Shad POV

I was back on the bridge of the Ad Astra, watching our feeds intently with Grandpa at my elbow when the news came through. The voice that spoke was the synethetic female one the Dominator network had used previously.

"Class 1 emergency is officially resolved. All assets are being returned to their owners. Analysis to follow.”

It was followed by a message directly to us. “Ad Astra and Earth Task Force, we have detained three of your personnel for inquiry into their involvement with the rogues. All leadership of Earth Task Force is to remain uninvolved until the inquiry is concluded. Additional charges may be laid against you. We suggest you contact your lawyers. Do you have a legal agent to represent your task force members, or will you disavow their actions?"

"We'll be getting back to you on that shortly," Grandpa said.

After a moment, there was a chirp, and then Coyote spoke. "My systems have all been returned to my own control.”

"You're sure of that?" I asked him. "They didn't leave any back doors or listeners?"

"Not as far as I can detect. I am aware that you may or may not fully trust me now, and the coalition certainly does not trust you, but they are abiding by galactic law and have not sought access to my memory banks. If they did, I ought to be able to keep them out unless they bring the full power of their Dominator network against me, and that requires several steps they have yet to take."

I let out a sigh. "So what happened? Are Sage and Colin all right?”

"It's impossible for me to say. Several members of the Gamer squad had their soul coins captured by the coalition, as you have been told. It is possible they will be able to give us more information once they have been released. That is assuming you plan to take responsibility for their actions."

"Damn right we are," I snapped. "We sent them in."

"Yes, we did," Grandpa said quietly. "And they knew that we might have to disavow what they're doing. Come on. This needs to be in private."

He led me off to the briefing room adjoining the bridge that Juana had made her office. She looked up from her screens, looking haggard. It had been 18 hours since we had gone on alert, and neither of us had slept. There was a tray of half-eaten sandwiches beside her and an empty pot of coffee at her elbow.

"Now let's talk about the fallout," Grandpa said. "We need to make sure that Gamers have legal representation, but more importantly—"

I broke in. "I need to know what happened to Sage and Colin and Rok’gar and the rest of the Gamers. Do we know which have been captured?"

"Their names were transmitted to us—all members of the Gamers except for Amber and Pete.”

I didn't know whether to be relieved or worried. At least the other members of the gamer squad were safe, albeit in danger. "Juana, run down the details."

Juana sighed. "If we disavow their actions, they will be judged on their own, and their penalties will be assessed against them individually. However, we will not be able to bid on their contracts, as it will be a sign that we did, in fact, approve of their actions. They'll be at the mercy of whoever buys their contracts, and I think we can expect quite a high punitive damage total. It's possible they could be hit with figures that will be impossible for them to pay off in the rest of their natural lives."

"We can't have that," I said immediately. "We need to be there for them."

"If we take responsibility, we are opening the Misfits Guild and the Earth Task Force up to all sorts of liability," Juana said. She lifted a hand before I could speak. "I'm not saying that means we shouldn't do it."

I was trying and failing to keep a handle on my temper. "I need to know what happened to Sage," I snapped. "Coyote, you were part of that damn coalition."

"The coalition believes they have exterminated the rogue actors," Coyote said. "Several mentalities were subsumed by the Dominator Network. However, from what I can tell, the coalition believed that the rogue was merely another fragment. They weren't looking for people. They wrote off your other two team members as unrecoverable. I am hopeful that they have all escaped."

Grandpa was drumming his fingers against the tabletop where Juana sat. "If they escaped, where'd they go? Back deeper in? How can we get in contact with them? This is a rescue mission now."

"It is hard to make predictions without data. If we were able to recover your imprisoned team members and learn what exactly Colin has been up to, then perhaps I could make a supposition."

“Then get them back," I said. "Juana, let's get you in there with legal dealings."

"I'm already working on hiring a neutral legal representative," she said. "There are always some counselors along on exploits like this for just this sort of dispute. That'll let us keep our hands clean. We'll pay for their defense while reserving our own. It's kind of a halfway between disowning them and taking responsibility for what they did."

"Can we talk to them and find out what they know?"

Juana shook her head. "Not in any secure fashion, and I'm presuming we don't want the Galactics to overhear what they have to say. We're gonna have to wait."

