“Alright ladies and gent, we’re outta here.” I stand up, set my coffee down and grab a cookie out of the bowl in the center of the table. “Tell your CSs that the cookies were great. I missed these.”
It’s been more than a year, but I still remember my way back to the aft machinery spaces, much to my escort’s frustration.
“Did you want us with you when you talk with the join chiefs?” Melissa asks.
“I would, for fairly obvious reasons. It’s up to both of you, however. I had originally thought you three would spend the time I’m dealing with various parts of the US Government to visit your families and . . . whatever you want to do.”
“Can you drop me in Canaveral so I can get my car back? I missed driving her so much.” Beecham asks. I chuckle at that and nod.
“I would like the chance to visit my grandparents,” Katie adds. We’d never spent a lot of time talking about our families, but I do know her extended family is in Ireland.
Melissa’s eyes are pleading for a chance to visit her parents.
“That settles it then. You three can drop me off over DC and I’ll call when I’m done. Mel, can Ophie pilot the shuttle herself?”
“Yes, we haven’t tried long-distance separation. You want her to keep the shuttle in orbit or something?”
“Yes please.”
There are two armed sailors at the airlock to my ship. I eye them suspiciously, but they don’t get in my way as I walk to the control panel. My surprise comes when they walk into the airlock with us. They walk to the other side and wait for me to open the door. Huh.
“You two are not getting on my ship. Especially not with guns.”
“We have orders to escort you to the Pentagon.” I walk away from the panel and up to the two Sailors and get right in their faces.
“I don’t care. You are not getting on my ship.” One of the two, takes a step back and sticks the barrel of his AR-15 in my face.
“I’m afraid we must insist.” I sigh and slump my shoulders for effect, pulling my scepter off my waist.
I jerk my hand without my face betraying the action, tapping the scepter against the barrel in my face, sundering the weapon to pieces. I shove the man in front of me and he instinctively raises his weapon for balance and purpose. I tap that one on the way up and the man stumbles, even more off balance.
“Excellent. Now unless you want to see what happens to you if I tap your hand, I suggest backing to the other side of the airlock and stay there until we leave.”
/Mel, can you operate that panel remotely?/
/I can. Opening the airlock now./
The next door on the way to my ship opens and we walk through. Mel shuts it again and locks the system down. We open the door to one of the cargo pods and disconnect from the Galileo.
“I respect their gumption, but that was annoying. I want to space their CO even more now.”
“I’m mildly surprised you didn’t,” Katie says, smiling slightly. I scoff at her.
“Okay. It’s finally time to go to Earth. Where to first?” She asks as she has Ophelia accelerate us toward the pretty blue marble.
“Me first, just a fly over Alexandria. I’ll EVA suit the rest of the way.”
Melissa laughs at that, “I forgot you can fly in that thing.”
I nod, “I’ll be using it a lot here, don’t want to show off the teleporting unless I need it.”
Melissa puts on a thinking face and fumbles with her pockets, pulling out a metal band. “I wasn’t sure when a good time to give you this would be, but as you have a hard time remote controlling devices without one . . .” she hands me the band, which has a hole in it the size of my wrist port. “I don’t know how well it will interface with your new changes, but Katie and I worked really hard on it, and we’d both like you to wear it.”
I give Katie a side eyebrow in question. She nods.
“It will create a mental link with me as well. With the shipboard ansible connected, we should be able to link up anywhere on Earth.”
I stare at the band for longer that I probably should have, the sting of Melissa reading my mind and hurting me with it scouring fresh pain in my mind. What ultimately makes me put it on is the guilty look on Mel’s face and that Katie said she wanted it too.
I slip it over my hand and align the circles and push until it clicks. At the click, the bracelet starts to change and form to my arm ending up looking like an etched steel bracer.
Melissa sags in relief, walking over to hug me and to say “thank you.” She hugs me in my mind too.
>P] Welcome to never being alone Kay.[<
>K] You’re welcome here anytime.[< Aww, that was adorable. Warm brain cuddles.
Katie smiles.
Tessa, is your interface with Indulgence any better.
Much. I’ve begun loading part of ourselves into the Navigation system. I will be testing how well I can utilize Parallel Minds.
That sounds awesome. Were you thinking about leaving part of us in Astoria as well?
I am. Linking through the ansible connections should prevent divergent consciousness from occurring.
There’s a conversation I never thought I’d have. Never mind me, sitting here chatting with my sentient symbiote. Totally normal human behavior.
