Circle Sea

[Lord Squishy]

So... I don't spend time in many Creative Writing forums, frankly because I consider the writing to be horrible. It's often very wooden, especially cross-overs. There's only so much you can really do with other people's characters, and unless you're very, very good... most people do it poorly. Their characters don't talk or act like they perhaps should (or at least I think so.)

Anyway. I only have one crossover (and it's my universe and SW), but I'm not publishing it here... instead, there's a novella I'm working on at the moment.

I generally have the rest of the plot sketched out. However, this story falls into generally my primary original universe, and at the moment I'm re-writing the story bible and locking everything down into coherency. What that means is that technology, sociology, politics, and so on are all changing slightly (the last time I edited the story bible was back in 2004). Hence... the technology is not exactly what it should be, and... meh. This is especially obvious (or will be, later) as I've sketched out the rest of the plot- several minor plot points (but key ones) don't conform to how the story-bible suggests they should exist. I either need to figure out how to integrate them with that, or re-write the plot arcs around those points to deal with that.

Anyway, that aside, here are the first two chapters of Circle Sea. (because I feel everyone should have as much right to throw shit at me as I throw at them.)

Somewhere in the Great Circle Sea, Braxia, (primary moon, Braxis IV) 03:12 Lunar Local Time

The Great Circle Sea was still at planet-rise.

The carrier Sword of Ascendant Right slipped through the dusky purple waves, her hull almost silent as water slipped along her silver bow to either side and then crashed over the propellers behind. On the northern horizon, the J-class gas giant Braxis was barely visible, its swirling orange and white clouds a stunning display against the background blanket of stars, duskily beginning to fade as the light reflected from Braxis’ cloudy surface increased the ambient luminosity. On the giant ship’s main deck, the planet-light barely illuminated the shrouded figures as they dragged flitters into position. Where the purple waves crashed over the hull, steam boiled across the sea-stained deck as the heat of the flitter’s thrusters instantly boiled any ambient moisture into vapour.

Second Priest Ashkevon stood against the starboard railing, one hand gripping the cold metal, the other clenched into a gloved fist inside the pocket of his standard issue navy jacket.

If anything could be called ‘standard issue’ in this ‘navy’, he thought to himself. Under his supposedly watchful eye, the aircrews were supposed to be preparing the flitters for a dawn strike –a holy raid- against the Empire’s shore base at Terrine-On-The-Sea, where her second naval task force was housed. The aircrews however, issued him only the most cursory courtesies afforded to his rank, and he did not bother to inspect their work any more thoroughly. They knew their work, and he knew his. No matter how officially he was supposed to command those men and women who were now struggling to load blunted silver arrow-shaped missiles and bombs onto the flitters, he was no more a man of war than they were men and women of the cloth. The woman beside him, however...

Ashkevon turned his eyes to the woman beside him, who gripped the cold metal rail with equal intensity. Her garb was that of, like his, a Second Priest; but unlike him, the ribbons for Adhesion to the Faith on her breast were so brightly polished that they shone. Unlike his eyes, a tired purple that matched the sea, her eyes were the vibrant, shocking gold of one of the sun-kissed- and they shone with a fire so strong and vibrant that Ashkevon fancied himself blinded and had to turn away for a second. Loreli. His beloved Loreli. So alike, and yet so different. In her eyes, he saw none of the tiredness that he knew was in his own; he saw only enthusiastic passion.

Passion for this?

He gripped the rail even more tensely, his knuckles within the thick leather gloves going white. The fist in his pocket balled even tighter, until he could feel through the two layers of leather and fur the fingers cutting into his palms.

“Do you see it, Ash?” she whispered. “A new star, a red star- a star of dawn, a star of destiny!”

On the deck, Ashkevon’s gaze was locked on the flitters- as one by one, the metal birds, seemingly too heavy to fly on their own, were hurtled into the air and their red-tongued engine nozzles flung fire back at him as they clawed their way into the planet-dawning sky, heavy with their loads of holy weapons.

“We shall seize holy Braxia,” Loreli whispered. “I know it.” She reached up into the sky. “Look!”

But Ashkevon’s gaze, rather than turning to gaze after her to the east, was locked to the west. Loreli glanced at him, and then, startled at the intensity of his gaze, spun around and stared into the western sky. Silver glittered there. Dozens of silver stars, racing across the sea. Like the prophecy of Mashant, Ashkevon thought, come to bring us redemption... He watched them grow closer, in a daze, unable to tear his gaze from the sideways-falling stars.

He heard Loreli’s howl of defiance, and something in his gaze snapped.
“Those aren’t angels,” he whispered.

A single nightbird crowed- and to the East, a single red star rose, framed against the terminator of Braxis.

---

Geosynchronous Orbit, Braxis IV; 16:20, Ship Standard Time

“There she goes.”

The purple waves faded and flickered into non-existence as they reached the clean white edge of the tactical holographic plot; in the center, the burning wreck which had, up until a few minutes ago, been the Sword of Ascendant Right now began to sink beneath the waves. Her hull was punctured in a dozen places and fires raged throughout the superstructure and the bridge tower; flitters slid off her deck and plunged beneath the waves, and they could see figures thrashing around in the water as the pull of the great ship sinking dragged her crewmen below the waves as well.

“Infrared,” a voice murmured. The image flickered for a second, and then cleanly transitioned into the false-color of infrared; the water was a dark black, and each survivor formed a bright blot of red and yellow color, which was mostly lost against the beautifully raging white fires of the sinking ship.

“Sensors count... three hundred, eighteen survivors at the present, out of fifty-two hundred crew and passengers,” the ship's AI remarked from thin air. “I imagine most of those will die in the waters. Highly successful, in a detached, tactical sense.”

At the far end of the holotable, a white-haired woman lifted her elbows off the table, smoothing her matte black uniform sleeves with her black gloved fingers. Her face was deeply lined and yet oddly lacking in emotion; her hazel eyes seemed as cold as the snow that her white hair, tied back into a tight bun, identified with. Her black clad arms were still as she gazed at the image, watching the ship sink, ignoring the quiet chatter and bustle that surrounded her. Once the giant ship was entirely beneath the waves, she reached out with one arm and tapped the gloved fingers of her right hand against the table’s projected controls. The image faded out, leaving the table blank again; an entirely plain white surface, save for the shifting, self-lighting, holographic displays like the one she had touched.

“Successful, perhaps,” she said. Her voice was as equally detached as her demeanour, and she leaned back in her chair carefully and steepled her fingers. “But what effect will this have on the Emissaries? This strike was, I believe, extremely important to them. Could we see a shift in the balance of power?” She gazed along the table like a schoolmistress picking out her next victim.

