen my subscriber analytics). Telling you again shouldn't hurt. Time travel alternate history and kicking the absolute hell outta the Nazis is one of my ideas of a good time, and if it's one of yours too, do yourself a favor and check out some immaculately written fiction.

I'd also like to shout out , whose is a recent addition to Substack. Writing Blood in the Snow’s infantry combat would have been pretty hard without his input. I asked a lot of dumb questions, I'm sure. Sorry buddy. Anyways, if you like magical fantasy, and you like military realism, and you were wondering what a special forces mage would look like, check his work out. It's a pretty sick combination.

In Closing

We really value your feedback and your thoughts on Waybound. It's been a great first three months so far and I've really enjoyed the ride; and I have no plans to disembark. If you've enjoyed Waybound, feel free to drop a comment below; tell your friends about us; join our Discord; yell at me on Twitter (@njmksr), and if you haven't already, drop a subscription here! It's free. It's fun. It's not known to cause cancer in the State of California1.

For those of you who have subscribed, I'd like to thank you for coming along on this journey with us. and I appreciate the support. We've been working on this world for about four years, a love letter to our favorite sci-fi— and what good is an unread love letter?

We hope you're having as much fun with this as we are. Let us know what you think, and we'll see you around.

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“He’s nice, I suppose,” Marcus Akinsanya put fingers to his chin and stared at the ground in a universal gesture of contemplation. “Secretary-General Liu. He asked me to call him Jimmy, can you believe that? He's the Secretary-General of the United Nations, for goodness’ sake. Feels weird to call him Jimmy.”

“Look, boss,” Jess, the Embassy intern, shrugged. “I don't know why you're bouncing this off me. You wanted somebody to fix the printer, yeah?” She looked up from the side of the device. “Well, that's done. I'm not here to negotiate on behalf of the United States, Mr. Ambassador.”

“No, Jessica, you're here to learn.” He shrugged. “It's good experience.”

“I'm here because you know my mom.”

Well, she's right, Marcus frowned. “Honesty will get you far, Jessica, but tactful honesty will get you further.”

“Look, if you think it's weird that your boss wants you to call him Jimmy, why are you fine with asking me to call you Marcus?”

“Well, see, it's.” He paused. “It's different.”

“How? He's your boss, you're my boss. Plus, you're, like. Older than him, I think.”

“Okay, Jessica. First names, sure. But Jimmy? It's…”

“What, like, a normal person name? Do you want him to be named like, 'Cornelius', or, like, 'Maximillian', or— ooh, good one.” Her eyes lit up. “'Liam'. That's real old timey. You ever met a Liam?”

“Jessica, I'd— I'd call him Jim, I guess. Jimmy's just too personal.”

“Is that why you don't call me Jess? Even though you were at my disaster of a seventh birthday party because my mom dragged you along—”

“Yes.” He shuddered. “All that glitter confetti. You just don't need it.” He picked up a tissue and blew his nose. “I think there's… still a little in there, actually.” He swore he saw sparkles in the snot.

“It's okay. Mom's crazy. So what's Jimmy like? Other than that.” The undergrad intern ever so slightly slumped down into one of the office's immaculately padded visitor's seats.

“Really? After all that, you're going to… you know what, nevermind. Jim, well, he's exactly like you see him on the net. He's… folksy. We'll go with folksy.”

“Didn't he like, go to Harvard?”

“McGill. Canadian Harvard.” He shook his head. “Yeah, I think it's a bit of an act too. But he's good at it, if it is.”

“Okay, so. His dad is on the board of Nakos, y'know, a Martian company, grows up bouncing between Melbourne and here in Bradbury, he goes to Canadian Harvard, and he still talks like a bogan? What's up with that?” She shook her head. “Dude's a poser. Or just really, really, like, terminally Australian.”

“Well,” Marcus turned to the desktop coffeemaker on his office's mahogany— the real stuff, not imitation— countertop, pouring himself a mug. Two sugars, one cream, never decaf. “Remember, he did lose a fistfight to a streetlight once.”

“Pfft. Yeah.” She shook her head, staring out the window at the lake that was once Gale Crater, the still reddened stone of Sharp's Peak Island rising out in the distance. “How the hell did he beat Fiorenzano with that video floating around?”

“Everybody does stupid stuff in college, especially if they're drunk. And I think you know that, young lady. I think you know that full well.”

“You know what,” She tried to protest, but couldn't find the grounds, a fist balling in reaction. “Fair. Agh. Fair.”

“Besides.” The Ambassador took a sip from his coffee, staring out at the island and the air traffic over the city. “Doves are a dying breed.”

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Marcus really hated that his closest contact in the Minervan Embassy was a shrink.

Dr. Newroz Mannerheim was that quintessential Minervan: patriotic, intelligent, even-keeled, and a little bit short. The only thing she wasn't was military, or ex-military, or anything of the sort. Doctor Roz, as many knew her but few called her to her face, had grown up in a Kurdish-Finnish family in the city of Marshall, an industrial center of the Canaveral Republic. In any room of six Canaveralites, one could find seven soldiers, but Roz had seemingly found a way to lower that average by about one and a half.

Coming out of high school, she'd told her parents she was about to do the unthinkable: go to postgrad school instead of signing up. She emerged an accomplished therapist, authored several books on PTSD, basing her work on studies of veterans of the Maybe War, and found herself an advisor to the Cabinet, a member of the Cabinet, and eventually a Special Ambassador for Arms Control. They'd butted heads about a decade and a half ago, and he'd come to know her as a force to be reckoned with during the Landigal Summits on Arms Reduction. He also had come to know he had to pace himself around her. She had the stronger liver.

Alcohol is a social lubricant, and any embassy worth its salt knew that. The Minervan Embassy's ambassadorial residence certainly was. A stunning, majestic building in its sheer practical minimalism, it was curiously at home in the city of Bradbury, if it stood out on Embassy Row. Like most Minervan government buildings, it was clearly inspired by the architecture of the Martian settlers that had laid the first boots on Minerva— the first boots in another solar system— so many centuries ago, and the only real tells of its Minervan nature were its tasteful restraint in decor and its grand, majestic size. The settlers who had founded Bradbury had been constrained to build underground for decades, under the domes for at least a century, and had only freely emerged onto the surface of Mars in the last two hundred and seventy years. The Minervans had dared to ask— what if our ancestors had never needed to hunch their backs and duck their heads? Their answer was magnificent, and grand, and perfect for the new, green Mars that their forebears had only started to see for a few years before setting course for a strange and beautiful new world.