“What about Beecham?”
“Oh, don’t worry, they gave me something that looks like one of those pop-out handles for the back of a smartphone. It’ll let me connect to the ship as soon as I get my stuff from the locker in Canaveral, if they didn’t toss it all.”
“I’ll be interested to see how hard it is to get set back up. I don’t intend to stay here for years, but I imagine I’ll be making regular trips. Having all of my stuff seized or disabled would be a hassle.”
At some point during my musings I end up sitting in Katie’s lap, running a hand through her hair. Andromeda is this relaxing. Mel ruins it moments later telling us to strap in for a warp.
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She puts us at the edge of the atmosphere and angles us to an air-braked re-entry. The ride is predictably rough until we point to preserve some speed as we re-orient toward Washington D.C. at Mach 2. I jump out of the back of the rear cargo pod as they turn away from the standoff zone around the Pentagon and I enjoy my brief free fall from 5 kilometers up.
I get a lot of amazed glances as I fly over Alexandria on my way to the Pentagon metro station. I land at the station to avoid getting shot at, but walking a mile in this EVA suit is not my favorite. When Tessa reminds me of the environment control capabilities of the suit my mood changes for the better.
As I walk up to security, they look nervous and put hands on weapons. Here’s hoping this doesn’t get dumb. “At ease gentlemen, I’m here for a meeting with the Chief of Naval Operations and he Joint Cheifs. Penelope Mercer? Maybe there’s a guest badge for me?”
One of the men walk into a booth and I hear telltale signs that he’s making a phone call. He comes back out with a clipboard and a badge. “Frank, stand down, they’re expecting her.”
“Ma’am, we’re going to need you to sign in.” Ma’am? Who did the flag officers say was coming.
“I’m going to take off my gloves so I can. Okay.” I aim that statement at Frank. Uncoupling the gloves and hanging them from my belt from loops on the inside of the glove, I grab the pen and the clipboard. Name, company, purpose of visit. Penny Astoria, Astorian Imperial Navy, Joint Chiefs meeting. That’s pretty fun to write out.
When I get to the building itself, theirs a corporal in the Army there to meet me. He greets me like a visiting dignitary instead of a fellow enlisted, so that’s the first sign that the government is taking me seriously. I like it. I get a sudden rush of memories of studying here with Katie for a week.
>P] I’m really glad I met you Kay. Pentagon’s making me all nostalgic.[<
>K] Love you too.[< She sends warm brain fuzzies. I like this whole emotional text thing.
“Is there anything you need for the meeting? Pen, clipboard?”
“No thanks. They have drink glasses in there right?” He nods. “I’ll be fine then. Thanks Corporal.”
He salutes, executes a crisp about face, and marches back down the hall.
I knock on the conference room door and let myself in. Seated around the table are some of the most powerful people in the country. Seven four-star admirals and generals, some mixed other officers, and a cook managing a buffet table? What the hell kind of meeting is this?
One of the Generals saw me eyeball the buffet and gestured for me to help myself, not interrupting the other conversations in the room. I pick a cup of coffee, a drink glass and one of the sushi displays. I set the cutting board at the empty position at the table, set my coffee down and fill my drink cup with aether-infused juice.
The room had gone silent when I set the food down, but the general that waved me to the buffet waited until I sat to address me. I like his manners.
“Miss Mercer. Thanks for meeting us, though the speed at which you arrived has us somewhat unprepared.” I look around, incredulous. Unprepared?
“No worries General. I haven’t had real coffee in three years. Thank you for the unexpected effort. I prefer Penny Astoria to Mercer these days.”
He nods at that and makes a note. “The Joint Chiefs and I heard your report and want to talk about the first contact scenario and what that might mean for America. Naval Reactors called some of his compatriots in the other services to ask you questions as well.”
“The food makes sense now.” I chuckle, adding a tasty morsel of fish to my maw. I would have moaned if I wasn’t in “Empress” mode.
“Yes. We understand that you have alien technology in your body, and apparently that suit as well.” Ah, I see where they’re going.
“Yes, as you may have heard, an automated waypoint drone at the edge of commonly patrolled space found us in its sector and identified us as a new species of sentient life. Their protocol is to preserve said life and add it to the Andromeda Supercluster Development System.” Sorry Andromeda, humans have a thing about the word “Matrix”
“When we awoke, they identified Military, Intellectual, and Community leaders to make a decision as to whether to accept the System swarm. Morris accepted the swarm for himself and denied it to the crew. Doctor Francesca Summers accepted on behalf of the scientific community, and I accepted on behalf of myself. I tried to accept for the whole crew, but I was told that the military made decisions for military members. All the sailors and former sailors I brought back have some version of the swarm that allows them access to the System.”