“Lieutenant Reid?” she invited. “You are the head of Exolinguistics and Xenology.”

“Yes ma’am,” the young man replied quickly. “Um...” he paused to think, drumming his fingers lightly on the surface of the holotable.

“To be frank, captain, with respect... I’m not sure.” He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, running a gloved hand through his shock of naturally blue hair. Beneath his closed eyelids, his eyes moved rapidly, scanning back and forth. It was usually considered rude to access one’s neural lace while speaking to someone else, but his eyes snapped open again before anyone around the table decided to complain. With more strength, he continued.

“I’m not sure.” His fingers flickered over the holographic controls on the table; the Sword of Ascendant Right appeared again, this time fully intact and steaming through holographic purple waves. “As you know, the Sword was not constructed by the Emissaries; it was constructed by the Empire eighteen point six solar years ago.” He blinked. “Oh, by the way, that’s Twenty-six point five standard years. Anyway... they stole her about eight months ago from her decommissioning ceremony. Even though most of her tactical systems had been removed, they were still able to make her operable and get her underway. In fact,” he continued, “I am having xenoarchaeology figure out how they did it.” He gazed at the image for a few seconds.”The Emissaries had also managed to steal quite a few flitters; not entirely modern ones, of course, but they managed to jerry rig everything together.”

He flicked the table a look, and it shifted to a topographical map of a port city.

“This,” Reid said, “is Terrine-On-The-Sea. It’s the major east coast naval base for the Empire, and it houses the second and third task groups, any one of which would have eaten the Sword for breakfast in open sea. However, the idea was that the Emissaries would mount a surprise strike and destroy or disable most of the Empire’s eastern naval force in dock. In fact, the attack draws many parallels with the attack on Pearl Harbour in our own history.”

“Was this a prelude to open war?”

Reid glanced at the executive officer.

“No sir, commander Delan, sir,” he said. “I don’t believe so. The Emissaries could never maintain a state of open war against the Empire; they are, after all, nothing more than what we would call a separatist movement. Moreover, I don’t think the Empire could maintain a war against the Emissaries either; morale in their armed forces would plummet, and that would severely weaken control over the empire itself.”

Arcturus Delan nodded. As he often did when he was absently considering something, be twirled his beard and tugged, twirled and tugged, twirled and tugged. Finally, he shrugged and flicked his golden eyes up at his immediate superior, Captain McDonnell. She twitched her shoulder lightly in response. Finally, when it became clear he was not going to receive anything further in way of instruction from his superior, he cleared his throat.

“Do we know what happened?”

“Ah...” Reid’s eyelids flicked closed, and his eyes began their quick tracing back and forth over the inner surface of his eyelids as he accessed his lace quickly.

“Lieutenant?” the XO queried politely.

Reid’s eyes snapped open in slight embarrassment. “Ah, yes sir.” He froze. “Well, sir,” he managed, “As you know, it is standard practice to intercept and monitor all planetary communications. They’re not saying much, so it’s hard to tell, actually. Of course, if we had human resources on the surface, it would be easier, but-“ he blushed. “Ah. But from what we can tell there was an infiltrator aboard the Sword; someone who informed the naval base that the attack was commencing. They were able to sweep in and clean up the Sword and her flitters without any problems.”

“An infiltrator?” the Xo queried. “A spy? A saboteur? An informant?”

“Ah... we don’t know, sir.” Reid lowered his eyes in defeat. “I’ll try to get that information to you in my next report, sir.”

“Very well,” Delan said, his deep, calm voice rolling over the younger man in a soothing rumble. “You are dismissed, Lieutenant Reid.” His gazed turned to the equally young woman sitting beside Reid. “Lieutenant Hancock, your report, if you please.”

“Yes, sir.” Her voice was calm and cool, and her gold eyes glittered softly. Her matte black uniform was perfectly clear of dust with nary a wrinkle, and the two obsidian rings around her right upper arm were polished so that they glittered in the diffuse light of the conference room. When she pushed back her chair and stood, she seemed perfectly at ease, with her arms clasped lightly behind her. She did not shift her gaze from the bulkhead directly in front of her as she spoke.

“Fleet regulation sixteen beta-five; all ships of heavy cruiser classification or lighter are to report in to command at least once every six hours and to have a message buoy prepared for launch at thirty seconds notice. During the last week, the longest period we were out of contact with sector command was four point six hours while we recalibrated the dorsal communications array.”

She paused politely, and then continued.

“Fleet tactical regulations require every vessel in neutral or unexplored space, as we are, to maintain constant long distance sensor sweeps, paying special attention to all nearby stars. As pursuant thereto, while the ventral sensor array is tasked for planetary imaging, we have alternated scans between the primary dorsal array and the aft array. Accordingly, we have averaged 160% sensor coverage of all space within a five hundred light year radius. I have also ordered sensor drones deployed on the far side of Braxia, and her planet, Braxis, as well as the stellar primary.”

Delan nodded, but the white-haired woman at the end of the table raised a finger.

“Lieutenant Hancock, on whose orders did you deploy those sensor drones?”

The young woman snapped to attention.

“Captain McDonnell,” she murmured. “My own authorization, ma’am.”

McDonnell nodded quietly.

“I seem to recall, lieutenant, that there is a regulation requiring the authorization of the tactical operations officer or the executive officer for deploying remote sensor systems, is there not?”


“Ma’am?” Hancock froze. “I’m not sure, I’d have to check-“


“Sixteen delta nine stroke six, lieutenant.” The voice was silky, smooth, and oily as it rolled out from behind McDonnell. Hancock looked up with a jolt- lieutenant commander Sampson was standing fifty centimetres or so behind the captain’s right shoulder, his hands clasped lightly behind his back, his face refusing to betray the smirk in his voice.


“The deployment of probes or mobile sensor arrays must be authorized by the Tactical Operations Officer, Chief Science Officer, or Executive Officer.”


Hancock glanced down at McDonnell- Sampson, as a representative of the fleet’s Judge Advocate General Corps was not technically in the line of command, and hence not her superior. For a split second, Hancock swore she could see a flicker of anger make its way across McDonnell’s face- but not directed at her.


“Thank you, Mr. Sampson,” she said softly. “Your interruption was… timely, as always.” She sounded very much like she had wanted to say something less polite, but her attention nonetheless returned to Hancock.


“Lieutenant, I suggest you review the regulation that Mr. Samson mentioned for your next duty watch,” she said perfunctorily, her eyes slipping out of focus for a second as she consulted her lace.

Hancock flushed, but maintained her cool visage. “Yes, Ma’am,” she grated softly.

