Chapter Thirty-Three
Cloak and Dagger
“...so there we have it, ladies and gents,” Crush finished. “Situation’s even more fucked than usual.”
For the first time that Crush could remember, all Four Cents were utterly silent. That in itself was a minor miracle; what happened next was even more so. Prim got up and hugged Sec, with Tri and Quad coming in to join them.
“Marshall, you have some strange folks on your crew,” Hellena said, her expression a little waxy, as it had been since he told them what Cyrus was planning.
“Says the chick with the genocidal Dad,” Buddy’s voice crackled out before Colby could stop it.
“I am not my father, Marshall Colby,” Hellena glared.
“I’m not Marshall Colby; I’m Badass Buddy, the truth-teller!”
“I have literally no control over that,” Colby shrugged.
Crush hid a small smile by turning away. That had not been entirely true, as Colby could have ripped the wires out of the speaker again.
“And if I shot Marshall Colby, I would still hit you,” Hellena glowered. “Remember that.”
“Why are the scary ones always so hot?”
“Buddy, do you want to go to quiet time again?” Colby asked.
Silence reigned.
“How’s that going?” Crush asked; despite the heavy topic, a little curiosity about the man broke through.
“We are coming to an agreement on how things will work going forward.” Colby shrugged. “It is what it is.”
“As charming as all this is, can we return to the matter of the impending disaster?” Leah phased into sight.
“Where did she come from?” Hellena jumped.
“I’ve been with you on your ship for a week,” Leah shrugged.
“Holy balls, that’s fucking chilling,” Hellena blinked.
“She does have a point,” Crush clapped his hands to get everyone to focus back on the matter at hand. “We are going to be acting quickly and decisively from now on. Nellie wanted it noted that this is an entirely voluntary set of missions. No one is compelled to follow these orders.”
“Sure, we just get to put our hands up and say, ‘Sorry, not me, I don’t care enough if billions of people die horribly.’ Fuck, I’d shoot the first guy to do that.”
“You failed to translate that properly, Buddy,” Sec chuckled. “You noticed he said orders, right?”
Crush smiled widely, “Glad you noticed.”
“So people can’t say no?” Hellena frowned. “The Queen said—”
“What good people say,” Crush looked around at them all. “If we have any good people in this room, they must have snuck in. ‘Cause all I see is a bunch of dyed-in-the-wool bastards. Which is handy because that is what we need.” He nodded to Hellena. “Your Clan is your own matter, of course.” Crush’s gaze settled on Leah, once known only as The Girl and now a princess of the Imperium. “And your people are yours.”
“We do not back down,” Leah shrugged. “Me and mine are at both of your commands. At least as long as I agree with it,”
“And If I command you to do something you consider immoral?” Hellena asked.
“Then you are too far gone,” Berenice shivered as she looked at the smiling Leah. “And she is right to refuse.”
“More than that,” Leah stood with cat-like grace. “If anyone is tempted to take advantage of this situation or goes too far, I will pay them a visit. Mother did not make this choice lightly, and I will not have a single drop more blood on her hands than necessary.”
“So much for ever fucking sleeping again,” Buddy said drily as Leah once more faded from view.
“What he said,” Quad pointed at Colby or rather the speaker on the man’s shoulder.
“Forget it,” Crush waved the interruption away. “If you’re so far gone you end up on Leah’s shit list, then I will have already killed you.”
“Why does that make me feel better?” Berenice frowned. “It makes no sense, but it does.”
“Yeah, it’s like comforting and threatening at the same time?” Prim shrugged. “Like, he loves us and promises to kill us long before the scary lady gets to us.”
“If we ever recruit a mental health specialist, they are going to be the busiest person in the Imperium,” Berenice chuckled and shook her head.
“Naah,” Tri chuckled. “Paren will just clone them a couple hundred times.”
“Didn’t you hear?” Sec asked. “Mum’s gone all sweetness and light these days.”
“I never said she wouldn’t do it nicely.” Tri shrugged.
“Oh, please,” Colby chuckled. “Anyone with even a vague idea of mental health training so much as talks to most of us, we’ll be cleaning their brains of the bulkhead.”
“Not nice, Buddy,” Berenice scolded.
“That wasn’t me!”
“How in the nebula’s nutsack do you ever get anything done with this lot?” Hellena looked more than mildly horrified.
