“So,” Deepti asked, “Is this live?”
David looked up from his display and nodded once. “Yeah, about as close as we can get it. I figure maybe a second of latency? We have to keep the signal pretty low-power to blend in with normal station comm traffic.”
Deepti nodded and fished her fingers through a bowl on the small desk, coming up with a few peanuts that she popped in her mouth. She chewed thoughtfully while she watched the screen on which two figures in Valkyrie armor were scanning a bare hangar bay for signs of movement. The bay was uncomplicated and cramped compared to the sweeping station docks, a truly utilitarian facility composed of clean lines and unadorned metal bulkheads.
“Stop that,” David protested. “Don’t just steal the peanuts.” He pressed a few buttons on his display, shifting the screen to show about a dozen Kitan soldiers crouched behind a makeshift barricade in a hallway, rifles nervously trained on a sealed and hastily welded blast door several tens of meters away. A few of them looked up in consternation as an announcement broadcast over the station speakers, but the audio on the display wasn’t good enough to hear what it was saying.
Deepti grabbed another handful of peanuts with a token crispy grain wafer from the bowl of snack mix, then prodded the screen with a finger. “That looks like an ambush. Did we ping the assault team and let them know?”
David sighed, leaning forward to wipe crumbs and salt off of the display. “No touching,” he grumbled. “And we don’t need to let them know, we’re working with real tech on the outside for once. Suit HUDs are already hooked into the station internals and all that. They’ve got overlays for every soldier, every floor plan, all the critical systems on the station, etcetera etcetera.”
“Ooh, neat,” she said, pulling up a chair to watch. The waiting Kitan forces flinched in unison as something heavy impacted the blast door. Flakes of metal scattered to the deck as the fresh welds cracked under the force of the blow. “Doesn’t seem very fair, though,” she observed.
“Who would fight fair?”, David scoffed. “You want Anja and her lizard goon squad to stand in the open and let them go shot for shot?” Another thundering impact visibly distorted the door and caused it to bulge inward. Behind the barricades, the soldiers shifted uneasily and glanced up at the intercom speakers, still broadcasting their indistinct message. “This isn’t a game of tiddlywinks, those Kita would gladly kill them given the chance. So we don’t give them the chance.”
Deepti tousled David’s greying hair. “So ruthless,” she smirked. “I sometimes forget that lurking under this mild-mannered exterior lies a cold-hearted and evil-”
“Oh, shush,” David retorted, smiling despite himself. “Everyone knows you’re the one with the killer instinct.” He gave her a quick peck on the cheek and moved the bowl of snack mix to his lap. “Now be quiet and watch. They’re about to break through.”
She nodded and pulled out her tablet, tapping a few buttons. A chair materialized behind her, and when she sat in it a bowl of salted peanuts dropped lightly into her lap. They both leaned in expectantly, watching as the final blows landed on the overstressed blast door.
There was a pause. A truly horrifying screech of rending metal issued from the display, followed by shouts of alarm and a disconcerting wet noise.
“Oh, wow,” Deepti said with a grimace as she watched the action unfold. “Did she just…”
“Yep,” confirmed David with a grin.
They sat silently for a few more seconds, muffled crashes and tinny screams coming from the display.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Deepti announced, hurriedly standing to rush from the room.
David kept his eyes glued to the screen, reaching a hand back to steal her abandoned bowl of peanuts. He ate a few, then reached for an earpiece.
“Rhuar, you watching this?”, he asked.
“Fuck yeah,” came Rhuar’s answer a moment later. “Like I’d miss Jesri using a half-ton blast door to-”
“Yep, I saw,” David said. “Listen, it gave me a funny idea but we’re going to have to be quick about it. You’ve got the ship hooked into the station network, right?”
“Ah, yeah,” Rhuar replied. “What do you want me to send you?”
David laughed, shaking his head. “Nothing. Here’s what I need you to do…” He laid out his plan quickly, and by the end Rhuar was chuckling along with him.
