October 3rd, 2262. 15:35 St. Mary’s Commercial District – Happy’s Lounge

John had been wearing a smug grin. It was wearing on Alice. Of course, she had to ask why Smug-John had emerged in the morning when she first noticed his attitude. While it was no surprise that John was getting promoted, nothing official had come of it. John had heard rumors that it was being pushed back four to five months.

Clearly, that was not the case. Strings, it appeared, were pulled to push forward with that promotion. Five years ago, that would have been unheard of to happen. But now the higher-ups seemed to at a minimum tolerate or possibly even like him.

“Ugh. John, I love you but my god. That smug grin of yours needs to leave your face.”

“But…”

Alice interrupted him and shook her head, “No buts, that smugness needs to disappear.”

“Fine. I’ll bring it back for the crew tomorrow.”

“You may mention that. But the smugness stays hidden.”

John began to pout, “Funsucker.”

“Ohhhh, are you really going there,” Alice spun and cocked her head as she looked up at him?

“Noooo,” John kicked his foot on the ground and grinned.

“God, I married a man child,” Alice took a drink, “So what’s the plan for the weekend?”

“Well, the rest of the Des Moines’ senior staff, well what accounted for the senior staff, is returning between now and the morning. We’re going to have a long lunch tomorrow.”

Alice giggled, “Yeah, long lunch my ass. Why don’t you just say, ‘We’re going to eat, drink and bullshit all day.’”

“Yeah, we’re basically going to eat, drink, and bullshit. Likely in that order. And then drink some more.”

Alice smiled as she shook her head, “Anyways, how does this lounge have such great views?”

“They weren’t supposed to put these windows in. The back walls of all the shops have to be vacuum rated. Transparent ceramite does that trick well. Six panels were all it took to make the back look out at the greenspace and the void beyond it.”

“Oh, I heard from Kristin. They got recalled to duty the morning of the first day of their honeymoon.”

“Oof, that had to suck.”

“They are going to spend a week at a resort on Eridani Prime when they rotate back home. On the military’s dime too.”

John smiled, “Nice, they got to expense the full price of the honeymoon and get a refund on it? That’s very sneaky.”

Alice smiled as she looked behind John. He was busy staring out at the green space and enjoying his drink. She also enjoyed seeing him startled when he heard the voices behind him.

“Holy hell, he survived the political hell that is D.C.,” a familiar male voice said.

“Oh my god girl, you are devious,” the woman said while laughing.

John almost spilled his drink. He quickly set his drink down and jumped out of his chair. He ran around the chair and hugged Kevin. Alice did the same to Theresa but was much more elegant than the ‘bull-in-a-China-shop’ routine John did as he pushed tables and chairs out of his way.

“What the hell are y’all doing here?” John exclaimed.

“The Mayflower docked here. We were heading back to Lalande, but we got new orders to restock here. That means three days of shore leave.”

John grinned as he looked at Alice, “You knew I presume?”

Alice nodded, “Yeah, Theresa let me know they were coming. I may have fibbed a little during the planning of this.”

“Well, that is a welcome surprise. We got a spare room at our place so it’s all yours.”

Theresa smiled, “She’s a step ahead of you.”

John waived over the bartender before looking at his friends, “Of course she is. So how many deployments is this?”

“Wrapping up number four. I never thought we’d ever be ahead of you in anything,” Kevin laughed.

A server came over and took the additional couple’s drink orders. They then took their seats. John had that grin on his face again.

“Oh god Kevin, you brought that out again,” Alice rubbed her forehead, “I literally just got rid of him too.”

“Got the papers this morning. Second Lieutenant effective on the first,” John leaned back in his chair and had a very smug look about him.

“Still got three deployments on you,” Kevin ribbed John back immediately.

Theresa then asked, “So if I have read the papers and followed the story correctly, the inquest is at an end now, right?”

Kevin nodded, “No punishment for anyone, but lots of warnings for current officers.”

John shrugged, “It’s a little more nuanced than that. Blame was laid squarely on the top three or four officers on each ship. Too damn many people died for glory.”

“Crazy thing that y’all accidentally uncovered a bigger plot,” Theresa said, “They didn’t get into the specifics of what it was though.”

“Classified, but confirmed to be utterly terrifying,” John grinned, “Hey, did y’all see Alice punch the fuck out of the princess?”

Kevin almost spilled his drink he was laughing so hard, “Dude, that… was… awesome!”

“Seriously, you guys are every bit as bad as my brothers,” Alice scoffed, “Did you see Markie’s message?”

John laughed, “I did. That was hilarious.”

Alice shook her head disapprovingly at John.

Theresa sheepishly took a drink and then said, “He’s kinda right. It was badass.”

“I bet they’ve been real peaches to deal with,” Kevin chuckled to himself.

John nodded, “Yeah, but I got a hunch we’re not going to have to deal with them again.”

“Oooh, do tell,” Theresa looked very eager to hear the story.

“Should we?” Alice looked around the bar.