Of course, she'd cornered him near the water cooler, and intercepted him just before he was about to grab a glass of pineapple water for himself. “Marcus! So glad you could make it.” She smiled, a warm invitation to ignore the fact that she was standing just far enough away and in just the right place that it'd be rude of him to continue on to hydrate himself, but would rather have to come much closer to the bar if he wanted to talk. Smart. She wanted to keep his inhibitions low and his words flowing. Much more likely to reveal something actionable that way. She was the kind of person who never did anything accidentally, and the glint in her eyes said she knew he knew what she was doing, and that was what she appreciated about him.

“Doctor Mannerheim.” He returned the smile. A smile was a funny thing. Any other animal species would take bared teeth as a threat. It seemed to Marcus that only diplomats remembered their roots among humans these days. “Funny running into you here.”

“Oh, Marcus, you know it's Roz to you.” She shook her head, holding out a glass. “Care to try it? It's a 2493, from a vineyard not too far from my hometown. Good year.”

“Oh, so you've suddenly softened your stance on wine?” He chuckled, taking hold of her offering. “I thought you hated it.”

“I do,” she shrugged. “But the Embassy is trying to push Canaveral wine. Something about prestige, I think. Get us in the same sentence as California, Elysium, and France.” She sipped her glass, nearly gagging. “I just hate grapes, honestly. Mmm. The taste of prestige.”

“Ringing endorsement.” He eyed the red in his glass. It had a nice enough fragrance. It looked, and smelled, distinctly like fine wine, something that anywhere on Minerva was not particularly known for, let alone Canaveral. Perhaps they'd turned the page. The North Coast wouldn't be happy to hear that. At least it was Minervan. Getting anything across the trade border was expensive enough. Nobody'd be paying top dollar for Minervan wine that had only just become decent. A taste confirmed it. It was fine. Good, even, with a nicely balanced range of flavors and tones that was a sharp contrast to the usually overwhelmingly bitter, dry taste of Minervan wine.

“So you guys finally figured out how to make a proper red, huh?”

“So I've heard. I never got the taste for yours, so I wouldn't know.” She shrugged. “So, should we skip the pleasantries?” She cocked her head, eyebrow raised. It didn't seem like anyone was in earshot. Of course, you could never really be sure these days, and never in these settings. Embassies were haunting grounds for spooks of all stripes, and he usually knew better than to ask even the ones on his side what they were doing. At least the station chief was friendly. He'd never met any of the Minervan ones, but he had not heard glowing reviews of Federated Republics Military Intelligence's open-armed hospitality.

She stood up, dramatically stumbling, her wineglass spilling on Marcus' jacket. He held back a curse and shot her a momentary, annoyed glare as she passed him some napkins to help clean it up, the closest one to his view scribbled over in her scrawled, messy handwriting.

SQUYERS POINT STATION, 1930 THURSDAY, ALONE.

No surprise. She wouldn't have pulled him aside for a talk about how much she hated wine. He'd already heard that sermon.

“I'm so sorry,” she said, pushing more napkins his way, mopping up some of the spill herself. He couldn't help but think it unlikely that anyone from the UN delegation at the event, a social mixer for the 2504 Joint Trade Summit, would have pitched in to clean up their own mess in any way but performatively. Maybe somebody who wasn't born into politics, but that was a sum total of perhaps five of the many UN guests here. There was staff for that. They'd make a show out of helping out the waiter they'd called over and call it a day. They wouldn't dare risk a wine stain on the edge of their dress like the one Roz had by the time she stood up. And they certainly would not apologize to the barkeep.

“So, pleasantries that was not.” He nodded. “Business, then?” It was time to keep up appearances. He was reasonably confident nobody in the Embassy knew about the regular, off-the-books contact he had with her. Backchannels were part of the job and critical to the peace, after all. The trick was not getting caught using them when you were not explicitly asked to. Neither the President of the United States nor the Secretary-General, his two bosses, wanted a rogue Ambassador deciding America’s part in United Nations foreign policy without their input. He was the mouth, not the brain.

Yet sometimes, we say things without thinking. Sometimes we just need to blurt something out. Honesty comes most freely from the mouth when the brain is not involved, after all.

His job was tactful honesty, sure, but sometimes the regular kind was necessary. Especially now. He could see it in her eyes. Roz didn't know what to make of the new Secretary-General and his aggressive takes on foreign relations. Was it all just bluster? She was probably the best at reading people out of anyone he knew. If she didn't know, who did? Liu was new. He'd taken office a few short weeks ago. Every member of the Minervan military he'd passed by at this party looked either on edge or freshly fallen off it, either sweating bullets or glaring daggers.

The Maybe War was a fading memory, a revenant terror only haunting the likes of his and Roz's generation— though it seemed to him that some of them lost no sleep to spectres, even while people like her were kept eternally awake by even the shape of its shadow.

“Yes, business,” she nodded. “I'm aware that your new administration seeks to ramp up defense expenditures, with dreadnought construction on the docket. Can you get me in touch with your Arms Control guy? Normally I'd just talk to them, but I'm aware the office is vacant as of last Tuesday. If you could help me figure out who I should speak to, it would be an incredible help. I know you and Special Ambassador Britell were close friends, perhaps you could help me track down his successor and get our offices in touch.”

“Unfortunately,” Marcus sighed. “I'm afraid that not even he knows who his replacement is.”

“Acting, then?”

“Tell you what,” Marcus nodded. “I will keep you posted, Dr. Mannerheim.”

She gasped. “You don't even have a temporary—…” A shake of the head. “Do you think that's short term or long term?”

“Short term,” I hope.

“Well, keep me posted, then.” She sighed. “I would hate to think all that work we did at the Summit would go to waste. We have to talk Landigal compliance. Without it, none of this works.”

“You mean all that work I did, editing out the second space you kept putting after every sentence?”

“Marcus,” She glared. “We were having a moment. All this professionalism, and courtesy, and you just. Inject your terrible grammar opinions. Good work.”

“Newroz, you got mediocre wine on my nice jacket.” He smiled. “You know, I've always thought that the real accomplishment at Landigal was that we spent days in a room together without killing each other.”

“I hate it when you're right. It's annoying.” She grimaced. “Stop doing that.”