“You’re an evil bastard,” Rhuar replied when he had finished. “How are you the same person as our David from the Grand Design?”
David stretched and settled back in his chair. “I’ve asked the same question in reverse a few times. What do you think, can you make it work?”
“I’ll set it up, but any fun I’m about to have is on your conscience.” Rhuar said. “Give me a minute.”
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“Attention. Attention. You are trespassing on the property of the Terran Naval Logistic Command. Drop all carried items immediately and assume a face-down position on the deck to await detention by security personnel. Non-compliance will be met with lethal force. Attention. Attention…”
The voice droned on. They had activated the station’s security lockdown as soon as they were in the dock, for all the good it did them. Most of the doors were either forced open or welded shut by the occupying Kita, so the primary consequence of the lockdown was an annoyingly officious warning on repeat that the garrison soldiers evidently weren’t listening to.
At least, this group hadn’t. Jesri shook her gauntlet, sending a few stray drops of blood flying from the hydrophobic surface. The hallway was a veritable abattoir behind them with nearly fifteen soldiers from the garrison lying mangled and broken. With full Valkyrie armor the defending forces could do little to stop them, a fact which Jesri found satisfying and disquieting in equal measure.
The disquiet held the advantage for the moment. This was more of a slaughter than a fight. The Ysleli certainly didn’t mind, judging from their high spirits after the first encounter. Weeks of miserable training with Anja had finally paid off and now they were the avatars of bloody War itself sweeping down-
A shot flashed against her armor, mitigated by a cloud of reactive plasma that flared in tandem with its impact. Cursing herself for her distraction, Jesri whipped her rifle up and returned fire at a group of three Kita that had popped out of a doorway down the hall. She tagged two of them with center-mass shots, instantly fatal. The third was hit by a hail of Ysleli fire and collapsed beside his comrades with wisps of steam curling up from his corpse.
She scanned her squad for injuries and, finding none, continued to advance forward. Tiln’s six-man team was her personal squad for this mission while Neryn and his group was shadowing Anja at the rearguard. Jesri thought Tiln would much rather be shadowing Anja, but he was being a good sport about the assignment so far.
The rest of the Ysleli fireteams were advancing between the two groups, wary but idle for the moment - they would split off to hold critical systems and chokepoints as they advanced towards the control center. The two Valkyries were certainly capable of tearing through the Kitan garrison by themselves, but experience had taught her that locking down a station-sized target with only two individuals was near to impossible.
She signaled a halt as they neared a large door. It was the entrance to one of the cramped hab sections on the ring, and Jesri’s HUD overlay was informing her that there were sixteen Kita inside. The outlines were low and indistinct, meaning they were lying flat on the floor - which didn’t help her out much, since that could mean anything from surrender to a prone firing position.
“Sixteen targets inside, nine left and seven right,” she said, modulating her armor’s voice so it wouldn’t carry through the door. “They’re on the ground, so aim low but don’t shoot unless you see them holding weapons. Renil squad, on me and prep for prisoners.”
It was evidence of Anja’s good work with the Ysleli that the admonishment against immediate violence was met with only minimal grumbling. Tiln formed his men up behind her while Renil watched the hall, his men fishing carbon-polymer zip restraints from their packs.
She didn’t bother to count down, rearing back and kicking the door with the full force her suit could muster. It slammed forward and down to bounce off the floor in a cloud of dust and metal particles. Jesri charged in with the Ysleli close behind her and her weapon ready but found only prone, frightened Kita.
“We surrender! Don’t shoot!”, one croaked as she approached. “Please don’t kill us!”
Now that she was in the room she could tell that these were indeed garrison soldiers, but they had taken the trouble to stack all of their weapons in a pile against the wall and placed themselves on the opposite side of the common room to await capture. A nice, professional surrender.
Renil’s team took note of their consideration, binding the prisoners expediently and without unnecessary roughness. When the last of the hab’s rooms had been cleared, Jesri walked over to the bound prisoners and addressed the one with officer pips on his shoulders.