McDonnell smiled slightly. “I am not admonishing you, Ms. Hancock; you are an excellent officer, and it was an idea that I would whole-heartedly have authorized... had I been told. However, in the future, may I suggest that you keep in mind that some of your fellow officers are also excellent, and also have a job to do?”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Hancock said quietly. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Very good,” McDonnell murmured. “Then you are also dismissed.” She turned away from the two junior officers, who rose, saluted no one in particular, and filed out of the room. “Now,” she asked as the two of them left, “Commander Delan, your report if you please?”

--

Outside, Hancock waited for the conference room door to hiss shut behind them, and then she spun around and delivered her fist into the bulkhead at full speed.

“Damn it!” she growled. “Fuck, I should have known. Fuck!”

“Ho!” Reid almost yelled, slightly louder than he’d wanted, as he jumped back. “Laura, relax. It was a mistake, okay? No need to get so upset about it!”

Hancock rounded on him.

“Look at you, Mark,” she growled. “You’re not half as prepared as I am, you flub your lines, you check your lace, and you get off with a commendation! I know exactly what to do, I did it, I went above and beyond the call of duty... and I get dressed down in front of the entire senior staff!”

“It wasn’t that bad, Laura,” Reid muttered. “I took my share of lumps.” He sighed, and threw an arm comfortably around her shoulders, his fingers tangling lightly in a lock of her long auburn hair idly. “Look, we’re just junior officers. We’re supposed to make mistakes and get drubbed down for them- that’s what senior officers are for, anyway.” He shrugged.

“Next time, you get the proper authorization, you’re in the clear.”

She sighed. “I know. I know! But still, it frustrates me.” She threw her arm around his waist and rested her head against his shoulder as they continued down the corridor, black boot-heels hissing softly over the quiet grey carpet. “I do my best, but somehow it’s not ever enough.”

“Better you do a not-good-enough job here and get dressed down for it in the weekly meeting,” Reid said quietly, “than you do a not-good-enough job down there on the surface and get pasted like those poor bastards on the Sword.”

Hancock lifted her head, glanced at him, and smiled. “Why, Mark,” she said coyly. “I do think you’re developing some real-world experience after all. Was it getting lonely up there in your ivory tower all alone?”

He mock-growled at her and batted at her shoulder with a hand, and she laughed, slipping out from under his arm and skipping a few meters ahead of him down the corridor, grinning, holding out an apologetic hand to an ensign she had almost knocked over.

“C’mon,” she said. “I’ll buy you a drink, and then we can look over those signal intercepts. I’m supposed to be the intelligence specialist- maybe I can help you figure that sort of stuff out.”

Reid grinned, the experience of the sinking carrier slipping from his mind.

“Fine,” he tossed back. “When you learn Braxian, I’ll lend you those signal intercepts.” She rolled her eyes at him, and together they entered the ship’s mess arm in arm.

[Silence]

Ah its cool to see that you updated the story. It seems rather intresting to me.

[Lord Squishy]

Originally Posted by Silence

Ah its cool to see that you updated the story. It seems rather intresting to me.

It's about double it's length now- close to 11,000 words at the moment. I'm going to repost the entire thing because I forget that there was a section I was supposed to write before the second section up there...

Eh, I'll get around to it in about an hour or so once I've cleaned it up sufficiently.

[Lord Squishy]

--
Interlude
Ashkevon’s only memories were a series of scattered, almost picturesque images- stars, hurtling horizontally across the sea, planet-light glittering across their silver bodies as they rode tongues of flame toward him-


The coherent, rattling roar, followed by twenty-foot long tongues of flame that flashed past his peripheral vision, arcing trails of light lancing away from a handful of positions along the ship’s deck-


Another flash, this one a blur of motion and not light, and the deck in front of him erupted into a fireball; a flitter was tossed a dozen metres into the air and landed awkwardly on its back, wings broken, fire splashing all around-


An almost physical thud, and then an invisible hand picking him up and

throwing him away from the rail like a broken toy, orange light surging, roiling forward toward him until it occupied his vision and he couldn’t see anything else-


-and then he saw nothing at all.
-


Loreli ran- she didn’t know what she was running toward, or what she was running away from, but she ran, along the rail. To her right, she could see a tongue of fire erupting from the close-in cannon near the ship’s bow. The closest star was rolling now, spinning along its axis, glittering in the planet-light; as she watched, it seemed to leap ahead- and then that tongue of fire caught it, and she felt like cheering, like screaming, like roaring with victory. The cloud of debris caught her like a supersonic burst of flechette rounds. The crate she had been standing in front of took the brunt of the burst for her, shrapnel punching through it like tissue paper, and then the crate itself was blasted off the deck, taking her with it, sending both of them tumbling metres into the water.



She saw the water rush up to meet her, and felt a sickening snap somewhere within her. The water was cold, and for a while, she shivered with it, but eventually, watching fire burn on the surface of the water as she floated, half-in and half-out of the crate, she closed her eyes, letting the cold embrace her.


--


Chapter II
Claxons screamed throughout the ship.


“Abandon ship,” the mechanical, emotionless voice repeated over and over. “This is not a drill. Abandon ship. All hands, abandon ship.”


The Sword of Ascendant Right was sinking. Her point-defence weaponry had caught three of the seven missiles as they swept across the surface of the water; but that hadn’t made things much better. Shrapnel had shredded her tower, killing the entire bridge crew instantly. Most of the flight-deck crew had succumbed to the exact same fate, and the flaming remains of one missile had smashed into the after-CIWS turret at just below the speed of sound, cooking off its magazine. The ship was aflame even before the four remaining missiles smashed into her- one caught the base of the tower, shearing it almost completely off; the wrecked metal smashed down across the flight-deck, smashing flitters and setting fuel (what little of it wasn’t already) aflame.


Another, in a freak of probabilities, skipped through her aircraft elevator entrance, bounced off the roof of the inner hanger without detonating, and then exploded in her forward hanger deck, destroying her remaining aircraft, killing most of her aircrew, and puncturing crucial refuelling lines- fires that burned and burned, savaging anyone who attempted to get close.


The third and fourth did exactly what they were supposed to- both popped up at the last second, and then dived straight for the waterline. The third impacted about a third of the way aft of the bow, punching a ten-metre hole through four decks. That might have been survivable, on its own, at least… if the last missile hadn’t caught her exactly amidships, punched through the hull at the waterline on a downward slant and detonated about five metres inside. The explosion not only broke the ship’s spine, but it ripped a twenty-metre tear through the ship’s skin, about half of which was below the waterline.