The office of James Liu— no, Jimmy Liu— was as perplexing as the man himself. Maybe, Marcus thought, he really was some backwater bogan. At least, that's what he probably would have thought if he hadn't known the name from the annals of power. His father Harlan Liu and his Nakos Precision had wrung the Procurement Office dry on the Hoplite-Six soldier systems contract. Of course, it was just one of the many Procco budgetary failures that resulted from the military-industrial complex's many disparate companies fighting for every last drop of funding, scarce as they were, at the expense of every other— but it was a masterclass in lawfully defrauding the government. As a result, Nakos had squeezed in every expense they could into the cost-plus monster of a contract, and Liu, then the chief of contracts for the company, had made the bean counters regret their life choices. That'd earned him a spot on the Board when he'd retired, and he had always been pushing his son towards politics. Now little Jimmy sat in a glass-facaded office with a gorgeous view of Unity Square. Harlan's ambitions had never seemed to know defeat against the bureaucracy of Bradbury.

Except, perhaps, in one way. It was his son sitting behind that desk, his son's tasteless decor. Harlan had always wanted 7305 Unity Square for his own. He'd burned too many bridges for it.

“Fan of rugby, Mr. Secretary-General?” Marcus pointed to an oblong ball on the man's shelves, near a stand holding an acoustic guitar.

“Ah, nah, that's an Aussie rules ball,” the leader of the Free Worlds shrugged. “My father was never a fan. Tried to stop me from playing. I told him to, ah… well, I've been told it's not polite, what I said. Didn't much care at the time, I was a kid who'd just gone off to uni. Started a club team at my school. That ball's from the game I broke my arm in,” he smiled. “And please, Jimmy. It's just Jimmy. All friends here, yeah?”

Didn't he break his arm fighting a streetlamp? Marcus knew that Jimmy had to know the video was out there. Did he just break a lot of arms or is he trying to cover for being an idiot?

“So, Ambassador. We're on the clock, yeah? Let's get down to it. Make these worlds a better place.” Jimmy smiled, standing up and shaking his hand with a firm grip. Marcus had no clue if he was a predator unfurling fangs or if he was really just a sincere idiot. There were certainly plenty of both at this level of politics. “Whaddya wanna chat about? Spent all this effort, booking a meeting. I know I haven't been easy t'get a hold of… I swear, I got no time for m’self anymore, even. And I thought I was busy as PM.” The Secretary-General sat, and so did the Ambassador.

Are you kidding me? Of course you're busier than the Prime Minister of Australia. You're in charge of the whole damn thing. Marcus nodded. “I believe I put it in the meeting request. Must have gotten lost in the system… but I wanted to speak about a vacant diplomatic position under the Committee for Foreign Relations—”

“Looking to move up in the world, yeah?” He smiled. “S'pose it is a good time for that, no?”

“No, Mr. Secretary-General, it's just—”

“Jimmy.”

“Sorry, Jimmy.” He screamed internally. This man was the leader of the entire United Nations. Yes, Jimmy was in charge. God help us all. “Jimmy. I'm not looking for a promotion, I'm just wondering who's going to fill it. The Special Ambassador for Arms Control position.”

“Oh, that?” Jimmy shuffled a stack of papers on his desk. How quaint. “Yeah, nah, we're leaving that one open for now.”

That was intentional? What?

“I'm sorry, Mr. Se— I'm sorry, Jimmy, what? We won't be appointing an Arms Control ambassador?”

“No, I don't believe so. I mean, go look at what the Minnies are doing on the Frontier. Bloody travesty. They're setting up settlements in our systems. The Landigal Protocols were good and all, and I appreciate the work you did on them,” A glint of knowledge flashed in his eyes. Perhaps the apple and the tree were not as separate as they seemed. “But Landigal only stood as long as the Minnies kept their noses clean, and as long as we kept ours. I'm sure you'll remember my promises on the campaign trail, Marcus.”

There was a smile on his face, but a deadly seriousness underlay it. Marcus knew plenty of people who'd made it in the world by parroting rhetoric for brownie points. He'd pegged Jimmy for the type during his campaign. Face to face with him, though, in the curling of his brow and the determination of his gaze, he'd come to see something possibly even more dangerous— a true believer.

“We won't be pushed around by the Minnies, Marcus. Not anymore. They have been breaking their promises to us for years, but not one minute more. It's time for some backbone, yeah? That's why I haven't appointed anyone, not even a temporary position, and that's why I won't be. Our swords are blunt and battered, Marcus, and without them our words are weightless.” He still sounded like a bogan, sure, but he wasn't talking like one anymore. “I'm putting DRN-277 back on the table. It's stupid— so bloody expensive— but it's symbolic, damnit. It's a big bloody battleship. The only language these people understand. Besides, we need something to lay the foundation to rebuild Elysium Island. You ever been out there? The shipyard, I mean, not the vineyards or the cities or the beach… though, those are nice. The shipyard's in a crock'a shit, though. And we send our old ships there to get maintained, while they can barely keep up with the work— at our biggest yard, public or private, no less!—, they're run by a bunch dumb as dog shit, and their fabricators are falling apart. You know, I've already got a new docket for leadership— and I've got my GA friends finding us a few billion circs extra funding for a full revamp and a new space elevator.” He shook his head. “Bloody travesty, that Elysium. And are we gonna fix it shackled to Landigal? Again, good on ya, but it's just holding us back these days.”

So. Marcus blinked. That wasn't just posturing.

“Once we can maintain our vessels properly, keep them stocked and serviced for long duration, high tempo, we'll start running continuous patrols out into the Frontier— really start showing the Minnies that we take our territorial integrity seriously. I mean, they just put a settlement at Akrotiri, for God's sake, you probably don't even know where that is. Edge of the Draconian Gulf, where the eggheads want to build their bloody big radio telephone or whatchamacallit?”

“Telescope, sir. Radio telescope.” A lump was rapidly developing in his throat.

“Yeah, yeah, you got the gist. Have they been on your case as well? Ah, whatever. Akrotiri, though. It’s so bumfuck the only reason you'd ever settle there is to send us a message. Listen, Marcus, I like you, you're a fine bloke, and I get why you're nervous. Landigal was your thing, you fought real hard for it back in the day. But I made a promise to the peoples of these United Nations, and I will keep it.”

Marcus nodded. “I understand, Mr. Secretary-Gener—”

“Marcus, for crying out loud. We're all friends here. It's just Jimmy.” Just Jimmy shook his head. “And you look like you're about to have a heart attack. Take a breath, mate. It's just one arms treaty and a little bit of hardball. We're not going to war.” He tented his hands on his desk after a glance at his watch, sucking in a breath between his teeth. “Ah, 'fraid that's all the time we have today, mate. A pleasure. Think you could do me a favor? Turn on the TV over there on your way out, and leave the door open. The Habs game is on, and I want to get that in before my Military Staff Committee meeting.”