“Adjunct-Lead,” she grated, dredging up her memory of Kitan military structure, “thank you for making this easy. Was there a general order given to surrender?”
The Kita jerked nervously as she spoke, flinching as one of Renil’s men growled low at the movement. He gave a low, croaking laugh, drawing his arms close to his body and shivering with the stress of the moment. “General order?”, he rasped, his voice weak and pitchy. “No orders, command won’t surrender.” He laughed again, his eyes wide. “Doubt you’ll find anyone outside of command that wants to line up and get shot, though.”
Jesri rolled her eyes, the gesture hidden by the suit. Kita were not especially noted for their valor in combat and this one was working hard to live up to the stereotype. Still, she couldn’t complain.
“Cooperate and we’ll release you in neutral territory,” she rumbled. The officer gave her another shaky acknowledgment before he was marched out of the room by Renil’s men. Soon the hab area was deserted save for Jesri and her squad.
“Well, guys,” Jesri said, “That was easy, but let’s keep alert for holdouts. Doesn’t sound like it was any sort of coordinated stand-down.”
Tiln snorted with amusement. “I don’t think they’ll be in a fighting mood, sir. Come and see what we found.”
Curious, Jesri ducked her head to enter one of the cramped rooms surrounding the common area. It was spartan, most of the original furniture having decayed over the years. There was a thin sleeping mat and duffel shoved against the wall, with the only other fixtures being the rudimentary water dispenser and a dusty display screen.
The display screen was on and showing a crisp video of several Kita huddled together in a barricaded hallway. With a start, Jesri recognized it as the hall they had originally used to leave the docking bay. She watched them jump and flinch as her fists pounded the door, leaving indents clearly visible from the far side.
“That’s ten-centimeter thick Terran battle alloy,” Rhuar’s voice cut in conversationally, broadcast over the display’s audio. “That right there is made with some powerful ancient space magic - you guys like that stuff, right? The force required to dent it like that is pretty immense. I didn’t run the numbers, but you can imagine what an impact like that would do to a squishy Kita skull if they didn’t do the smart thing and surrender. Actually, you don’t have to imagine - watch what she does with the door right here.”
Jesri winced as she saw herself ram through the blast door in a halo of white fire, knowing what was about to happen. Silvered muscles bulging, she scooped up the twisted remnants of the door and hurled them like a meteor into the Kitan fortification. The debris brushed aside their piled barricades effortlessly as it hit, shearing through metal and flesh until it spun to a bloody stop tens of meters behind the group. Fully half of the Kita had died in that first strike, with two unlucky soldiers having been pinned by the door and smeared over the decking like butter on toast.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Those who had leapt clear of the barricade were spared that fate at the cost of their cover. They were quickly targeted by Ysleli eager to test their new rifles out on live targets. She had been too focused on her own swath of destruction to notice at the time, but the video made it clear that some of the troops had tuned their rifles up past the standard shot power. As a result, the Kita were maimed by steam explosions and scalds with every shot that connected. After a few intense seconds the remaining garrison soldiers were in worse shape than those crushed by the door.
She shot a look back at Tiln, who had the grace to look abashed. The rest of the troops were watching the carnage on-screen with bared teeth and rapt attention.
“I’m not normally much of a gun nut,” noted Rhuar, “but that’s some impressive power they’re getting from those rifles. Let’s have another look at what happens when one of them scores a torso hit, here-”
The scene shifted to a slow-motion shot of a Kita being eviscerated by a center-mass hit at high power, gibbets of flesh sailing off in soaring ballistic arcs. “Now,” Rhuar’s voice drawled, “that’s some stopping power right there. Of course, you don’t have to take my word for it. Just have a weapon in your hands when you see our friends on screen there, they’ll be happy to show you firsthand what that feels like.”
The scene shifted to show Jesri hurling the door in slow-motion, the plasma bands on her arms leaving red-hot patches on the metal. She had to admit, the matter-of-fact brutality on the video and the constant droning exhortations to surrender in the background lent the atmosphere on the station a dire aspect. Well, for the Kita. Even so...