Crush chuckled and let out a piercing whistle.
Everyone froze and looked at him.
“So, who wants to be a pirate?”
It said a lot about his people that every hand other than Berenice’s went up immediately. Not for the first time, Crush took a second just to appreciate how lucky he was to have this bunch of reprobates.
“Okay, Tri and Quad, you get to be pirates. I want you to start putting together some ideas for crews and analyzing good targets to hit. Step one will be stealing a ship.”
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
“Yes!” Tri and Quad fist-bumped in celebration.
“Next up, and just this side of a pirate, who wants to be a Merchant Trader and start messing up Cyrus’ supply lines?”
Berenice was the only one to raise her hand this time.
“Okay, Berenice, do your thing. Be completely ruthless and without pity. So… just be yourself?”
“Ha Ha Ha,” Berenice said sarcastically, but she was smirking.
“You need protection as well,” Crush said seriously. “They will not like you poking around.”
“I can provide that,” Hellena nodded. “I have good people you can rely on no matter what.”
“Good enough,” Crush nodded.
“Okay, who wants to lead a strike force to crack open the military targets?” Crush saw every hand again and smiled.
“Cara, that one’s all yours.” Crush nodded to his second in command. She had fucked up and knew it, but that didn’t mean he trusted her any less. Like he told Sec, everyone fucked up. It was how you recovered from it that mattered.
“Okay, Prim, that means you will be with me on expanding our Marshalls here in the new Confed lands.” Crush saw the vicious smile on the Cent’s face and knew he had chosen the right drill sergeant. Always make them quake before you turn them into something stronger. Prim would be suitably terrifying.
“Uh?” Sec and Colby exchanged looks. “What about us?”
“You two get along now?” Crush checked.
“Totally,” Sec promised.
“Sure,” Colby shrugged.
“Daddy?”
Crush chuckled as Colby facepalmed and Sec gaped.
“Then you two are heading back to Sand’s Embrace to start fucking over any troops they have landed there. Get me more of those notebooks and anything else. But let me be clear. I want a body count.”
“Oh, we can do that,” Buddy cackled. “We can do that!”
/===<<<>>>===\
Cheape kept her eyes on the horizon as they rolled out of what she had finally relented and allowed to be called Cheapeside. Her base had once sat on the very edge of the ‘capital’ of Haven. Now, the base sat surrounded by its fabrication district.
Their first long-range creation, the ‘Ranger,’ was a large platform that moved on three sets of individually sprung triangular treads. It made the small base built into the top much more stable than she had expected. And it was a small base. A sleeping area at the back, a driver’s cab at the front, and the first of the Mobile Material Processors in a reinforced building that ran down the right-hand side. That left a wide metal platform in the center and a viewing platform on the left. Of course, it was all enameled alloy and merged together to create a single, cohesive look that was very… Imperium.
Her Modular Boost Suit and a pair of what the locals had named T-Rigs were clamped to the side of the sleeping compartments. The T-Rigs were a little larger than the standard ones, standing at about ten feet when activated. They had broad, three-toed feet and heavily reinforced arms and shoulders, allowing for the mounting of much heavier gear. In the case of these two, they had a pair of massive energy storage devices, all charged before they left their power station.
While the vehicle itself had various ways of generating energy, including solar arrays, the amount it produced was not enough to charge the rigs. In short, they had all the power they would get until they arrived back, and that would be more than a few days at the very least.
“Marls, are you sure you will be okay?” Cheape called down to the man.
“Emissary Cheape, I assure you I will be fine!” Marls shook his head ruefully. “And you are too young to be looking at a man my age like a child left alone for the first time!”
Cheape laughed and waved goodbye before turning to look back over the capital city they had built together.
They had renamed the city just two days ago. The previous name was stricken from the records in a formal service that seemed to go on forever but that the locals seemed to find fitting. Then, with great flourish, a stone monolith was raised in the center of the city square, the new name engraved deeply into the flawless stone.
The capital city of Haven was now named Stone Break, and it was only after clapping and cheering with everyone that Cheape had learned it was named after the moment she cracked the old stone landing pad with a stomp from her Boost Suit. So, yeah, that was kind of a permanent mark on her history now. It was weird to think that a historian hundreds of years from now would read that story. She wondered what they would make of it. Would she seem intimidating? Or childish?