Marcus stood up, a forced smile on his lips. “A pleasure, Jimmy.” He walked over to the large screen on the wall, knowing full well the Secretary-General had a remote, or could just use his desk terminal. “Right channel?” He raised an eyebrow as he clicked the display on.

“Yeah yeah. That's the one.” Marcus started to walk away.

“Aw, bugger me, bit quiet though. Think you could give it a few clicks?”

Marcus' eyes widened, back turned to the Secretary-General's crocodile smile. He turned around and nodded. “Of course, Jimmy.” He pressed the volume up button a few times. Jimmy shoved his thumb up. “Little more.”

“Yeah, nah, that's too much.” Marcus tapped it down a few notches.

“Ah, there ya go. Thank you, Marcus.” A nod, followed by a groan. “Oh, fuck me sideways. Four-nil? It's fucking Toronto!”

Walking out down the hallway, a shiver of sharks clad in white, blue, and green dress uniforms passed by. Their teeth had been pulled under the last administration, but a new set was growing in, there was blood in the water, and it was time for the feast.

“Entering: Squyers' Point.” The announcer's voice, a bellowing timbre, filled the Sage Line subway car. It was pre-recorded, not synthesized; a tinge of that old-world charm on the Red Planet. “The doors will open on the right side of the train.”

Marcus was glad that he didn't stand out in a crowd. He had been blessed from a young age with exceedingly average features; his only real aberration from the norm was perhaps two extra inches in height and a bit more curl to his hair. He was short for Mars, sure— eye level with most women here, anyways— but Bradbury, on average, was not entirely a Martian city. He could be anyone, as long as they weren't from here.

The car slowed to a stop as the doors to Squyers' Point Station slid open. It was a pretty station, one of the newer ones from the expansion program that he had to remind himself wasn't new. It was new when he was young. Now it was simply normal, or perhaps he was old. Flowing curves hewn out of orange Martian rock carved great arches that looked almost like the ribcage of some great dragon of ancient legend, mixed in with the off-white composite paneling of modernity. It was a grand hall that utterly dwarfed the size it needed to be, and that made him think it looked more at home on Minerva than Mars. Perhaps that was the point. The old Silver Line stations were spartan and utilitarian. Back then, Mars' most vicious fight was against the elements for the paltry victory of survival. Now, she clashed with her mother and her daughter for prestige, for culture, and for a dominant grasp on the tiller of history.

Of course, as he looked over towards the column holding the train schedules, he had to remind himself that the rock wasn't actually orange, that they'd simply painted that in to evoke the sands of the great desert this world once had been, that like many things in this new world it was saccharine and plaster, that a quick glance towards the screen's cleverly hidden mounting bracket would— well, once hidden, anyways, when he was a young Department of State staffer, when the side panel had been there and the marble-like flooring hadn't lost its luster— a glance at the space behind the screen would very clearly belie the greyness of the basalt.

“You're late.” A hand tapped his shoulder, and he could tell it was a bit of a reach. He spun towards her, and his eyes widened. “There you are, Roz.” He sighed, tapping his watch. “Three minutes.”

“Tsk. No excuse." She shook her head. “Got your dazzler?” She pointed to a necklace that looked just slightly bulkier than most. Privacy dazzlers weren't illegal, but they were considered suspicious— so most high-end ones were disguised as other articles of clothing. He nodded. He wouldn't be taking off his Whalers ballcap anytime soon, and not just because they'd just captured the Cup for the first time in eight and a half decades— the first time at all, really. The brim was just a bit thicker than it should be— because its tiny thin dazzler projector was covering his face in a randomly scrambling pattern, near invisible to the naked eye, to confuse the dumb-AI algorithms that ran facial recognition on the city's cameras.

“Of course I have it, Roz. You know me better than that.” He pointed to his hat.

“Really? A—” She raised an eyebrow. “I mean, I should have figured.”

“It's the only sport we actually have for ourselves. Everything else is Bostonian.”

“Yeah, yeah. I know.” She groaned. “Let's go. I found a great spot in Overlook Park.”

“You know,” she said, taking in the ambiance of the station as they walked for the stairs out. “I kind of feel bad for Leafs fans.”

“Why?” He shrugged his shoulders. “I didn't think a patriotic Minervan like you would ever feel bad for Canadians.”

“Well, the curse,” she shrugged, her face bathed in the ephemeral orange and purple glow of a coffee advertisement playing on the staircase's screen-walls. “Hockey and basketball, so Raptors fans too, I guess. Centuries of losing, relocation, winning, homecoming, back to losing.”

“Well, that, and… I didn't think you cared about Sol's sports.” He raised an eyebrow.

“Not back when we first met, but while we were working on Landigal you talked so much about those fucking Whalers that I gave it a watch. It's good in the offseason. Even if I never really got the taste for hockey, specifically.” She shrugged. “When I have a choice, I watch RBL. Go 'Nauts.”

“Never got a taste for Minervan basketball, myself. It looks weird when everybody's short.”

“6’7” is not short.” Hazel eyes, sharp as daggers, stared up at Marcus.

“It is for basketball. The Boston Celtics beat the Canaveral Astronauts in the paint any day.”

She crossed her arms. “No NBA player could ever shoot a 3 under 1.1 g. Brick after brick.”

“No, Roz,” he said, stepping out into the waning light of a distant sun, in a jungle of concrete, composite, and glass on a planet that had once been a lifeless desert. “It’s happened. Remember ‘91?”

“The Torontos game? Raptors-Vipers? That fucking joke of a game?” She laughed. “Everybody lost, Marcus. I lost forty-eight fucking minutes of my life that I'm never getting back. I’ve been dead inside ever since I watched that game. A crime against basketball.” She shook her head. “Besides, they played that in 1.05. Not full Minervan gravity.”

“Oh, big deal. Point oh-five g.” He shook his head. “Are we done ranting about Toronto? Either of them. The one in Baikonur Republic can't be much better.”

“No, it sucks,” she shrugged. “But I may be biased.”

“Right, Marshall hates Toronto.”

“Yup. Get your Minervan city rivalries down, big man. They're important.” She looked around, smiling slightly as they walked towards the park. “You know, this part of the city, where the skyscrapers start to thin out towards the lake, it reminds me of home.”

“Yeah, Marshall's a lot less dense, right?”

“Most Minervan cities are. We never needed domes.”

“Kind of like New London these days, too.”

“Homesick?” She stood in front of the crosswalk, waiting for the graphic on the asphalt's baked-in screen to give her the go-ahead to cross.