In other, clearer, words… the ship was done for. She had already begun to list from the enormous holes in her side and was heavily taking on water; fires raged on her upper decks and her aircraft hangers. Mostly, the fires were near enough sufficient to trap her crew between themselves and the rising waters; those who were close enough to a rent in the hull to jump usually did so, regardless of what would happen were they to catch some part of themselves on the razor-sharp edges of the hull. Here and there, a few damage-control crews made scattered efforts to save the ship- on the upper deck, a team of a half-dozen firefighters worked, tears steaming off their faces from the heat, to extinguish the largest blaze, caused by a collision of a half-dozen flitters and the resultant detonation of their ammunition and fuel when the ship had pitched under the first impact.


A few had seen the writing on the wall before the missile impacts- those who had had put on lifejackets, if it had helped at all. There were a few survivors above decks- those who had been in the shadow of the tower and therefore not caught by the shrapnel and had moved out of its shadow before it collapsed; those who had been working on the lower decks of the tower and been able to escape, those who had been working on the hanger deck when the first impacts had occurred, and had come above-decks and avoided the massacre in the hanger. Some of those few struggled to boats; others simply leapt from the wrecked ship, hoping to avoid the flaming oil that now slicked the surface of the water around the Sword.


It was one of the former groups that found Second Priest Ashkevon; a group of missile technicians, led by Lieutenant Razzad. Missile control was on the lowest level of the bridge tower, but more importantly, they had radar returns. It was Razzad who had ordered the CIWS guns to fire; it was Razzad who had sounded the Abandon Ship claxon after the bridge was destroyed, and it was Razzad who had led his group out o the tower as soon as it became obvious that the ship was going down.


They found Ashkevon twenty metres aft of the entrance to the tower, slumped against the port walkway rail. His jacket was stained by blood, and his breath was coming in long, shallow gasps.


“Carry him,” Razzad ordered. Two burly technicians lifted Ashkevon by his arms carefully, heedless of his wounds, and carried him along. As they reached the aft of the ship, where the rigid-hulled boats were kept, the ship began to roll to starboard and pitch.


“The hull is breaking,” Razzad yelled. “We’ve got to get to the boats, now!”


There was the terrible sound of metal rending, and the hull screamed in protest, but Razzad urged them on. At the extreme aft of the ship, they noticed another group of a half-dozen who were attempting to lower the largest rigid-hulled boat. Razzad immediately ran forward, throwing his shoulder and weight into the winch handle. The added weight of three missile technicians was enough to set it freely moving again.


“Get in!” Razzad roared over the roar of fires and the screaming of the hull. Two of the technicians handed Ashkevon across, and Razzad glanced out across the after walkways; a sheen of oil was sliding toward them across the metal deck, bringing with it an enormous wall of fire. He could hear the screaming of his one-time comrades from deeper within the boat; Razzad glanced back toward the hull, and then brutually threw his shoulder against the winch handle again. Loosened by the previous effort, it gave, and the boat began to drop toward the churning purple waves; Razzad swung one hand over the side rail, grabbed the chain, and slid down it into the boat.


“We’ve got to get out of here!” he yelled at the man nearest the back of the boat. “As soon as we hit water, get us away!”


He looked back at the scared faces, lit on one side by planet-dawning light and on the other by the fires of their burning ship.


A medical corpsman was bending over Ashkevon, working feverishly.


“Your hands,” one of the men said to Razzad, his eyes and voice blank with shock.


In surprise, Razzad looked down at his hands- bloody and torn, stained with oil and grease from when he had slid down the chain into the boat. He almost lost his balance and had to grab for the side of the boat as it abruptly splashed into the water.


“Get this boat moving,” he ordered the man nearest the motor, aware of how blank and shocked his own voice must sound. The man nodded; a few seconds later, the motor roared into life, and the small launch was roaring away through the waves.


“That way,” one of the men yelled, holding up a compass and pointing.
Razzad just nodded.


“Get us to shore.”


He watched the Sword until it was out of sight. The pain in his hands, he embraced like a lover, for its reminder that he was still alive- and for the reminder that others were not. Even when shore drew into sight, his gaze still remained on where the Sword had disappeared into the distance- and where a thick, oily cloud of smoke now rose up as a monument.

--


It wasn’t until the boat that Razzad had commandeered had made it almost the entire way to the shore that the first Imperial warships from Terrine-On-The-Sea made it to the sinking wreck of the Sword of Ascendant Right. Flitters had already been buzzing around it for minutes- fighters, mostly, swarming the skies over the Sword’s burning wreck.


The first vessel on the scene was the Asharte’s Unyielding Sigil, one of the guided missile cruisers which had been on rapid-response duty. Her large grey bulk had circled the wreckage once; her captain, a balding, greying rail of a man missing half the fingers on his left hand from a similar event much earlier in his own career, had ordered all hands to the port rail with life preservers and binoculars as the Asharte’s Unyielding Sigil made a slow, steady circle around the wreckage. The flitter on her aft-deck was already humming; he ordered it off the deck, and the ungainly silver creature, half hummingbird-half falcon, leapt into the air and began circling the flames. They were mostly too late; a large proportion of the wreckage had already sunk below the waves.


“Officer of the deck, make ready to recover any survivors,” the captain ordered, his own eyes still fixed to binoculars as he watched the wreck.


“Are you sure that’s wise, captain?”


The older man glanced over at the young, supremely well polished political officer standing at the rear of the deck. The younger man’s uniform jacket showed not a spot of lint, a medal not a micrometre out of place, as if he was a statute plucked from a parade ground.


“They could be spies, or saboteurs,” the political officer said. “These are dangerous people.”


“Be quiet, Maile,” the captain said softly, never turning away from the wreckage. Along the starboard bow, a team with nets and life preservers were already hauling bodies out of the water toward where a group of medical corpsmen and stretchers waited anxiously.


“But captain-“ The captain lowered his binoculars, and turned, and Maile saw something in his eyes as they met Maile’s.


“You can comment on my political unreliability later, Maile,” the older man said quietly. “But I’ve been an officer in this navy for longer than you’ve been alive- and we don’t leave people in the water to drown if we can help it.”


And with that, he turned and strode off the bridge, leaving Maile staring after him- his expression half contemptuous, half uncertainly-thoughtful as he watched them pull yet another young woman from the waves.


“Marine.” Maile caught the arm of one of the captain’s escorts on the way out the door. “Please put a guard on our… guests.”


The marine looked at him with the blank expression that most naval officers reserved for political officers.


“Of course, sir,” was the standard, blank, entirely bland reply.


And then he was gone. As Maile stared down at the deck, medical corpsmen pulled the wrecked, but still alive, body of Loreli Argente from the cool purple waters of the Circle Sea, strapped her to a stretcher, and rushed her below-decks to the medical bay. She would be one of the most wounded individuals that the crew of the Asharte’s Unyielding Sigil would pull out of the burning waters that evening before the search ended, and one of an even fewer number that survived those critical first hours.