Cheape groaned and turned to look ahead again toward the distant horizon where the Ranger was headed. Half a continent away, beyond valleys, rivers, and even a mountain range, was the next step in the task of uniting this planet.
With almost three thousand people in Stone Break as of yesterday, there was no one else coming anytime soon. For the poor farmers and villages on the other side of the mountains, any notion of crossing that kind of distance was pure fantasy.
While there was sporadic contact through their terrible radio tower, many simply refused to believe the images and short videos sent by Marls and Tensor.
Cheape knew she could have requested ships to come and carry them over the mountains but elected to use the Ranger instead. Part of that was not wanting to arrive from the skies like their previous tormentors had. Another part of it was that they legitimately needed scans of the terrain in various areas around the capital. Even now, Vauban, Marie and Tensor were out with parties doing exactly that.
The most significant part was the silicate man standing on top of the Ranger’s cab and whooping for joy. TRV-4 was a Transfer Unit, and he had the soul of a true explorer. For months, he had resisted the urge to head off into the wilds and look around. All so he could help her and the others build Stone Break. In short, Cheape wanted to thank him by joining him on a trip into the unknown. To be there for him in the same way he so often was with her.
Of course, if she was entirely honest with herself, Cheape also wanted to get away for a few days and come to terms with what was happening a couple of jump points away.
Her mind was too full of the image of the sky above her tearing open and that awful energy washing over her planet and her people.
This trip was just what she needed to get those thoughts out of her head for a bit, to give herself some time to adjust to things. The Imperium seemed to deal with threats of a whole other level than she was used to.
Before she could be dragged back into that thought again, Cheape was interrupted by TRV-4, who dropped off the top of the cab, trotted over, and picked her up, spinning her around and laughing.
“Tee!” Cheape yelped and laughed in shock.
“Isn’t it amazing!” Tee grinned as he placed her back on the deck plates they had adapted to the Ranger. “A world awaits!”
“Yes, yes, it’s very exciting,” Cheape sighed, realizing he was still holding her arms gently. “Umm, I’m looking forward to it.”
“Me too,” Tee smiled. “There is nothing more exciting and joyful than to have the cloaked revealed and the unknown become known. To explore something so completely that you know every inch of it and every single… reaction it has to your passing. To your… touch.” He leaned forward, “I will cook tonight, I think! I’ve been yearning to try!” With that, he was gone, and Cheape was left, yet again, telling herself he was not human and had no idea what his words had sounded like.
Still, Cheape needed a new distraction, so she headed for the cab.
Inside were the other two members of their expedition to cross the mountains. Alma Jackson and her husband Lee had been the youngest small farmers in the town when Cheape arrived. Now, the muscular form of Lee, stocky and with that kind of honest, reliable face that got many a young girl in trouble, sat next to the tall and willowy Alma. Her near-white hair only showed its actual blond color in the overhead lights as she leaned back in the seat, almost ethereal in how relaxed she was despite the vehicle she drove being large enough they could have landed a shuttle in the central space.
“How are we doing, Alma?” Cheape asked as she ducked into the cab and took one of the two rear seats.
“Solid, Emissary,” Alma grinned back. “Still getting up to speed, of course, but not a wiggle or a tremor yet.”
“Nor will there be,” Lee said proudly. “Nothing in the galaxy is better made than my here Ranger.”
“If I have to hear how great it is one more time, Lee, you’ll regret it,” Alma smirked. “You’ll make a girl jealous.”
“Hah!” Lee shook his head, “As if she didn’t know she’s the best-looking girl in the galaxy already.”
“How’s the terrain around us looking?” Cheape said, trying to change the subject.
“Standard stuff,” Lee replied, “Nothing unexpected yet, but we will still be in the range of the forage parties for another hour or two. It’s after that we’ll get to the new stuff.”
In addition to farming, the villages all had foragers go out and collect from the local areas, so Cheape had a decent enough grasp on the surrounding areas, but she wanted more. Mineral levels, signs of mantle instability, temperature readings, and more. All the stuff a modern planet had on tap, in other words.
Looking toward the distant mountains, Cheape practically drooled at the idea of how many minerals and rare plants they might contain.
One way or another, she would make this world into a jewel of the Imperium.
And it would not be one made by nanites like Planet Home.
Not that it was a competition, of course.
Not at all.
But Paren would still lose.