“A bit.” He shook his head. “I've been here for a long time, for one job or another. I've gotten… a bit used to this place.”

“I still haven't. But I go back home a lot. Plus, I mean… I'm not going to lie, I still fumble around a little bit. The gravity here screws with me.”

“Yeah, I remember tripping a bit the first time I came here. Felt like Superman most of the time, though.”

“Yeah,” she chuckled. “It does feel pretty cool.” She put a slight bounce in her step to illustrate as the sidewalk told her to start walking. The drivers in the cars didn't seem that amused. Marcus saw a set of eyes roll from behind a windshield. Freakin' tourists, they must have thought.

As the rows of skyscrapers gave way to low-rises, boardwalks, beaches, and parks, the Lakefront District at Squyers' Point came into full view. It was placid, gorgeous, and utterly at war with the rest of the city's image; an attempted rebuke to the hustle and bustle of the busiest city of the entire system, where people like him and people like her made deals and choices and decisions that would be forever marked on the pages of history.

Overlook Park was a quiet nook of green space on an outcropping with a name as honest as it comes. It was a park, and it sure overlooked. Sharp's Peak rose from the waters, a final bastion of unterraformed land kept intentionally barren of life. The bench she had picked out had a gorgeous view of it all, in the shelter of a transplanted oak. He took a look down, and a plaque at the tree's base read:

DONATED BY THE VETERANS OF THE DDK-795 USS CONNECTICUT FIRST CLASS PETTY OFFICER'S ASSOCIATION IN MEMORIAM OF THOSE LOST

QUI TRANSTULIT SUSTINET

JANUARY 9 2472

“So, you see why I picked it.” She placed a hand on his shoulder.

“What, the isolation, distance from possible onlookers, avoidance of security cameras—”

“Well, yeah, but, I figured this would mean something to you.”

“Why, because of Connecticut? Am I really that one-dimensional to you?” He couldn't tell if he was actually annoyed.

“Look, I thought you'd find it thematically appropriate, to talk about this in a place that honors the memory.”

“If you're trying to get me to tell you, I'm not going to.” He shook his head. “Let's just… get to business, okay, Roz? Please don't push this tonight.”

“Marcus, I can tell it's something—”

“Dr. Mannerheim.” He glared at her. “Stop. I'm not your patient.”

“Alright.” They sat there in silence for a second. “I am your friend, though.”

“Friends? Then tell me. Was the wine thing really necessary, Newroz? The spill?”

“No, I just hate that jacket.” She huffed. “And the last thing I wanted to do is actually finish that glass.”

“It looks dignified!”

“It makes you look like an English professor, Marcus. Elbow patches?”

“They're classic! Refined!”

“Oh, shut up.” She laughed. “You looked like an old man! Well, okay. You are an old man.”

“I'm fifty-three, Roz. Middle aged. And you're only a year my younger.”

“Well, then. Can't have a middle aged man looking ancient. You at least look fine now.”

“Got all this out of your system? I thought you wanted to talk about important things.” He snapped his fingers, gesturing for the bench, and sat down.

“Yeah, I do.” She took a seat next to him, drumming an olive-tan finger against the faux-gold cladding of the necklace dazzler. “Jimmy. Is he going to fuck this up for everybody?”

“I don't know, Roz.” He blinked, staring off into the distance. “Jim— ugh, now you got me doing it. Liu. Liu’s convinced that the only way you guys will ever listen to us is if we show strength. Whatever that means.”

“That certainly doesn't sound good.”

“He's about to pull out of Landigal, Roz. Hell, he already has. He just didn't tell anybody.”

She blinked, staring down at her shirt, a concert tee from the Polar Shepherds 2474 Falling Sideways Tour. Those were better times, when the peace at least looked like it could last, perhaps if you squinted. When it sounded like it would hold, as long as you didn’t listen to the lyrics.

“So, there goes that. All that work.” She blinked.

“Yeah. So much for feeling appreciated.”

“Just, completely withdrawing?”

“He's not appointing an Arms Control ambassador, and he's not holding the Procurement Office to any of the regulations.”

“So compliance in writing only. If even.”

“Lip service, yeah. I'm sure he'll admit it eventually. But for now, the new dreadnought is going to happen, and a whole lot more. He's saying you guys are encroaching on our space in the Frontier.”

She raised an eyebrow. “The sovereignty debate in the Cetan Triangle isn't settled. Everybody knows that.”

“It's settled to him.”

“Does he even have the authority to do that?”

“Yeah, he does.”

“You tried to talk him dow—”

“Yeah, I did.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.”

They sat there in silence for some time, watching the sun creep ever so slowly across the Martian sky.

“So what do we do from here?” She cocked her head in inquisitive worry.

“Well, I… I think we have to find a way to get the Administration to admit it. Pulling out of Landigal, well, it's inevitable. I can't do anything about that. He has the authority, and a lot of support for his agenda.”

“That's unfortunate.”

“No kidding. But if we can get them to admit what they're doing, we might be able to rally some support against it.”

“Big risk. Could start an arms race.”

“Like the one that's starting now? You guys just got out of a modernization cycle.”

“Hm.” She grimaced. “That was planned way before this—”

“So was ours. Been in the works since Hessert. Doesn't matter, we should call it what it is.”

“So everything we did with the Protocols, they just failed, then?”

“Roz,” he put a hand on her shoulder. “You know better than anyone else that it wasn't for nothing. We couldn't stop it, but… we delayed it, at least. And constrained—”

“I know.” She cut him off. “Just, let me feel like shit for a moment.”

“Fair.” He sighed. “I already had my time to process this.”

She sighed, taking her moment, gritting her teeth. “We need to get our governments to talk to each other. If not about the weapons, at least about the causes.”

“Yeah.” He looked to the lake. “Why Akrotiri, though?”

“Huh?” She turned to face him.

“Oh, just. Something he said stuck with me. I only knew what he was talking about because NASA's been on my case about it, but I guess the vultures have started circling. I bet it'll be his big talking point for the next few months, though.”

“Yeah?” She raised an eyebrow.

“Minervan colonists settled at Akrotiri recently. You know, over in 1221a Draconis?”

“Hang on, that's in… the middle of nowhere, right?” She frowned. “Really had to think there.”

“The edge of nowhere, actually. It's your last stop before the Gulf, nothing past there for ages. But I'm telling you, this is brewing up into a real disaster. NASA, ESA, CNSA… They had this consortium that’s building a… gosh, it had a funny name… Oh, right. 'Excessively Large Radio Space Telescope'? Yeah, something like that. Anyway, it's part of the whole SETI thing. Talkin' to aliens.”