‘Prisoners,’ Political Officer Maile thought. ‘A useful bargaining chip.’


Two decks below him, another individual was thinking about exactly the same individuals.


‘Poor bastards,’ Captain LeShay muttered to his chief surgeon. ‘Wrong place, wrong time. Lucky we could pluck them out of the water before they froze to death.’


The man was far too intent on Loreli’s shattered body and his frantic attempts to stabilize it to answer, but LeShay knew he was thinking the same thing.


--


Laura Hancock was glad indeed that having a neural lace meant learning languages was nowhere near the chore it was for an unaugmented human. There were, of course, disadvantages to not ‘naturally’ knowing the language; she rubbed the sensitive spot just behind and below her left ear where her neural transponder was located, grimacing at the dull, throbbing ache. Learning Braxian may have been simply a matter of downloading the correct language libraries from Reid’s lace into hers, but she was going to pay for that luxury, she was sure. Again, she glanced down at the flimsies spread across the table between them. It was 02:09 ship time, and the officer’s lounge was empty aside from them. Groaning, she dropped her hand from her ear to the table and picked up the paper-thin datapad marked signal intercepts.


“Ship,” she said tiredly. “Set time-index-“ she paused, grimaced, and took a swallow of cold coffee from the mug at her elbow. “What’s the time-index again for the ship sinking?” she asked, setting her mug down and rubbing her temple.


“The attack begun at 03:14 local time and the ship had sunk by 05:25; in ship standard time, 14:14 and 16:25.” The computer’s voice was neutral. “However,” the AI continued, “the time index you want to review is likely around the time of the attack, not the sinking.”


Hancock glanced at Reid across the table; he was sprawled across the synthleather couch, eyes closed, and a flimsy in his dangling hand, snoring softly. She grimaced, and nodded, picking up another flimsy.


“Let’s go about this a different way,” she muttered, half to herself and half to the computer. She poked at the new flimsy, changing its title from xenolinguistics database interlink to visual-light orbital imagery.


“Ship, display surveillance imagery of the area from…” she shrugged. “…twenty-three hundred hours of the day before the attack to… oh-five-thirty hours, local time. Overlay signal intercepts from the same timeframe. Limit signal intercepts to…” she rubbed her temples. “…areas within line-of-sight for horizon purposes.”


“Line of sight to the carrier?” the ship queried.


She nodded.


“Imagery online,” the ship said helpfully. “But you look tired, Ms. Hancock, perhaps you should-“


She cut the AI off with a wave of her hand. “Should, would, could,” she muttered. “Yeah, I know, ship.” She gazed back at the imagery and grimaced. “Begin playback.”


The timecode across the top of the flimsy began to crawl- 23:00, 23:15, 23:30. “This is ridiculous,” Hancock muttered to herself. “The details of the Sword’s trip could have been divulged days or weeks prior. We’d be searching for a needle in a-“


“May I make a suggestion, Ms. Hancock?” The ship’s interruption was calm. “I’ve been doing a fuzzy-logic signal-to-noise analysis of the Sword’s EM emissions, as you requested. I’ve found something interesting.”


She nodded and rubbed her face, knowing the ship would see the gesture. Immediately, the timecode on the flimsy changed- 02:25:39.500 local-time. Across the side, a series of standing-wave frequency analysis diagrams indicated electromagnetic emissions from the Sword. The playback began again- this time, in increments of thousandths of a second, and then stopped after two seconds.


Hancock shrugged. “What’re you getting at?”


A section of every graph highlighted. “At 02:25:40.753, there was a zero-point-eight percent drop in signal transmission strength both from and to the Sword. It lasted zero-point-six-five-five seconds.”


Hancock sat bolt upright. “Enhance timecode zero-two-two-five-forty point seven, replay at a tenth of a percent real-time speed, and make those damn graphs bigger, Ship, so I can see what I’m looking at.”


On the flimsy, the graphs doubled in size, shrinking the satellite view, and began to play. Just as the Sword cruised to a stop- every frequency graph’s amplitude dropped by almost a percent.


“Overlay non-visual imagery,” she muttered. One hand had found its way to her mouth, and she was chewing on her thumbnail thoughtfully as she glared at the flimsy.


“What frequencies?” the ship asked reasonably.
“Oh, it doesn’t-“ she grimaced. “standard frequencies. Radio, gravetic, electromagnetic.”


There was a soft pause, and then-


“Oh.” She gazed at the flimsy, headache and all thoughts of bed forgotten. “Oh. Fuck.”


“Ship,” she snapped. “Encrypt results of latest analysis. Encrypt all surveillance logs for the time-codes specified. Fuck that; encrypt all surveillance logs for the entire twenty-four hour period beginning at twenty-three hundred hours before the Sword’s sinking. If anyone tries to access this information without my personal clearance code, inform me immediately.”


There was a pregnant pause, and then the ship murmured “Done. All logs encrypted and secured, on the authority of Lieutenant Laura Hancock, Fleet Intelligence.”


She was already on her feet, gathering together all the flimsies. “Apply a level-gamma fleet intelligence encryption algorithm to them,” she said. “On top of my personal encryption.”


“Don’t you think that’s taking things a little far?” the ship asked, but a second later- “Done,” it informed her. “Encryption complete.”


“I am not letting this one get away,” she snarled. “Ship, what are the procedures for preventing all out-going traffic from this ship?”


“Clearance level nine-green or above- Tactical Operations Officer, Executive Officer, or Captain,” the ship responded pleasantly. “Well above your pay-grade, I’m afraid.”


“Not even temporarily?” she asked helplessly.


“No,” the ship replied. It paused for a second. “However…” Hancock got the impression the ship was cocking its head, deep in thought. “There is, however,” the ship said quietly, “a just-discovered fault in the secondary communications sub-processor. The fault will, of course, be repaired within six hours so the required linkup with command can be made on time. However, until that time…” the ship paused, and its voice took on an extremely un-characteristic accent. “All lines… are currently down.”


Hancock blinked. The ship had a very odd habit of quoting old Earth movies, but it was not something she was currently going to take any issue to whatsoever.


“Can you get Reid up and have him meet me in the secondary conference room in an hour?” she asked the ship hurriedly as she erased each flimsy, one after another, with a gesture of her fingers, except for the two she had been working on last.


“Of course,” the ship said.


Hancock wasn’t even listening as she held onto both flimsies for dear life. She tripped over the edge of the carpet on her way out of the lounge, fell hard against the bulkhead, and shoved herself back onto her feet- and didn’t appear to notice, the ship thought.