“Rhuar,” she broadcast over the comm, keeping her voice carefully neutral. “I don’t recall the part of the plan where you run a psyop against the garrison troops.” The narration cut off as the feed focused on the door sailing through the air.
“Ah, it was David’s idea,” Rhuar broadcast back sheepishly. “Unless you like it, in which case I did most of the work.”
“It’s… tacky,” Jesri sighed, “if undeniably effective. You’ve apparently got them shitting themselves all over the station. The group we just caught practically put on their own restraints.” She could feel a headache coming on. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but keep it going for a little while longer. Try not to let it get too lurid. And Rhuar,” she added, letting her voice shade into a deeper rumble, “keep in mind how much I adore fun surprises during a combat operation.”
“...yeah,” he responded warily. “I mentioned this was David’s idea, right?”
Jesri sighed and cut the connection, opening a channel directly to Anja. «Did you see Rhuar’s little broadcast yet?», she asked wearily. Tiln and his men had returned their attention to the video, which was currently showing the gruesome slow-motion impact of the door against the Kitan barricades.
«Neryn was just showing me,» Anja replied, amusement evident in her voice. «I think I like it. We had three soldiers approach and ask to be detained.»
«It saved us from having a firefight with a sixteen-man squad,» Jesri admitted. «I’m just afraid our disembodied replicating friend is a bad influence on our dog.»
«We live in troubled times, sister. I-»
The transmission cut off suddenly, and Jesri frowned. «Anja?», she sent, receiving only silence in response.
Just as she was about to send a squad back to reinforce Anja’s position her earpiece crackled to life. “Sister?”, came Anja’s voice, sounding shaken.
Jesri let out her breath in a rush. “Anja, are you all right? What happened?”
There was another long pause before Anja responded. “Not sure,” she finally admitted. “I would like to avoid using the link functionality for the moment. I experienced an unpleasant reaction.”
Jesri frowned. The Nicnevin instance of David had cleared Anja of any long-lasting effects from her forced firmware update, but Eleanor’s research spanned centuries of insane effort. It had been naive to write it off so easily. “Anja, we can handle the rest of the takeover if you need to scrub. Head back to the Huginn-”
“No, sister,” Anja said firmly. “I will not abandon my squad on their first field mission with me. Besides, I feel fine. It was just-” She hesitated again. “We can investigate more back at Elpis.”
“Dammit, fine,” grumbled Jesri, not wanting to delay further in either case. “But we will have Dr. Chartres take a look at you. No trying to wiggle out of it once we’re back because ‘you feel better’ or some bullshit.”
“Agreed, sister,” replied Anja, sounding relieved. “We should keep moving.”
Jesri had noticed a few curious stares from her squad, as from their perspective she had been standing immobile and silent for a couple of minutes. “All right,” she said loudly, speaking both over the comm and external speakers. “Let’s move out.”
----------------------------------------
The door to the gate’s central control room was a large, robust blast shield that even the Valkyrie suits would have had issues breaking down. Fortunately, those same traits meant that it was one of the few functional doors left on the station. On Anja’s command Rhuar overrode the security lockdown and the door slid smoothly open to reveal the gate control area, a large round room with workstations ringing a central command desk. Jesri and Anja walked out into the center of the doorway and were promptly hit with weapons fire from a half-dozen scattered positions within the control area.
They stood there impassively, staring at the Kita shooting them until the weapons fire stopped. As expected, the bridge crew had little more than weak sidearms on them when they were sealed inside by the lockdown, good for little more than scuffing their armor.
The two sisters advanced into the control center, looking around at the technicians and bridge crew huddled behind their workstations. Only when they had come up to the command desk did they finally speak.