“Did Morris know something the two of you didn’t?” The CNO asks.
“No. He just didn’t want to risk losing his power base to a crew full of video-gaming min-maxers. Not that he had to worry about that. The three identified leaders of a species get some extra benefits that keep us a little bit ahead.”
“What kind of benefits?” one of the scientists asks.
“Not currently relevant to your understanding of the System.” I hedge and eat some more to temper the rate of questions.
“What are your and your team’s plans now that you’re back?” A gruff looking Army-general asks.
“Good question. I plan to do some work for the Navy in exchange for peacefully releasing our contracts. I plan to build a communication tower to connect to a relay I placed 300 light years away, and I plan to introduce Humanity at large to the System. After that, I plan on going back to my planet and manage a new colony as a space-faring humanity. My crew has parallel aims and intend to return to my planet as well. The ones I dropped off on Galileo? I’m not negotiating for them.”
“What did they do?”
“Threw a tantrum and left my community. I promised to bring them back to Earth and as far as I’m concerned I fulfilled that promise.”
“What is this ‘System’?” The Airforce General asks, leaning forward for a clear view to stare at me.
“Also a good question, probably the best one. If you’ve read any GameLit, or RPG literature that was popular in Scifi and Fantasy, that’s a close approximation. The System is an attempt to quantify personal and community growth in a numeric and tangible way. Unlike video games, there are not finite options, your first few levels of behavior help shape what options you will be offered for development in the future. The System is managed by something called a Forum, consisting of senior members the Andromeda Supercluster community. One of the biggest resources the System brings is the System Exchange where basic subsistence items can be bought as well as a marketplace for products to be bought and sold across multiple galaxies.”
“Is that where you bought that suit?”
“It is! It’s Orbital insertion capable. Very fancy.”
No one really knows what to say about Orbital Insertion, so they largely ignore it.
“Can we deny the swarm? And if we do, can we get it later?” Another scientist asks.
“Yes, you can. I’m relatively certain that military leaders like you can deny access to those below you in the hierarchy, like Morris did, but I am uncertain how it works for civilian authorities. To answer your second question, yes. I re-inoculated the people I brought back to Earth.”
“What’s stopping us from arresting you and throwing you in a hole?” There it is. Some axe wound of a human asks.
“Common sense. Why would you alienate an asset that has spent three years with alien technology that you have no idea what technology level I have access to.”
“Can we study your ship?”
“No, and I won’t be surrendering any of my gear. I might be convinced to part with a few sundering tools, but otherwise I intend to conserve my resources for my Solar System. To make this simpler, I’m mostly here as a courtesy. I would have preferred to have this meeting with multiple world leaders, but hey. Joint Chiefs is a good start for my first day back.”
The conversation breaks down to some inane questions and a few veiled threats. CNO and Naval Reactors ask me to schedule another meeting with them privately before the Joint Chiefs leave and leave me to the mercy of their nerds.
I answer a lot of questions about the planets I found on the way here and any military applications my technology has created. I tell them about the plasma bombs and light sabers, but I leave out my plasma rifle as it is outside of the tech level humanity will have once the System goes live here.
I eat a lot of their food.
At the end of the third hour, I call it. I’m done for the day. I tell them to contact me through the CNO’s office if they want to ask more questions. Speaking of that office, I walk around the ‘Gon until I get to his office and find his secretary.
The Sailor hands me a packed manila envelope and asks me if I have time in the afternoon two days from now, saying he has a meeting at the White House tomorrow. I thank him and say that the afternoon works.
I open the folder in the courtyard to find a reservation at a local hotel, a contract with BAE ship systems, a contract from BAE hiring me for the thruster job for 10 million over three ships that I had apparently signed, and a location in the south pacific with a signed lease agreement. The lease agreement has a note that says to leave the communications equipment alone. I pick up the folder to put the papers back in when I feel a weight at the bottom.
A shiny smart phone wrapped with a piece of notepad paper lies at the bottom, and the paper slides off the phone as soon as I grab it. It’s a hand-written list of things that were reactivated now that I’ve been found. I power up the phone and see that Find My Phone is installed and it already has the CNO and Naval Reactors on the contact list. I text the CNO, thanking him for the follow-through.