Oh, fuck, indeed.
--


Hancock was pacing rapidly when Reid entered. She would take perhaps a dozen strides along the bank of windows that framed the starboard side of the conference room, pause, inspect the holoscreen that formed the forward bulkhead, do an abrupt about face, quickly stride to the aft bulkhead, muttering to herself, and then repeat the entire cycle again.


“Laura?”


At the sound of her name, she started, whirling around.


“Reid,” she muttered, letting her breath out slowly. “Sit down, we haven’t much time. There’s an emergency staff meeting in five minutes.” She glanced at him, and he felt/saw a starburst of light appear along his peripheral vision, inside his head. He flicked open the message she had sent into his neural lace; lines of text appeared out of thin air, superimposed upon his vision as if they were floating in mid-air a foot or so away from his nose. It didn’t take him long to scan the imagery, graphs, and text.


“Shit,” he muttered. “You’re sure?”


“Yes,” she said, staring out the armoured windows into space. Braxia, beautiful in purple and green, was rising along-side the ship; where Braxis occluded the parent star, Brax, the terminator glittered with light.


“Well,” came a steel-cold voice behind them, “Perhaps you’d care to explain it to me, as your commanding officer.”


For the second time in as many minutes, Laura Hancock started and spun on her heel. But rather than relax, she snapped a salute and held it.
McDonnell simply looked at her for a good thirty seconds, evaluating the young lieutenant.


“At ease,” she finally said. “Before you sprain something.”


Hancock dropped her hand, but didn’t relax by much.


“Yes ma’am.”


McDonnell pinched the bridge of her nose, grimacing. Her hands were ungloved, and her hair wasn’t in its customary bun- instead, the white strands hung loose down to her mid-back, simply another testament to the fact that it wasn’t yet 3:30 in the ship’s morning.


Hancock opened her mouth to speak, but McDonnell held up her hand.
“Wait for Commander Delan,” she ordered. “He and Lieutenant-Commander Sampson should be arriving shortly.”


Hancock nodded, and McDonnell dropped into a chair at the far end of the conference table, drumming her lithe fingers lightly on the pure-white surface.


“Lieutenant Reid,” she said finally. “Have you found out anything more about the sinking of the Sword?”


“Well, ma’am, I-“ But the words were barely out his mouth when Hancock cut across him.


“Ma’am, I apologize for interrupting, but I think you really do need to hear my briefing before we get into that.”


Hancock glanced at her with some surprise, one eyebrow raised in polite query.


“This gets more and more interesting every second I am forced to wait to hear it,” McDonnell said, her gaze narrowing on Hancock. “I-“


But it was at that moment that the doors opened silently, permitting Arcturus Delan and Gerald Sampson into the conference room. At McDonnell’s rapid wave, both men dropped into chairs opposite her along the conference table; Reid also (but more carefully) took a chair.


“Go ahead,” McDonnell said.


Hancock nodded, and took a deep breath. She flicked a command through her lace at the Ship, and the room lights dimmed as the holoscreen came up.


“Captain, as you know, as of 20:45 hours last night, all recovery operations on what used to be the Sword of Ascendant Right were completed. As per your instructions to Lieutenant Reid, we were examining how the Empire came to know of the Sword’s impending attack on their naval base. As the resident Intelligence officer, he had asked me to participate in dealing with our signals intelligence and reconnaissance of the Sword.” She paused, and flicked another thought at the Ship- the holoscreen blinked.


“As you can see, this is the Sword of Ascendant Right as of about 02:25, local time- less than an hour before she was hit. She is just coming into strike position now.” Another set of diagrams, these ones frequency analysis glyphs, appeared beside the ship. “These are signals intelligence- we were routinely monitoring all signals to and from the vessel at the time. At 02:25:40.753 local time, there was a zero-point-eight percent drop in signal transmission strength. This is not necessarily unusual- after all, changes in speed and direction do cause power to the ship’s systems to fluctuate. However.” Another graph. “This is an incoming global radio broadcast that the Sword was receiving; as you can tell… this also fluctuated. We’ve analyzed the transmission station, and there was no corresponding drop in transmission power at the time.”


She glanced at the screen again; the image of the ship was immediately overlaid with fluctuating patterns of light. “As you can see, the reactor is here-“ the yellow, obvious power generator blinked once “- and the primary radar and transmissions antennae are here-“ both blinked green. “-and… there is an unidentified power source here.” It blinked orange. “Not necessarily unusual- there are plenty of things it could be.” She paused, and glanced at the screen as the image flickered a final time, overlaying what appeared to be a topographical map over the display.


“The geophysics department was, at the time, testing the ventral sensor array,” she said quietly. “This is a gravitational background scan. What you are seeing are ‘shadows’ on the surface of three dimensional space; the ‘surge’ is what caused the degradation of the electromagnetic signals. Analysis confirms that such a surge could only have come from-”


“A tachyon communicator.” It wasn’t a question; Arcturus Delan glanced up from the conference table, where flickering lights indicated his own examination of the data. “There was a faster-than-light communications message sent from the Sword when she was in position. You tracked it, of course.”


Hancock nodded. “Yessir.”


“Terrine-On-The-Sea.”


“Yessir.”


“Fuck.” His voice was perfectly flat, as if he hadn’t just spat a curse.


McDonnell’s eyes were ice-cold; she glanced over at the representative from the Judge Advocate General’s Corps.


“Mr. Sampson?”


The brown-haired man nodded, his long, pale fingers clasped in front of him.


“There’s no question,” he said silkily. “If someone down there has tachyon transceiver technology, they got it from someone up here. The Fleet is obligated to retrieve it, but that’s not us- regulations are quite clear. We are prohibited from interfering unless the situation is so dire as to become a disaster without our intervention.”


“Do we wait for a xenology support team?” McDonnell asked quietly.



“We’re not here on a research mission- we’re simply passing through on a scheduled patrol route.”


Delan glanced down at the data on the table, and then back up at her. “I think we have an obligation to do what we can,” he said. “We’re on scene, we have the data, and the situation is still hot enough for us to perhaps nudge it down the right path.”


Sampson shook his head. “No. We’re due at Araxis IV in three days. I don’t think we should miss our next scheduled stop unless we can help it. Send a message to the fleet for support from a science ship, certainly, but we have our own mission objectives to fulfill.”


“Our Xenology department has been studying the situation for almost a week,” Delan responded tiredly. “We know the situation- a Xenology team from command won’t. We can do this now.”


“Sirs?” Hancock spoke. “I have a suggestion.”


McDonnell quirked one eyebrow. “Do enlighten us, Ms. Hancock, then,” she invited.