“You think they're out there?”

“No, not a chance. I think we'd have met 'em by now. Think that's the prevailing consensus at NASA, too, but half of them want to use it to study some neutron stars or something, I don't know. You're the doctor, Roz, it all went over my head.”

“I'm a. Doctor of psychology and a licensed therapist.”

“I got my polysci Bachelor's at UCONN and walked, so, ah, apologies for thinking you're the smart one. Don't you have three PhD's?”

She laughed. “Two of them are honorary. I'm not going through that torture again.”

“That’s still pretty cool, though.” He cracked a smile.

“Yeah, but the work was the rewarding part.” She shook her head. “So why does our colony being there mean the Fuckoff Big Radio Telescope people get mad?”

“Look, the report came across my desk a week ago. I haven't really had time to do anything but skim, there's so much stuff to take care of—”

“Marcus, aren't you the Ambassador to the United Nations?” She raised an eyebrow and shook her head, tongue clicking disapprovingly. “Should know these things!”

“Look, we're short-handed. As it turns out, there's more problems than solutions these days, and the State Department still hasn't approved my hiring recs.”

“Do more with less, Marcus.” That, at least, got a chuckle out of him. “But why are they getting on your case?”

“Well, basically, the telescope is this big, giant radio receiver, right? It's very sensitive. It's listening for any radio signals that come across the Draconis Gulf, right? And it's not all looking for little grey men, either. There's plenty of natural stuff that gives off radio.”

“I know that, Marcus. So they're worried about interference?”

“Yeah, basically. It's super sensitive, and people are… loud, in terms of radio signals. So a colony there, transmitting into the void, would destroy this pristine environment for radio astronomy.”

“That sucks. Can't they put it somewhere else?”

“Akrotiri is in the system closest to the edge of the Gulf that's ever been charted. It's a habitable planet, too, perfect for the support infrastructure necessary for the telescope. They need a huge backend investment to build and position this thing, and they need to do it radio silent. We've been dumping signals out into the great beyond for centuries, but Akrotiri is untouched. They could build it somewhere else, but, well, they're already halfway done building it there. They only noticed the colony when they turned on some of the segments and saw noise. It's pretty small, but plenty loud.”

“What system is this in again?”

“1221a Draconis.”

“Still going by its Gleise number, huh?”

“Too unimportant for a name. Planet only got one because it's habitable.”

“Well, it's about to get extremely important, it sounds like.”

“Unfortunately.”

“I think I remember that from somewhere, though. The name sounds familiar.”

“Yeah, the colonization project had been announced for quite some time. Calvados Republic is running the project, so nobody over here ever thought it would actually happen.”

“Calvados? In Leeuwen?”

“Is there another Calvados?”

“No, but color me shocked.”

“You’re shocked? It's your country.”

She sighed. “They’re a recent addition. And a special case… tourist trap. And so far, all their projects have been nothing but pipe dreams and bluster— I wouldn't have even thought they could successfully colonize anywhere. They talk about it all the time and never do anything. They're small, and out of the way…”

“Chip on their shoulder?”

“Yeah. Pretty much. It's a beautiful planet with a special economic policy to attract UN tourists, that's what drew so many settlers. There's just not much reason to care about it otherwise. Too bad their government hasn't gotten the memo. They made Unitary Republic status twenty years ago and act like they're the center of the universe ever since. The only real valuable thing they have? A very good slip-path to Akrotiri. Which until now was an express train to nowhere.”

“But we all just made it somewhere.”

“Yeah.”

Marcus stood up, stretching his arms, and walked to the railing at the edge of the outcrop. Roz followed, eyes heavy with thought and the prophetic burden of history weighing down every step she took. Her steps didn't feel so light anymore.

“It's funny,” he cocked his head, staring out into the distance at Sharp's Peak. “Akrotiri was only ever valuable in the first place because nobody goes there.”

“Yeah.”

“We've got it all, Roz. Witches' brew. Unrestricted arms expansion, unlitigated, overlapping border claims, and a perfect little flashpoint just waiting for a spark. We really, really fucking whiffed it.”

“Marcus.” She glared, concerned. “We didn't. We did what we could—”

“I know.”

“That's the… first time I've ever heard you—”

“Yeah. I know.” He turned away from her. “I’m over it. We work the problem.”

She nodded. “I understand. I'll… I'll pass the information along. We get them to the table.”

“I knew I could count on you.”

“Of course, Marcus.”

“See you soon?” He looked over his shoulder, a glimmering wave across his eye.

“Hope so.” She put a hand on his back, nodded, and walked away.

This list of characters is meant to familiarize WAYBOUND readers with some important people who appear throughout WAYBOUND's Interbellum Period, the story arc that covers the time between 2470’s Maybe War and the Fools' War (as it later came to be known) of 2523-24. It may be updated as more characters are introduced in stories and should not be considered a complete list; just a sampler platter of particularly noteworthy people who will likely appear in stories. I will add to this list as I think of them, so it may not comprehensively survey the diverse backgrounds of people involved in the politics of this time. This list will likely be infrequently updated, so check back as new stories are released.

ON BIRTHDATES AND SUBSTRATES: “b.” (“born”) indicates an organic human. Organics are the kinds of humans you are used to. The average organic lifespan in the 25th and early 26th century is between 110 and 140 years. “i.” (“initialized”) indicates a synthetic human. Synthetic humans are fully sentient and sapient artificial intelligence based on the full simulation of the digital image of a human brain— or by the current generation, a composite image of several, and have been considered legal equals with organics since the end of cataclysmic social unrest in 2101. Synthetics will, invariably, become more and more computationally complex as they live longer, and this will cause heat generation at the microscale that will destroy their core hardware at or before 34.0481 years (2³⁰ seconds). Transferring to a new core is a risky process, and even when it does work, has exponentially diminishing returns, resulting in a maximum lifespan of just over 51 years.

