Katie holds my hand as we walk around waiting for Svetlana to arrive. She has comments for my changes, mostly good, and my only defense was that I was in a rush and didn’t spend too much time considering anything but the lodging and green spaces.
“Those inner docks aren’t very practical honey. It’s how you get another Pearl Harbor. I get the idea of safety from the ocean, but you should have some external docks as well, especially for the carrier. Can I make some changes?”
I squeeze her hand and bump her shoulder, “Of course Kay, you are the logistics expert afterall.”
She takes twenty minutes and transforms the south east section of the atoll. Widening Bikini Island and connecting it to Enyu was her first task, creating a moderately sized dockyard on Bikini with an associated airfield for small aircraft. She also connected the unnamed southern strip of island (where we put our ansible and lounge workshop) with a small dock and a landing pad.
“There, that should help us have a base here and have an immigrant station that don’t have to mix.”
“We’ll still need a shield emitter for where I put the gate.”
“Mmm, I made a pavilion for that, just put up the shield when you put up the gate.”
I salute her. “Yes Ma’am.”
“You’re such a twit,” she smiles and shoves me over.
I laugh, looking up at her from the sand, “you love me though.”
“I do, what insanity has touched me?”
“Ruuude”
She helps me up as we walk toward the docks.
“I’ve told the Russian cruiser and the US carrier that they have permission to dock. Are the ships inside the ring okay where they are?”
“They’ll ask if they want to move, I’m more worried about the small fleet of ships Svetlana brought. More than that, I hate to think about what Morris and Zhao are doing with the atrocities they’ve been allowing.”
“Don’t worry about those two for right now. I have a plan and it takes a little setting up before I can tell you the plan, communications insecurity and all that.” She waves a hand dismissively , which makes me want to ask even more questions. BUT, I trust her, so if she’s got a plan that she can’t talk about yet, I’ll wait.
Twenty minutes later we’re sitting at a small food court with picnic tables and an Exchange terminal for order and delivery. I sit with my legs tied up in hers because it’s been too long. I would sit across her lap, but apparently that’s not for public.
“Do you want to talk about Copernicus?”
“Not today Penny. Maybe not for a while? I don’t want to be involved in another boarding operation, though, like ever.” I nod at that. I’d like it if she never saw trauma like that again. “I get why you never wanted those annihilation torpedoes built, though. Disappeared the whole ship. Any idea where they go?”
“I have my theories, but no concrete proof. We’ve proven that the warp continues along the last vector of momentum, if the warp completes. For the Brahe and Kepler, the warp completed but the explosion and implosion dynamics were chaotic so the remainder could be scattered at one location if the reaction was finished, or at several if the reaction continued. If the reaction was in-progress in non-dimensional space, then it’s likely it was converted to energy and re-formed as a spontaneous release of matter and anti-matter. Things get really strange when energy density is that high. Some of the largest stars can create an energy density that destroys black-hole creation, which is where I got the idea for this type of propulsor.”
She looks at me with more concern than interest, and that worries me.
“Penny, you had to annihilate those two ships as well?”
Oh, yeah, that. I sigh. “Yeah. They took shots at me while I was in my shuttle and kept advancing on the Galilei while we were trying to rescue their crew. So I lit them up.” She reaches across the table and grabs my hands.
I start tearing up at the compassion, realizing what I did, and framing it in a way that I was forced to act the way I did. I still feel like a monster, but at least a lovable monster now.
“I’m trying not to think about it, or I might not be able to function. I didn’t know I’d be killing 73 million people with the swarms, but I knew, I knew I would be killing hundreds of people that were in a shit situation because their command staff told them to. But I couldn’t just blip over and kill their Captains, it takes more than one person to keep a ship working, to fight and fire torpedoes. But how much choice did they have when the only place they could reliably shuttle was to the ISS or the Moon?”
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“Penny. Don’t spend too much time second guessing your actions. Things went to shit here on Earth. You can’t control that. The CO’s of those ships are responsible for the lives that they wasted.” She squeezes my hands in reassurance.
I appreciate the sentiment, and understand that I shouldn’t hold all of the responsibility, but I did chose to save 73 prisoners instead of more than 500 Sailors.
“I also know that there was never really a moment where I could have stopped Morris from doing what he did. But we can now. So can you tell me about this plan yet?”
“Sorry, honey, not yet. I got Tessa’s buy in though if that helps.”
I scoff, “Katie, I trust you completely, I just don’t like not knowing.”
“Just remember that if you ever decide to leave me in the dark.” She smirks at me with her damn sexy teeth.
We chat about city-running stuff for a while when she reminds me that I need to eat to be at full strength tonight. I waggle my eyebrows and order a mass of aether-rich foods and drink. When I’m about halfway through, Svetlana strolls up the pier with her Mafia Models in tow. She grabs my beer and takes a long drag before the Aether hits her. Hey, I labeled the bottles, not my fault she didn’t read it first.