“Begging your pardon, sirs, but I think Commander Sampson is right- we don’t want to go down to the surface. Why not bring the remains of the Sword, and hopefully the transmitter, up here? We can analyze it that way and have something to pass on to the Xenology Support Team when they arrive.”


The room was silent for a good thirty seconds, everyone staring at each other.


“Do it,” McDonnell snapped. “Commander Sampson, you and Mr. Reid will oversee the recovery of the Sword to ensure that it is done in the most regulation-sensitive way possible. I want a report on my desk by the beginning of gamma shift tomorrow. That gives you until sixteen hundred tomorrow-“ she paused, and then corrected herself ruefully. “-today, rather,” she said. “Commander Delan, you will secure this ship and prevent all out-going communications not expressly sanctioned by either yourself or me. I don’t know where they got that communicator, but they’re not going to be talking to anybody on my ship. I also want you to get in touch with Fleet Command on Centauri- have them get a Xenology Support Team moving.” She paused. “Lieutenant Hancock, excellent work. I want you to scrutinize all ship movements in this sector; tell me who’s been here, and when for as far back as is reasonable. See if anyone may have entered this system clandestinely.”


She paused, and then glanced around the room. “Lieutenant Hancock, Commander Delan, your reports will be on my desk by sixteen hundred hours.” She glanced down in her desk, and then looked up in surprise.
“What are you waiting for?” she snapped. “Dismissed!”

[Ford Prefect]

This is actually very good. I think the characters are quite interesting, and yu have a good sense of prose.

[Lord Squishy]

This... is basically just plot development. I should probably put in something else worthwhile, but... meh, I'll go back and re-edit it in a while, once I've stopped actually writing.

Chapter III
“We’ve got a lock on the area around the transceiver, sir,” Reid reported. “There’s no interference, but it appears to be integrated somehow into the surrounding bulkheads and systems. Would you like us to attempt to remove it?”


Sampson considered.


“Pull it up for me, Mr. Reid,” he requested. The two men were standing in the Pride of Albion’s aft smallcraft-bay, in a small niche in the starboard wall; the bay itself was approximately one hundred and thirty meters across at its widest point, five meters high and a hundred meters deep; one of the long ends of this rectangle was open to space, protected from the vacuum only by the slight haze of an atmospheric field. The bay was empty aside from the two of them; Reid flicked his hands across the niche’s holographs, and a section of the wreckage exploded outward toward them until they seemed to be standing inside it. Reid waved his finger, sections of the wreckage highlighting themselves.


“This is the Sword of Ascendant Right’s secondary transverse bulkhead; behind it ran primary power lines, hydraulic fluid lines, and fibre-optic data lines from the bridge to the engineering spaces. It appears the transceiver was spliced into both a power line and all of the primary fibre-optic data lines.”


Sampson moved his head through a holographic beam and glanced around at the back of the conduits.


“I don’t see any holes,” he pointed out.


“Holes, sir?” Reid was glancing absently at the spots where the lines entered the transceiver assembly.


“Yes. Holes. Somebody had to install this, unless it was put in when the ship was built- and there are no holes in the bulkhead. It’s inside a solid piece of wall, Mr. Reid.”


Reid glanced up, and flicked his hands across the controls.


“Ship, analyze the surrounding bulkhead for graviton stress patterns.” There was a quiet chime, and he glanced at Sampson, who nodded.


“You’re thinking the device was emplaced in the ship via transmat,” Sampson remarked.


“It would make sense,” Reid admitted.


“It would also mean,” Sampson remarked thoughtfully, “that we could remove the device via transmat and not leave any unusual traces, like missing chunks of bulkhead.”


“Graviton stress analysis complete,” the computer purred softly. “Sub-molecular metallic distortion patterns are indicative of gravity tidal stresses similar to that generated by wormhole phenomenon.”


“That’s-“ Sampson began.


“Graviton stress analysis,” the computer continued, “further indicates that the cycle time of said wormhole phenomena is between twenty-five and fifty nanoseconds.” The ship paused. “Further, although this is essentially a statistical analysis, analysis of distortion patterns and metallic sheer provides the following temporal analysis.”


Reid glanced at the holograph that appeared in thin air beside him, and then did a double-take.


“Ship suggests that the most likely time for this to be emplaced was six to eight months ago.”


“Very well,” Sampson murmured thoughtfully. “It seems clear to me that if we remove the transceiver, as it was emplaced after the ship was taken by the Emissaries, the Imperial recovery effort will not notice anything amiss.” He shrugged. “Take it on board.”


“Aye, sir.” Reid’s hands manipulated the holographic displays, flicking his fingers in wild, semi-circular patterns through the air. Blue light, immensely bright, filled the smallcraft-bay, outlining an irregular object about two feet high, eight inches deep, and sixteen inches wide. The light almost instantly faded.


“Transmat complete,” Ship chimed softly.


Reid stepped away from the alcove, lifting a small hand-held scanner from his belt as he inspected the transceiver. Sampson stood behind him, arms folded, eyes glazed as he consulted the Ship via his neural lace.


The scanner in Reid’s hand chimed quietly, and a series of scrolling lines of symbols appeared on his vision.


“Sir,” Reid exclaimed. “You’ve got to see this.” He flicked an encrypted pulse transmission at the other man. Sampson’s gaze cleared, and he stepped forward, opening the transmission.


“You’re telling me that thing is still transmitting?” Sampson barked. He slapped one hand against the nearest section of wall. “Ship, Sampson here. Trace that transmission, identify the destination, and then neutralize the transmitter. We can't allow individuals on the surface to be able to identify our own presence here.”


“The transmitter is a modulated wormhole device, commander,” Ship replied. I can’t trace it without being able to slap my own wormhole around one end.”


“You have the transmitting end,” Sampson pointed out.


“I’m trying to trace this end,” Ship snapped. “But if I disturb this end too much, I’ll destroy the link before being able to trace it.” The lights around the edge of the bay flashed into red combat lighting, identifying Ship’s frustration. “Power output of the transceiver is stable. I’m ranging it. The only thing within range of the transmitter at this power level is the gas giant and the lunar surface, as well as a series of smaller rocky moons.”


“Scan the surface first,” Reid suggested.


“I’ve got the ventral scanner array imaging the smaller rocky moons, the long-range array imaging the gas giant, and the dorsal, port, and starboard arrays imaging the lunar surface,” Ship replied peevishly. “I’m localizing a transceiver power source on the planet’s surface. Primary continent, eastern coast. Terrine-On-The-Sea. Naval facility-“ there was a soft chime around them. “-localization complete. Neutralizing wormhole.”