“Big mom was the first one to come to their senses. Pretty sure the rest are falling in line because of her. We are good now,” John grinned, “Oh, hey the old crew is getting together tomorrow. I need to introduce you two to Stumpy.”

Alice rolled her eyes at hearing that nickname. Kevin and Theresa were confused. Doubly so because John was so excited about saying that.

“Who?” Theresa asked.

“John, please let me handle this one,” Alice put a finger on his lips, “One of his department co-workers on the Des Moines lost an arm…”

“Temporarily, they already grew a new one back for him,” John interrupted.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“Zip it, ass,” Alice said curtly, “Then, during his recovery, he calls him Stumpy. In the middle of an emergency, he makes fun of someone losing an arm.”

“Let me guess, the name stuck,” Kevin said with a barely contained smirk.

“Yeah, it sure did.”

Theresa started to laugh, “Alice, honey, I am sorry. But as wrong as that is, it’s funny as hell.”

“I know,” Alice said painfully, “It’s fucking hilarious because it's so wrong.”

“Yeah, the ladies on the ship were pretty horrified too. The marines kept stopping by CNC for him to rub their hair for good luck,” John laughed before taking a drink.

“You are so horrible,” Alice took a drink.

“Here’s to old friends,” John raised a toast for them.

The group raised their glasses and took a drink. Smiles were on all their faces. Then John’s face scrunched up and he started laughing.

“What are you laughing at?” Kevin asked.

“Oh hell, so anyways, I want y’all to meet Stumpy because he is literally Andern 2.0. It’s scary how similar they are.”

“No one can be like that. The universe cannot possibly allow more than one person to be like,” Kevin gestured, “Him.”

Theresa was giggling, “How did someone with that little drive and motivation make it through the academy.”

“Miracles abound,” Alice answered sarcastically, “Kristin said that despite his, slothfulness, he’s been doing pretty well. Both of them got notices that their promotions will occur sometime next year.”

“A May announcement is the earliest for us,” Kevin rolled his eyes, “Excepting the big guy for obvious reasons.”

John nodded his head, “Yup.”

“Is that normal to get notices that far ahead of time?” Theresa looked at John for the answer.

“Depends on the CO,” John said before taking a drink and leaning back in the chair, “Some are more forthcoming. Barring anyone completely shitting the bed I’d be surprised if y’all were promoted by this time next year.

“Thomas got transferred to a new ship unexpectedly. Apparently, they were overstaffed. He’s in the process of getting moved over to a newish battlecruiser. Can’t remember the class or name of it though.”

Theresa smiled, “Jess is doing well. She’s dating someone that owns some commercial space on the station she’s based. Seems to be doing well.”

“I haven’t heard from Brian at all,” John said, “Did hear from everyone else though.”

“That’s a weird one. Sucked that he had to ship off that quickly,” Kevin said.

“Brian sent me a message that he felt we had betrayed him for not shutting the party down for him,” Theresa shrugged, “Not really sure what we could have done though.”

John shook his head and was clearly upset at hearing that, “I thought we knew him better. Cancel the party and then do what? The party did basically shut down temporarily. I got him a car to get back to the academy right away. Ah well.”

“Speaking of the crew, Nathan is bored as hell of weapons drills,” Theresa said laughing.

“I don’t blame him. At least I get to bark orders during the few I took part in,” John said, “That ship of his has a whole lotta badass guns though.”

The couples continued with their conversation for a couple more hours before they left the lounge to find a place to have dinner. The mood was jovial. How could it not? They were on a staycation of sorts. Good friends showed up unexpectedly, and people that went through the same fire John did were arriving back over the next day.

If John looked hard enough there were always signs of things moving forward in a good way. Some days it was hard to look that closely. On this day it was impossible to not see how good things were going. What could possibly change that?

Somewhere, Someplace

Dr. Norman was sitting at the head of a long table. Several scientists were present along with a Special Agent of the Mercantilist Union’s Intelligence Services. The agent clearly didn’t want to be there and wasn’t paying attention to the conversation.

“I must again state how uncomfortable I am discussing these results with him here,” a scientist said as he looked in the agent’s way.

The agent wasn’t looking at the rest and had his feet up on the table. He was playing a game on his tablet. A sigh could be heard from him.

“I don’t care what you are doing here. Say what you want, it’s in one ear and out the other.”

Dr. Norman leaned forward and rested his chin on his fists, “The agent and I have come to an agreement. They won’t be made aware of what the government considers questionable research material.”

“Fine. We have still not been able to completely decipher everything we got from our former friends in the Draconis system. What we have been able to recover is that their clones did achieve psychic abilities after heavily modifying the DNA of the test subject.”

“I presume there were complications?”

“The success rate was quite low. Flash aging also induced significant problems. The life expectancy on these clones would be no more than four, maybe five years. There was also an extreme variability in psychic capabilities.”

“Interesting. They were successful in cloning a person with psychics. We should review their work and improve upon it.”

“And that’s our problem,” another scientist said, “The data dump we received didn’t include the specifics of how they got to that, only their results. Scans of the remaining data do not suggest or call out the specific steps they took in the received data.”