“Please lay down your weapons,” Anja’s voice boomed, her suit speakers tuned for maximum intimidating force. “We are assuming control of this station. Cooperate and you will be released unharmed in neutral territory.” Those who hadn’t already done so dropped what they were carrying and raised their hands high, shuffling into the open center space nervously. The higher-ranked officers and a pair of Kitan priests huddled in a close knot near the edge of the crowd, eyes darting between the two armored figures.
Jesri sent a double-click over the communicator and the Ysleli troops poured in, efficiently gathering the weapons and binding the prisoners’ hands. The Kita shied away from the armored soldiers but were subdued without incident, submitting to the bindings wordlessly as each squad came around. “Clear,” Neryn called out. “You want us to bring them down with the others, sir?”
“Nah,” Jesri replied, walking over to the command desk and keying the release on her suit. It split smoothly down her spine and the backs of her legs, allowing her to step out of it and pull her arms from the gauntlets. One of the priests took a bulging-eyed look at her and began whispering furiously to his companion. She shook her hair out, smirking at the gobsmacked looks she was getting from the bridge crew, then hopped up to the command desk.
“Let’s see,” she mused, tapping out diagnostics on the panel. “Looks like we’re good to go here. Give me a couple of seconds to set up.”
One of the Kita prisoners stiffened at her words, stepping forward despite a warning growl from the Ysleli guarding his group. “You may have the station,” he said nervously, “but it is my duty to inform you that we will never yield our access to terrorists and thieves, even on pain of death.”
Jesri looked up at him tiredly. “You the commander?”, she asked.
The Kita puffed his chest up a little. “I am Renshe, Station Prelate.”
“I thought so,” Jesri said with a frown. “You the guy that refused to issue a general surrender order?”
Renshe froze, looking uncertain. “I, ah,” he stammered. “We are beholden to the law and cannot yield control-”
Jesri stopped looking at him and returned to her diagnostics. “You’re a dumbass,” she said. “You’re lucky your crew was smarter than you were.”
“Says the terrorist,” Renshe bristled. “Murderer and thief. Insult me all you wish, I will not yield my access. It is a sacred trust.”
“Gate control,” Jesri sighed without looking up, “remove all access rights from the station prelate and change his designation to ‘Dumbass’, audio confirmation.”
“Confirmed,” replied a neutral voice over the intercom. “Security roles have been removed from Station Prelate Dumbass.” The priests staggered back and made a warding gesture, provoking some indiscreet laughter from the Ysleli troops.
Dumbass (née Renshe) stood there with his mouth working soundlessly for a few seconds before slumping back in shock among his former subordinates, at least a few of which seemed to be enjoying his turn of fortunes.
“Okay, done,” Jesri said, standing up and giving the console an emphatic final button press. “Hold on to something.”
The Kita exchanged nervous glances. “Excuse me,” one of the technicians said tremulously. “What exactly did you-”
There was a noise.
----------------------------------------
Xim Len walked quickly down the hall, her legs pumping uncomfortably fast as she skittered over the deck. Even after years of living on Elpis she had never truly acclimated to the sheer amount of walking that station life entailed. She wouldn’t go back to Tlix for all the free space in the world, but she caught herself missing its empty sky and stark cliffs every so often.
But no, she could never go back. Not when she had an opportunity like she had here. Access to working human fabrication tech was already a prize greater than any achievement she could have hoped for, but the promise of new designs for ancient human systems would keep her happily on Elpis until she had worked her hands to bloody nubs. As an artisan, she could conceive of no other option than to seize this opportunity and milk it for all it was worth.
Nevertheless, a scowl settled on her slim face as she wove through the crowds of merchants towards the dock. For anything other than the greatest opportunity she could conceive of, her task would have sent her screaming to the airlocks weeks ago. The problem wasn’t the Ysleli, who normally kept to themselves, nor was it their antiquated technology. She actually found their ships somewhat fascinating, given that they were independently developed rather than derived from human salvage.
No, the problem was Tarl.