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UNITED NATIONS

A NOTE ON THE STRUCTURE AND GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations does not hold sovereignty of its own. While it has largely supplanted the authority of its constituent member states in importance, even under the New Charter System that resulted from the aftermath of the Minervan War for Independence, individual nations are themselves sovereign and hold considerable sway in the decision making of the larger UN as a whole. The UN General Assembly and Security Council have morphed into a legislature, with the General Assembly being perhaps most recognizable to the UN of the 21st century. The Security Council has been completely reorganized with the dissolution of the permanent member veto and an expansion to full representation; the Military Staff Committee holds considerable power, being the right hand of Sol's power in the Orion Arm via UNINAVCOM and COMPMARFORCOM. The Secretary-General serves as the head of state, with a Deputy Secretary-General who serves as head of government. The former is directly elected by popular vote among the entire constituency of the UN, a complex undertaking that is nonetheless dutifully carried out every five years; the latter is nominated by the Secretary-General at the start of their term and confirmed by the General Assembly, requiring reconfirmation at the start of a second term and always beholden to a constructive vote of no confidence by the General Assembly. The Deputy is widely regarded to bear the brunt of the domestic policy and organizational work of the administration, especially in regards to managing the sprawling bureaucracy of the Specialized Agencies, though this is customary rather than enumerated in law; additionally, the Deputy is required to be nominated out of the General Assembly. The Secretary-General may serve a maximum of two five-year terms. The Secretary for Defense, appointed by the Secretary-General, is the commander-in-chief of United Nations forces, except when the United Nations is under a State of Defense, when the role and responsibility is legally transferred to the Secretary-General. Additionally, nations will send Ambassadors to the United Nations to lobby the General Assembly, Security Council, Specialized Agencies, and Secretariat for the advancement of their national interests, a position that wields next to no hard power but immense soft power and influence.

National political parties are organized into international coalitions based on their politics. There are many of them, but only two are true mainstays of UN politics: the neoliberal conservative Alliance of Nations, aka the Alliance, AON, or the Nattys, and their counterpart across the aisle, the Partnership for Prosperity and Progress, also known as the Partnership, Triple P, the Trips, or PPP, a more liberal, internationalist coalition. Individual party ideologies vary within these coalitions, but the umbrella organizations themselves are big tents and generally tend towards what is considered fairly moderate politics within the UN.

The capital city of the United Nations is Bradbury, on Mars. Bradbury, coincidentally, is also the Martian Federation’s capital, an arrangement that has left many Bradburians unhappy, particularly because the extraterritorial property does not pay taxes to the city or to Mars as a whole. Bradbury has officially held the United Nations Building (3705 Unity Square) since 2103, and held the functions of the United Nations since 2096.

Secretary-Generals of the Interbellum Period

Sean Portnoy-Kardashian-West (b. 2400) [United States of America (USA)]- A popular Hollywood action star and passionate activist against sports gambling turned exceedingly moderate conservative politician. Running as an outsider in the Alliance of Nations' Democratic-Republican Party, Portnoy-Kardashian-West (usually rendered Portnoy-West) leveraged second-to-none name recognition and inoffensively milquetoast fiscal conservatism to catalyze his anti-gambling moralization into a campaign for Secretary-General, a position which he served for two full five year terms starting in 2464; leaving him in office for the Maybe War of 2470. While Portnoy-West is generally derided by historians for his poor statesmanship, it should be noted that the War did not spill over past the Frontier, and that he observed acceptable domestic approval ratings for the duration of his terms before the War.

Jean St. Pierre (i. 2440) [Imbrium Commonwealth (IMB)]- The architect of Solar-Minervan détente. Former Professor of International Relations at the Camilla J. Tonsor School of Foreign Affairs at Lovell University, the Imbrium Commonwealth's most prestigious institution of higher learning. Catalyzed by international tensions in the 2460s, she became an activist for greater dialogue between the UN and Minerva and was appointed the Imbrium Commonwealth's Ambassador to the United Nations in 2464, and elected Delegate to the United Nations in 2468 under the aegis of the Partnership for Prosperity and Progress' Liberal-Social Party. A prominent anti-war voice and critic of the Portnoy-West administration during the Maybe War of 2470, and UN Secretary-General from 2474 to 2484.

Shirui Hessert (b. 2428) [Martian Federation (MFD)]- A Martian Federation Delegate to the United Nations from 2467 to 2480, Hessert was known as a foreign policy hawk before switching parties and realigning her politics after the death of several close friends and family members in the Maybe War of 2470. After becoming one of the Partnership for Prosperity and Progress' Colonist-Solidarity Party's most prominent activists for rapprochement and peace, she was tapped to serve as Secretary-General St. Pierre's second Deputy Secretary-General in 2480, and successfully ran for the Secretaryship herself in 2484 promising to carry on the work of her predecessor. Commissioned the Fleet Design 2500 study to look into downsizing the UNC's fleet, and quickly moved to smother it when the study began asking for an expanded Navy.

LT Esteban Miramar (i. 2465) [Republic of Peru (PER)]- A close friend of Secretary-General Hessert who was scarred by memories of the Maybe War of 2470, in which he served as the Weapons Officer aboard an ORION-Class Hunter-Killer Destroyer, the MFV JESSICA A. WITTNER (DDK-704), which sustained heavy damage during the Second Battle of 61 Cygni. A changed man hailed against his wishes as a war hero, he resigned his commission and ran for Delegate in his home nation of Peru in 2475, and successfully proved his chops as a reliably peace-oriented Delegate and a close ally of the St. Pierre administration, developing a personal friendship with Deputy Secretary-General Hessert that would continue into her Secretaryship. After her first Deputy Secretary-General, Leo Beddoe, failed to be reconfirmed due to an ongoing sex scandal in 2489, she nominated Miramar as his replacement over Miramar's own private objections, though he would reluctantly rise to the occasion— and at her urging, he would run to succeed her, serving two terms as Secretary-General from 2494 to 2504. He was frequently derided by his Alliance of Nations opposition, particularly by foreign policy firebrand CAPT (ret.) Diane Jimoh and Australian Prime Minister James Liu, as too weak towards Minervan encroachment, a criticism many historians consider unfair— but few dispute that this perception nonetheless destroyed Miramar's legacy and made the oncoming political sea change an inescapable fate.

James 'Jimmy' Liu (b. 2463) [Commonwealth-Republic of Australia (AUS)]- Son of defense contracting giant Harlan Liu and the man whose election shook the worlds, James Liu has been known as a firebrand his entire political career. From MP to Prime Minister in his home nation of Australia, he led the Liberal-Labour-National party to become one of the Alliance of Nations' strongest bullwarks of hawkish foreign policy in the conservative coalition of parties. A talented amateur country musician known to play concerts for his campaign rallies, and noted for a strange and rough-edged charisma. Liu was known by contemporaries as a politically unkillable gaffe machine, buoyed by strong support from enthusiastic citizens who sought a hardline stance against what was at the time seen as Minervan encroachments against the integrity of the United Nations and the sovereignty of her constituent countries. Successfully campaigning for Secretary-General in 2504, Liu's New Vision for UN foreign policy ended the three decades of détente with the Federated Minervan Republics, which early in his Secretaryship nearly erupted into war during the Akrotiri Skirmish; although this incident notably tempered his foreign policy's aggressive shift, it did not change its orientation.