There was a sizzle, blue light shone out from almost-invisible cracks across the surface of the device, and a large bang. Reid and Sampson both threw up their arms as a massive ball of fire erupted toward them- Reid’s reflexes immediately accelerated, keeping pace with the emerging fireball, until it seemed to be crawling toward him. He threw himself into a roll, seeing Sampson out of the corner of his eye doing the same. But Ship was too quick for either of them. Before the fireball had done any more than fully form inside the device, a haze surrounded it. The fireball erupted outward- and stopped approximately four feet away from the two men, rolling off the almost-transparent energy barrier before vanishing in another blaze of blue light even before the two of them hit the ground.



“That was my fault,” Ship said into the silence. “I probably should have checked for self-destruct systems when I brought it on board.” It paused. “Oh well, no harm done, and I did scan it for active threats. It must have been antimatter delivered via the collapsing wormhole.”


Reid was silent for a few seconds, sprawled on the deck. Finally, he glanced at the ceiling.


“How much antimatter?” he asked, his voice slightly shaken.


“Sixty grams,” the ship said cheerfully. “About two and a half megatons, explosive equivalent- nothing to worry about, I dispersed it into the sun.” It paused, and then- “So, does anyone want to know what I’ve found out?”


--


A soft chime rang out through the ill-lit room. To one side, a floor-to-ceiling window showed the M-class moon spinning under them, and off to one side, looming enormously, the gas giant. There was no other light than that reflected from the planetoids. McDonnell sat at her desk, black gloves folded and sitting in one corner, a data pad the size of a magazine in one hand. With the other, she was writing on the surface of the desk with a light pen.


“Come,” she commanded, not looking up from the desk. Her first officer entered, gazed around, and then walked over to the desk slowly.


“Sit,” she ordered absently, still tapping at the datapad in her left hand with the tip of the stylus. Finally, she looked up.


“You have your report for me, Commander?”


He nodded, and flicked a thought at her desk, transmitting a small file from his neural lace into her desk’s memory. A small starburst icon began flashing slowly at the top right hand corner of her desk, and she tapped it with the stylus. The starburst expanded, filling her desk with rotating diagrams, flickering lines of symbolic language, and pages of densely packed text.


“The ship is at silent running,” Delan said quietly, his gloved hands steepled in his lap as he gazed at her. “There’ve been no communications from any shipboard transceiver to the planet surface or to another unauthorized target that we’ve been able to detect. Fleet Command Centauri reports that a Xenology Support Team is on the way here; they’ve been dispatched from Sigma Lyrae, and they’ll enter the system in about two weeks. There’s been no authorized traffic in this system for the past fourteen months, although Lieutenant Hancock is not pleased with the sensor logs of this system- she’s re-scanning the system in depth. She’s requested permission to utilize the secondary sensor palettes, and I saw no reason not to assent to her request. Commander Sampson and Lieutenant Reid brought the Sword of Ascendant Right’s transceiver aboard the ship; they managed to track its transmission co-ordinates, but not before it self-destructed. The explosion was contained and vented without incident. The rest of the report is a standard ship status report- do you want me to continue?”


McDonnell pursed her lips.


“It’s not necessary,” she said finally. “I’ll review it later.” She glanced at her desk. “What does Ms. Hancock expect to find?”


“She told me,” Delan said, “Unofficially, that she was unhappy with the standard sensor sweeps- she was detecting some anomalies in the orbits of objects in this system. She believed that they indicated some gravitational phenomena in the system at some point in the recent past, likely a ship’s drive system.”


McDonnell looked up, and for the first time, she was slightly surprised.
“Anomalies in the orbits, hmm?” She smiled. “It seems Ms. Hancock is determined to make up for past mistakes,” she said, tapping her lips with one finger. Her smile vanished slowly, and then she tapped at her desk- it instantly went blank, and the data pad in her hand, as she set it down on the desk, also became blank.


“Arcturus, I’d like to take this conversation off the record, if I may.”


“Of course.” He leaned forward, resting his hands on the desk, his head tilted in mild query.


“They tracked the transmission source to a location on the planet?”


“Yes. A military facility near the harbour. Why?”


“No more exactly than that?”


“No,” Delan said. He leaned back, folding his arms, and raised one eyebrow. “Why, and why is this off the record?” He paused, and then his eyes filled with understanding. “He won’t like it. And he’s right, you know.”


“Oh?” McDonnell spread her hands across the desk surface, and glanced at him. “Look, Arcturus... I have a bad feeling about this. I don’t want to leave this system unprotected for two weeks. Not with this transmitter.”
She paused, and then flicked the datapad on again. “Look at this. This is a report from Xenology. They still haven’t been able to figure out how the Emissaries got their hands on that ship, Arcturus. Especially with the things...” She pushed the data pad across the desk.


Arcturus glanced at it- he recognized most of the data on it. It was from their xeonology archives- data retrieved from planetary security nets, encrypted planetary archives, media outlets. He flicked a fingernail at one item he recognized that had tugged at him, and watched the newsreel clip play silently- a particularly vicious purge of Emissary supporters in a northern village. It hadn’t been that unusual- except there had been no survivors- but there had been no bodies. The military had insisted they had burned them, but there weren’t any burn marks, either.


“What do you think is going on?” He finally asked, when the clip had finished and gone dark.


“I don’t know, Arcturus,” she said quietly. “I just think it bears more examining.”


Delan picked at his gloved fingers. “You’re the captain,” he said. “I don’t see-“


“Yes you do,” she snapped, pushing away from her desk and walking over to the window. It wasn’t really a window; her quarters were deep within the hull of the Pride of Albion. But it imitated one so well that no human could tell the difference, and she gazed out at it.


“Braxia may not be a Protected World, but that doesn’t change our responsibility to it. It’s within Terran-claimed space, so we have the responsibility to defend it against any extraterrestrial assault and prevent cultural contamination. Interference is only warranted in certain cases, and that’s for Fleet Xenology to deal with. There’s nothing here that indicates an emergency situation. And...” She glanced out the false-window.


“And I know as well as you,” Delan said quietly, “That not only do most interventions done on the fly go very badly wrong, but because of that, if you do this, you automatically become liable to lose your command.”


She nodded, her back to him.


“So tell me, Arcturus, am I doing the right thing?”
--

[Zarathos]

Hey, space opera with some military accents. I like it very, very much.

[Lord Squishy]

What I really need is editing. The story is not particularly internally consistent, sadly, even at this point.

I am writing a large chunk right now, however, so I shall post that sooner or later. The problem is that I am really too lazy to force myself to write. Once I finish writing this segment, I shall print it off and make the corrections on paper to be re-uploaded it...