The insufferable yellow monstrosity was in most respects a pleasant client, sparing her any rants about costs or delays or any of the other typical complaints that clients brought to her door. What he did bring, however, was an insatiable curiosity about everything. Every hull reinforcement. Every reactor core. Every weapons system, every air exchanger, every detail of every overhaul she was being paid to give him seemed to be of endless interest to the scaly bastard.
Even that wouldn’t be so bad if Tarl wasn’t a self-admitted technical neophyte from a species that hadn’t even managed shipboard gravitics yet. But he was. Xim Len lived in an endless hell of impromptu remedial lectures on physics, quantum phenomena and hyperspatial topology that never seemed to satiate her client’s thirst for details.
So when Tarl summoned her away from her workshop during a rare Tarl-less period of productivity, the only thing that had kept her from tearing her wings off and cancelling the contract was a tantalizing promise - that the humans had promised a spectacle. Even the notion of voluntarily spending time with Tarl couldn’t completely dissuade her from an invitation like that.
She burst into the docks as dramatically as someone of her stature could burst into anything, sighing in momentary relief as she spread her gossamer wings and launched into the high reaches of the docking bay. There were few spaces aboard where she could fly freely, and above all her favorite was the docks. Soaring over the ships, racing past the shimmering bubble separating her from the void - the closest thing she could ever feel to flying in space unaided.
She indulged in a few artful swoops before diving down to land next to Tarl, who regarded her bemusedly.
“Quite impressive,” he allowed. “It looked enjoyable.”
“Never lasts long enough,” she muttered, walking up to stand beside him. “Do you know what’s going on?”
Tarl scraped long talons over his arm contemplatively, oblivious to the shudder it provoked from his companion. “Anja said I would ‘see the difference in her curriculum’ or somesuch,” he shrugged. “You know how it is with the humans.”
“Humanforms,” Xim Len corrected absently. “And they didn’t mention why they wanted me to see it?”
Tarl smirked. “They didn’t mention you at all. I judged that you would find it to be of interest, however.”
Xim Len gave him a calculating look. The brute probably just wanted her close by in case he needed help understanding the humanform’s message. Still, her interest was not easily unpiqued. At worst she could simply fly away and pretend that-
“It’s starting,” Tarl said, his eyes glittering suddenly. Xim Len whipped her head around to stare out the dock, searching the field of stars until she saw it.
A ripple in the blaze of starlight spread and tore, revealing inky blackness so profound that it seemed to disappear from her vision. The rent in space spread, growing, growing-
She stared in disbelief. Lacking a point of reference made it hard to determine the scale of the distortion, but it was obviously huge. The humanforms were rumored to have a larger ship out there somewhere, was this it?
No, it couldn’t be. It was too big for a ship. Nothing that moved could be this large, it would break apart. And yet here was the abyssal canyon before her stretching wider than the limits of presumption.
Suddenly a pure-white flame burst from within, everting the stretch of midnight in an instant to leave behind a sparkling sea of fire and light that swirled in front of her like the high-clouds before a storm. Slowly it dissipated into cooling orange wisps that unveiled a perfect ring, hollow through the center. It stretched impossibly wide, larger than any structure she had ever seen save for the transit stations.
She swore absently in Tlixi, her eyes drinking in the sight. “What is it?”, she wondered aloud.
“The Cygnus Gate, I presume,” Tarl whispered, staring in rapt amazement as the ancient torus hung motionless in the void.
Xim Len took a few seconds to process the import of what he had said, but when she did her mind was set whirling with the implications. The gate had been a famous curiosity for as long as anyone could remember, a useful waypoint but little else. Nobody had ever assumed that the gate could be transported, so nobody had ever tried to her knowledge. And now it was here - not in a backwater agricultural colony but at Elpis, the hub of trade in the region. Her home.
She had barely begun calculating the money she was about to make when she realized she was standing alone on the dock. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or offended that Tarl had left without a single question - in fact, he had answered hers! Still, he was gone. Shivering with excitement and irritation, she spread her wings and launched back towards the dock entrance. There was no more time for sightseeing. She had work to do and, at last, no distractions.