CAPT (ret.) Diane 'TYDTWD' Jimoh (b. 2442) [Federal Republic of Nigeria (NGA)]- The daughter of influential Unified Naval Command Admiral Chandra Jimoh and a famed Unified Naval Command space fighter ace of the Maybe War, stationed aboard the USS ENTERPRISE (ECV-248). An outspoken opponent of rapprochement and vocal critic of the Federated Minervan government. After retiring from the Nigerian Navy in 2495, she successfully ran for Delegate and served as a Nigerian Delegate to the United Nations as a member of the Alliance of Nations’ People's Democratic Accord Union from 2496-2504, when she was pulled by the Liu administration to serve as his first and only Deputy Secretary-General. As Deputy, commissioned the founding of a Naval Policy Working Group within the UNC and UN Intelligence Community, a group she championed until it came to oppose the 6000-ship Navy goal set by the Liu administration. At the urging of Secretary-General Liu, she herself ran following his second and final term, leveraging her war hero credentials, visible participation in the Liu administration's policy, and mounting tensions with the Federated Minervan Republics to drive a successful campaign for the Secretaryship in 2514. At the outbreak of the Second Minervan War— with the benefit of hindsight later known as the Fools' War— in 2523, she saw public opinion rally behind her, but a vocal— and rapidly growing— Partnership for Prosperity and Progress opposition squarely blamed the leadership of Liu and Jimoh for the war. This is a charge most modern historians agree with— and one that would see the Alliance of Nations receive the single largest loss of seats up for election of any party coalition in United Nations history in the 2524 election cycle.

Political Figures

Marcus Akinsanya (b. 2451) [United States of America (USA)]- A US and UN diplomat from New London, Connecticut who came up through the US' Department of State civil service. Son of a test engineer at General Dynamics Electric Boat Space Systems. As UN Special Ambassador for Arms Control, was the driving force on the UN side behind the 2490 Landigal Protocol on Arms Reduction, the successor to 2465’s largely toothless Treaty of Newport, and the subsequent 2491 Landigal Protocol on Limitation of Naval Armament. By 2494, appointed US Ambassador to the United Nations, a position he would remain in until running afoul of the Liu administration in 2507, who would ask for his resignation.

Edward 'Ted' Kennedy (b. 2453) [United States of America (USA)]- No relation to the Kennedy family of Massachusetts and American political fame, also known as 'Ted Kennedy, No Relation', or 'TKNR' for short. American Delegate to the United Nations General Assembly from 2503 to 2527, from the Partnership for Prosperity and Progress' Federal-Democratic Party. Former Governor of California. Known to be personable and charismatic, if prone to gaffes at times; despite not being related, he does bear a striking resemblance to US President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Formerly regarded as the preeminent prankster of the UN General Assembly, though one particularly notable practical joke gone too far resulted in a lawsuit that ended this streak for good.

Military Personnel

ADM Chandra Jimoh (b. 2415) [Federal Republic of Nigeria (NGA)]- The ‘Mother of the Modern Navy’ and the officer primarily responsible for the development and implementation of the ‘Fluid Battlegroup’ doctrine in the Unified Naval Command. A talented improvisor, Jimoh served as the Commanding Officer of the Unified Naval Command Third Fleet’s DESRON 71 during the Maybe War of 2470 with a fearsome record, particularly making her mark at the Battle of BR Piscium with her destroyer squadron emerging victorious despite lacking support from capital warships and being outnumbered 3:1. Having long raised alarm bells regarding the inflexibility of United Nations doctrine and command structure, she found a mentor and friend in Admiral Alyssa Hilgraves, who saw to it that the then-Captain would find her way to the flag billet of Commodore following the cessation of hostilities— and that she would find herself the chairperson of the Commission on Naval Grand Strategy, or the Jimoh Commission. Its 2472 report was damning, condemning the UNC for repeated failings at every level to allow its COs enough tactical leeway to adapt to the strategic picture, a dramatic overcorrection from the laissez-faire approach the Military Staff Committee had taken to the various national militaries during the War for Independence. The aftermath of the Report would see Jimoh spearhead a charge towards ‘fluidity’ and adaptability in the UN military, with her efforts being largely successful and the ‘Fluid Battlegroup’ first being postulated as of 2474, a framework that was fully implemented by the 26th century. She would retire an Admiral in 2505.

COMO Jacob Starling (b. 2458) [Ganymede Confederation (GNY)]- A controversial figure, Starling is most notable for his leadership of the Naval Policy Working Group, aka the ‘Carrier Mob’, a group of UNC and UN Intelligence Community personnel advocating for changes to UN defense procurement strategy to orient them more towards the procurement of large, extremely capable supercarrier platforms. The descendant of one of the ringleaders of the Ganymede Rising of 2325, many conspiracy theories spread about then-Captain Starling and his Working Group as a whole, ranging to them being Minervan plants intending to bankrupt and destroy the UN from within, to them being pawns of a deep state intent on puppeteering events from behind the scenes. Starling and his Working Group would fight their way through scrutiny to shape UNC procurement policy and secure the funding necessary to fund the THARSIS-Class supercarriers, and would be rewarded by becoming the pre-commissioning Executive Officer of the then-PCU THARSIS (SCV-001) in 2512, a position he would hold on the commissioned vessel under the command of Commodore Alex Martine of the Martian Federation Navy until he took command of her himself in 2519 following his return from a brief paternity leave of absence in early to mid 2518.

Private Citizens

Harlan Liu (b. 2405) [Commonwealth-Republic of Australia (AUS)]- The preeminent contract lawyer of the 25th century, renowned for an uncanny ability to walk away with what he wanted when he wanted it. After being hired out of Apple-Disney's Contracts division by Martian defense giant Nakos Precision, climbed up to the top to become Chief Contracts Officer of the corporation. Architect of the Hoplite-Six soldier systems contract, a critical lifeline for a faltering Nakos in what was known as the defense industry's 'Starving Days' in the 2480s, making him perhaps the single most reviled person to the UN Joint Forces Board's Procurement Office in light of the project's historic cost overruns. Retired in 2497, and would serve as a member of Nakos' Board of Directors until company financial woes forced a merger with fellow Martian defense juggernaut Huntwell Systems in 2533.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE WILL CONTINUE WITH PART 2: THE FEDERATED MINERVAN REPUBLICS AND THE INTERBELLUM PERIOD.