She drops the bottle and it thunks to the concrete slab, dribbling my precious peach-colored liquid. The blond Russian looks as she’s preparing for an unexpectedly epic poop. Nope, vomit—beer comes right back up.
“Wow, you must have hit half the bottle. I understand training for Astoria, but I would have suggested an extended stay on Mercy first.”
“What did you do to her, bitch?!” Brunette model accuses.
“I need an aether-rich environment to live. Normal humans have not been exposed to any appreciable amount. That particular beer is my favorite for keeping up my Aether in the afternoon. Your boss there, probably has aether sickness.”
“Did you two have an interaction I should know about?” Katie asks.
“I called her to see if she could talk to a group of admirals and help stabilize the US. She decided she wanted to talk down to me and call me bunny. This was probably to tell me that she can take whatever she wants from me, or some macho bullshit.”
“Hmm. Perhaps it is because I warned her against angering you when we were last here. This is probably a safer interaction for her. Penny’s explanation is correct. I advise against consuming anything she eats herself. Safer that way. Either that or get an inspect skill.”
“Well, ladies, would you like to talk business, or should we get your boss to her temporary quarters to rest?”
“Will she die?”
“Not from this, no.” I assure them, transporting another beer to the table and throwing back the stopper with a tink.
“Then we should talk. You asked for more than the 150 immigrants to help with a situation. We would like to know the situation.” The brunette sneers as her platinum counterpart lifts Svetlana and drapes her over the end of the table.
“Sounds great. But first, a head’s up.” I order a small bottle of my favorite juice. “Pace a bottle of this over a full day until we launch for Astoria. On Mercy, we will start working up to more until Astoria won’t hurt you. We have a Botanist that can give you more information once we get there.”
I hand it to the platinum one and she opens ands sniffs the bottle. Shrugs, takes a sip and waits. “Is good, but tingles in my mouth and stomach.”
“Perfect. Space that out over 12-14 hours and you should do just fine. That plus staying on Mercy for a few weeks should acclimate you.”
“I will tell the crew. You have enough of this?”
“Send me their ID’s and I’ll add it to their rations. As soon as you become Astorians, that is.”
The Platinum blonde rolls her eyes, “Yes, fine. Miss Katie explained this to us. As Lieutenant, I agree for our crew to your citizenship requirements for living in your Empire.” Seconds later Tessa runs through the menus and voila, 153 people added as citizens. I bring up an Exchange menu to adjust their rations and adjusted timeframe and close out my windows.
“Done. Today’s meals will come with one bottle of juice.” I stab a piece of meat and chomp on it while I think for a second. “As for the other ask. The US has broken up into warlord-style city-states after the rather cleanly executed assassinations of the entire chain of succession.” I nod at them for a tidy job. “The problem is, the military is the only organization that has remotely stuck together, and none of the men in charge know how to supply and consolidate a broken country.”
“And you think that because we are Russian, we know this?”
“No, Its because you are a Russian organized crime syndicate that I think you know this. Katie knows your operation better than I do, but you get things done without too many people knowing who did it. That’s going to be a hot commodity with as tarnished as their name is.”
“They’re not in a position to shake their consumer markets and wallets at people anymore either. There will be a lot of money to be made in transport and supply businesses in the developing North American Landscape.”
“Yes, I like this. Transport bodies, transport supplies, possibly drugs. We would need to purchase a shuttle. Sustainable air transport like you have. We should wait to talk pricing until . . .”
She was interrupted by a terrible screeching in my brain accompanied by an uncomfortable resonance inside my skull. I pop my emergency shield ring and it lessens it, but not to a degree that I can think straight. I look up to see that Katie’s only mildly uncomfortable and she taps her ears in response. I morph a plug in each of my ear canals and the pain recedes to a buzzing against my body. I attempt a telepathic comm to Katie and I hear nothing but static. She shakes her head, telling me not to try again. She does get up and sit beside me on the bench, straddling it so she can hold me.
I wonder what that’s all about when I see a streak through the sky heading off toward the South Pacific. Katie feels me try to stand up and holds me even tighter, shaking her head into my shoulder. Why would she try to hold me here?
Oh, oh no. I shift to look Katie in the eyes, she doesn’t look at me so I raise her chin. For a brief moment I see guilt, but it is quickly stomped out by resolve. She nods at me then and my jaw creaks open. She dropped a torpedo from orbit. That’s why the comms dark, why she wouldn’t explain it to me and why Tessa didn’t contact me from Alaris.
I pull Katie’s leg up and pull her into my lap so I can hold her back. In less than two minutes, the noise stops. I normalize my ear canals to check and hear nothing. The few people I can see are passed out on the ground. I call in my suit and see if I need to pull anyone out of the water.