A third scientist spoke up, “And that it is to be expected, sir. There were two data drops that we put into place. A day before their technical drop was to occur, they were attacked.”

“Do we have any idea how they accomplished it?” Dr. Norman signed.

“No, we don’t know where they spliced or adjusted the genetic material. Not to pile on more, but if we move forward with this plan of action, we will use up all of our remaining stock of his genetic material that we have on site.”

“Attacking him once more will be difficult but not impossible. You have my permission to continue with the research. Use as much of the material as you need to.”

The scientists nodded and left the room. The special agent continued to play on his tablet. His disinterest in such a meeting was unrivaled. He waited to speak up after the last scientist left the room.

“Attacking Lief is out of the question by the way. Not even your trump card is getting by the security they have set up. And you know he’s coming hard and fast at her the moment she shows up anywhere near him,” the agent tossed his tablet on the table and spun his chair to face the doctor, “Were the Intelligence Service hear you have started genetic experimentation again they’ll come down on you. Now is the time to play smart, not hard.”

“Special Agent Erikson, no need for threats. But he is…”

The agent interrupted him, “Is off limits. For now, at least. I have a kill package that will burn you should anything untoward happen to me.”

“You wound me suggesting that I…”

Dr. Norman was once again interrupted though much more rudely this time around, “Cut the shit. The central government, merchant’s guild, and my organization do not want any aggression with the Confederates at this time. Thanks to the Alliance they are itching at a chance for their pound of flesh. Even with those fancy weapons, you’ve provided us we’re no match for their full might.”

Dr. Norman spun his chair to the side and looked out at the garden world their research center was located, “Very well. I will pause any attempts to capture him. However, that goes out the window if he’s outside of Confederate territory.”

The agent’s head bounced back and forth before turning into a node, “Acceptable. Now, when are we going to get those psychic amplifiers? We have four teams we’d like to give them to in our special forces.”

“If we had any clue how Lief had modified his we’d be done. The problem we’re running into is psychic backlash. It's better now than it was before, but it’s still very dangerous to the user.”

“What of the ones you’ve given your pet?”

“Bespoke and tailored specifically for her biology and capabilities. They won’t be of any use to anyone else, or at the very least, not to anyone that doesn’t have similar capabilities.”

“You have until the end of the year to deliver functional designs. We expect revisions after the fact, but we cannot brook any further delays.”

“As a show of good faith, I will have Dr. Nielsen’s team move over to this project. Is this acceptable to your superiors?”

“Yes,” the agent nodded, “Now then sir, how close are you to actually cloning him? This song and dance were obviously staged.”

“How I wish it were so,” Dr. Norman spun his chair and looked squarely at the agent, “We did not receive the technical data drop. As a result, we are aware of their results but not precisely how they got to that point. We’ve extrapolated a precious few things from the data we recovered. Unfortunately, the specific gene sequences they modified and what they replaced them with are unknown to us at this time.”

“And computer modeling will only help so much?”

“Their cloning technology was shockingly advanced; it pains me a bit to say it was greater than ours. But it was clear they introduced serious errors in getting that breakthrough to occur. Our computer models have not been successful in recreating anything they have done.”

The agent stood up, “Understood. I need to have a convo with my boss. I’ll let him know about the transition of one team from the research division to partner with the practical teams. We’ll chat again in a few days,” they turned around and paused for a moment, “Also, I’ll need access to their workspace. I’ll need to provide my superiors a report on my firsthand views.”

“I will have Adria clear you into that laboratory. I must remind you though, that the other labs are not open to you.”

After the agent left the room Lisa walked into the meeting room. The door behind her sealed shut perfectly, no one there could have been aware of the private room concealed in plain sight. Lisa looked outraged.

“Father, send me after him. Our team…”

Dr. Norman halted Lisa’s plea in its place with a single gesture, “I hate to agree with the agent here. But even with our friends in high places there, they’ve been unable to change the security arrangements that First Fleet has in place. There are too many layers to go through. He’s also not wrong about the political environment. The Alliance’s aggression has sadly thrown a wrench into our grand plans.”

“The royals got near him though. Why wouldn’t wee?”

“They got there because of their stature, you are well known to that world and station. You won’t be able to achieve the same access as they did. I am told however that his new assignment could be advantageous for us though.”

“How so?”

“His new assignment, according to our source, will have him on a cruiser that takes frequent trips into pirate space,” Dr. Norman grinned.

“Clever father. We’re free to attack him there.”

“I need you to broker deals with the pirate factions in that area. Take one of the corvettes. I’ve already messaged them ahead of time.”

Lisa nodded and exited the room. She was smiling. She figured it would be only a matter of time until the time of her revenge. She was lusting over the chance to beat him down to within an inch of his life.

Dr. Norman smiled. His plan was slowly coming together. The idiots that were sponsoring them in the Mercantilist Union government were inching him bit by bit towards his ultimate goal. Only a bit more planning and a tiny bit of luck and he’d have the lynchpin in his custody. Then his life’s work could be achieved.