I didn't want to wait. I wanted to know where Colin was, get my sister back, and find a way to bring some hurt down on the Galactic assholes. At least I was almost certain they were alive. Colin had had a plan. Of that, I was certain. And if anyone could pull off a scheme in the face of the entire collective mass of the Reality Engine exploit arrayed against him, it was Colin. But it sucked to be sitting here on the outside, waiting. I wasn't good at waiting, never had been.

Juana was looking at something on one of her displays. She frowned. "That's interesting. The Church of the Progenitors is abandoning their interest in this exploit. They're pulling up stakes."

"Kvaltash got what he wanted, and he's getting out of here," Grandpa observed. "With that staff, he's giving up a share in this exploit for a free stab at whatever the next engine he comes across is."

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

"We're receiving a motion proposed by Andante Corporation that no elements of this Reality Engine exploit be allowed to leave until the conclusion of the exploit. They're citing the fact that a class 1 emergency was invoked, and root causes for the emergency are still not known, and that taking away any assets at this time could endanger the success of the entire exploit."

"Who's Andante?" I asked.

Juana shrugged. "They're a small player. They've been along two or three exploits in the last few cycles. Basically just jumped up from being able to regularly take a piece of the Phase Three pie to sponsoring their own exploits, so they got in on this one. It's not far from their territory."

"I'm being asked how we want to vote. Since we're part of the alliance and did participate in the Class 1 emergency, we have a voice."

"Let him go," I said. I didn't want Kvaltash within 50 light years of me. The sooner he and his people were gone, the better.

Grandpa shook his head. "Hang on a minute. First off, I don't really like the idea of Kvaltash and his crew getting out of here with that key. Might be good to keep him behind until we find out if there's a way to counter it."

"That's my thinking," Juana agreed. She looked to me.

I sighed. "Well, if you both think so, then all right. Vote no."

Juana entered our vote. “It passed. Kvaltash is not being permitted to leave," she said. "Andante just filed a follow-up motion asking that the jump gate out of here be closed during the course of investigation of the emergency. They are citing some irregularities in the investigation of the initial incident which caused this reality engine to wake up out of sequence to back up their belief that there are parties here who are working against the reality engine's exploit."

"Well, vote no to that," I said. "We don't want to be trapped in here. Besides, if they start looking too deep and see what Colin and Sage were up to, then we're gonna be in trouble."

Grandpa nodded. "Yes, we don't want our backs up against a wall here. Vote no."

Coyote interrupted. "No. We vote yes."

I hadn't expected him to chime in at all. I'd almost forgotten that he was always listening. I looked up at the ceiling. "Why is that?"

"I'm receiving a message through our network of undominated minds. Leonardo's sending it along. Apparently, he and the other still-free fragments have been communicating more than I knew. They're risking a great deal right now to tell me to vote yes and back Andante."

"Do it," Grandpa said at once.

Juana nodded, put in our vote. We waited for another minute before Juana reported that the motion had passed by the slimmest of margins. She looked up. "What's going on here? Andante hasn't even been participating in the meetings. As far as I can tell, this class 1 emergency was the first time they had joined in a multi-faction event here at this exploit, and that's because they were forced to. Now they're calling for it, and they've sent another vote." Juana frowned. "They are demanding a full audit of everyone's Ethereum and Soulcoin collection with accountant verification, not just having your system report it."

"What? I thought that was the sort of thing they did at the end of an exploit, not now."

"Technically, any group involved in an exploit can demand such an accounting at any moment, but if the accounting is done and everyone's found to be reporting honestly, whoever called for the accounting shoulders the bill. That can get expensive fast."

"So what's Andante playing at?"

"They've got the whole Dominator network in chaos," Coyote reports. "Traffic between corporate heads has increased significantly. I can't listen in, but I can tell you that somebody is excited about all this."

Coyote broke in. “Message from the Exploit Committee for General Twofeather and Captain Williams.”

“Play it,” Grandpa ordered. I looked up as a woman’s smooth tones spoke.

“The Exploit Committee is holding an emergency hearing into the events of the recent emergency, as per recently passed Motion #5295. As per Motion #5297, the members of your coalition who are being held pending sentencing will be reconstituted and questioned. Earth Task Force commander, General Twofeather, your presence is required. Captain Williams, as the previous supervisor of these individuals, your presence is required. Your claim that they are no longer members of your coalition will be examined. You have the right to legal counsel. Failing to heed this summons will result in sanctions against your coalition.”

“Well, damn,” I said. I looked at Grandpa.

“That doesn’t sound good,” he observed. “Juana? You coming as our legal rep?”

She didn’t look up from her own displays. “No. There’s going to be a lot I need to do behind the scenes here. I’ve just contracted a neutral legal advisor to represent our people. Veda sent over a recommendation. He checks out so far.“

"Veda?" I asked sharply. “Are we trusting her?"

Juana shrugged. "I think she's on our side as much as she can be. She likes us personally, even if what we're doing is a problem. This fellow has a good reputation and he sounds eager to help us.”

"Alright. Send him over to talk to our people as soon as we can. Come on, Shad, let’s go.”

Grandpa and I hurried down to the shuttle dock. This meeting was being held in real space, not one of the reality level zones. Proxima, the largest conglomerate at this exploit, had offered to host. I wasn't sure I liked putting myself into their hands. But there didn’t seem much choice. Even if we weren’t being threatened with sanctions, I couldn’t let the Gamers face whatever kangaroo court the Galactics had whipped up alone. Not that I was likely to be much help.

The Ad Astra had a couple of transfer pods, oblong capsules about the size of a schoolbus with comfortable chairs mounted in rows. Coyote skillfully navigated ours over to the Proxima holdings. They had a series of connected habitats hanging from frameworks, nothing that looked like a ship.

Most of the Galactics trusted their infrastructure implicitly, bringing in modules that had no way of moving on their own on giant starliners that dropped them off and picked them up when they were ready to go. We humans, with our flight-capable starship, were considered a bit odd, but I liked knowing we weren't trapped. Our transfer pods even had little windows, which certainly wasn't Galactic standard. Most of them preferred blank walls with screens to show the view, but I had an atavistic need to look out with my own eyes and know that what I was seeing was real.

I peered through one of the round portholes as we went, seeing the lights and struts of the Reality Engine exploit infrastructure. The rogue world itself was below us, shrouded in darkness. I couldn't have seen it at this angle. Our pod received a traffic notice, and we got into the queue waiting to dock at Proxima.

"I need not remind you that anything we say once we are docked will be overheard by the Galactics," Coyote said. "Be careful. They are looking to assign blame and you’ve made yourselves targets.”

"Any word on Sage?" I asked again.

"No."

"If there is, you find a way to get it to me.” I thought about it. “Just say that Mama Grace sends her regards, okay? I'll know what you mean."

Grandpa smirked at me. "Got a bee in your bonnet?"

"And you don't?" I challenged. "Thought you'd be worried about her."

“I was worried. Now I'm past it. She survived something I didn't expect anyone could. I have faith in her and Colin to pull through this. And that kid of Mak’gar's, too. You need to find a way to let him know, by the way."

I nodded. "Been thinking about that. If I can, I will. But maybe this'll all be over soon, and I won't need to."

Grandpa took a deep breath. "I'm not gonna let Sage hang out to dry. If necessary, I'll surrender my commission. We can't put our own selfishness before the interests of Earth. But, damn it, the whole reason I've done everything I've done is for you kids. I'm not gonna let that go now."

I was glad to have Grandpa on my side in this.

"I'm catching a lot of traffic," Coyote said. "A lot of it's encrypted between the corporations, but something's gotta be in their bonnet." Coyote had picked up a lot of Earth phrases from us by now. "I don't know what you're gonna be walking into, so stay sharp."

I was gonna reply when I got a message from Juana, marked top priority. Not that I ever blocked Juana's messages from getting through.

"Shad, can't explain details now, but Misfits Guild has a buyout preempt offer that I can't refuse. Dealing with it now. I'll be at Andante's offices handling things. Talk later."

I tried to send a reply but got a "Do not disturb" message back. If I sent it high priority, that should punch through, but I decided to let Juana take care of her business. Besides, right now, Grandpa and I had enough to deal with.

We docked with the station. I looked over at Grandpa. “Ready for this?”

“Probably not,” he admitted, “but just remember, boy, keep your head high and have your last words all picked out. If they decide to hang us out to dry, well, we’ll go down fighting.”