I wake up in the cargo bay looking around at a decidedly unfamiliar vantage. I stand and almost immediately I’m shot? It itches. It couldn’t have been a lethal round, not from weapons I buy. I look around to find a Marine pointing an assault rifle at me. What?
“What the fuck are you doing? Don’t point that at me.” That is not the voice I expected. I look down at my body and I’m fuzzy as shit and deep purple. Holyshit! I survived and imprinted the beast!
You almost spent the rest of your life as a terror of Twilight. You need to maintain your mental in an Imprint as well.
Shit, thanks Kip, for saving both of us.
You really picked a doozy of a beast. The subsumed regeneration of the bear was an equivalent of rank 6 of 8. With your stolen talents, which combine with your imprinted talents apparently, is now regrowth 5. You don’t just heal, you replace. I need you to focus on your other imprint and assuming that existence.
I try for an hour before I admit I need help. Kitty had already transferred us to Dash and the team was nearly done with their site survey. I call Kitty and ask if she can come to the cargo bay and help . . . comfort me.
“Holy . . . My sensors must have been scrambled because I do not remember you being this big or this purple.” She walks up to me tentatively and grips my leg fur and then starts climbing me?
“hey! Kit, what are you doing?!”
“You think I get presented with a true to life Papa Bear and I don’t climb you? Pfft, you’re dreaming.”
“Is that your way of finally calling me Dad?” I snicker, and her processes fail, causing her to let go so I catch her in my massive paw.
She curls up and hides her face as soon as she realizes her avatar is okay.
“Nooo! This is so embarrassing!” I keep laughing as she squirms.
I hold as still as I can, waiting for her to calm down and look at me again.
“Would you mind if I did?”
I chuff in her face. “Of course not, Kit. Your cute, capable, and I think I’ll keep you.” And then I nuzzle her with my massive maw, ensuring to slobber a little as she squeals and screams.
With her here, reminding me of myself and my life, I picture my form dripping away to my Solis form and slide my mind into its comfort.
“Nooooo. Goodbye snuggle bear!” Kitty whines as my perspective shrinks. “Oh, no. You are way too naked.” She runs away and I can’t help but adore the miscreant’s mercurial responses.
I look down to see some decent thighs and thankfully no tackle. Penny would dump me into a black hole if I imprinted a form with a penis. Before I can get to the hatch leading to the main corridor to berthing, Kitty appears in the door and throws a blanket at me.
“Thanks daughter.” I pull the fuzzy blanket over myself before pulling her into a hug. “You know I’m really lucky to have you in my life, right?”
She butts her head into my shoulder and lets me wrap her up. “You’re so embarrassing, you know that, right?”
“Yeah, and I’ll be trying to embarrass you for at least a hundred more years.”
She looks into my eyes with a pout, “What happens then?”
My smile hurts my heart a little, being so big and full, “you might convince me you’re old enough to date and be an adult or whatever.”
“Wait, do ships even date?” She asks.
“Wait, are you a ship or my daughter?”
“I don’t have to pick.” She grumps.
“No you don’t sweetie. But I do need some clothes and I should shower first.” Her looking back up at me with shock in her eyes is hilarious to me. She grabs my hand and tows me to my state room and runs a bath for me, and honestly pampers me for a solid twenty minutes.
“Kitty, this is a little much.”
“I’m sorry! I wanted to make up for me being foolish and almost getting both of us killed, but I don’t know how!!” And my poor little AI starts crying crocodile tears.
“When did you learn to cry?” pressing questions I must ask apparently.
“When I thought I killed you apparently-he-he.” And she’s hugging me again.
“Look, there’s a solid possibility that Pradesh tried to have me murdered. So don’t worry about that. On the plus side, I have a fuck off bear form that can settle arguments with teeth and claw.”
“Is it weird that I thought you looked like a giant snuggle monster?”
“Of course it’s fucking weird, I was fifteen meters long and about ten at the shoulders with claws the size of your body. Anyone else would be terrified, but you see a teddy? Certifiably insane you are.”
She hits me in the shoulder and it definitely hurts. I flick suds in her face.
“Right now I’m just glad to be alive. Can we just . . . can we just enjoy the void for a while? Can we snuggle in my lounger while we synch?”
“Only if you promise to figure out how to snuggle bear at a reduced size for future synchs.”
“Deal, Kit. Now Come here.” I pick her up and toss her at my pajama closet. I pick a fuzzy onesie that I can tell she likes and she picks a tee and shorts with fuzzy boots. “We’re watching the Pixar movie where the parent turns into a bear.”
“But you’re not mom?”
“Kit. Baby bear. You think about that movie and tell me who is the doofus cheerful one and who is the worried smothering one?”
“I’m the red haired trouble maker either way, right?” I nod and try to tickle her, “Then I guess its fine either way.” She giggles and buries herself in my blankets while I cue up the display.
While my Marines get reckless and rowdy on Dash, I’m on my ship, having movie time with my kid.
***
->M] Penny, I fucking swear, you need to figure out a way to blip out and say something for a mere moment, or I am going to start breaking shit. [<-
You’d think that after being involved with her for ten years I would develop more understanding, but we just told each other we love one another a few months ago, she married us and then she disappears? What kind of partner did I sign up for?
Blah, I miss her, and as much as I curse her absence, I do understand. She signed a deal with Andromeda for a favor of some sort and has to pay the piper. The worst part is that I’m just waiting for projects to develop with very little action to take. I need someone to save me from my self.
I look at my schedule again and see that the Sergeant Rickman and Kismet’s intelligence department have some things they want to discuss, and then Commander Varma wants to review his team’s assessment on the frigate.
Truly, that frigate would make a good merc command vessel. It doesn’t have great shuttle or fighter capacity, but it could take eighty percent of the ships in the frontier in a gunfight.
“Hey Kitty? Could you do some ship research for me?”
“Unless you’re trying to replace me, sure.”
“Pfft, replace you. You’re the most advanced ship in the Empire, and my favorite AI. No, I’m thinking of starting a Mercenary Company and I need some space to ground ships and possibly a battle barge of some kind?”
“Eww, stop. I am definitely a better choice than you for this. Why not just ask someone at Naval Shipyard?”
“Because they’d have to make whatever we ask for, and a 20 month lead time might work if we need something specific, but otherwise I’m sure we can find something on the market that can be delivered in six months or less.”
“Can do. Gives me an excuse to watch old Earth programming for ideas. BYE!” Her avatar skips out of my room before I can process the kind of mess I’ve invited into my wallet.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
I ping my Marines to make sure they’re awake and moving after their overnight liberty and I get a two-hour extension request almost immediately. I reply that they can get their butts onboard when liberty expires or they can hire transport to Pinkie Finger Station and forego overnight liberty for three months. I’m not in that kind of a hurry, but they were given a deadline and these jokers are in the Imperial Marines for Empress’ sake. They’ll have hours to rest on Kismet and while we’re in orbit around Pinkie Pie with our capture frigate.
The squad makes it with minutes to spare, looking all kinds of haggard. Do I not give them enough time off? Or is this just what Marines do? I mean, I’m no stranger to hitting it hard, I spent most of my first five years in the Frontier carousing on any planet with women. That was before Penny gave me an actual job with authority and responsibility.
“Corporal, a moment please.” I say as he pulls his last squadmate up the ramp and into the hold. He motions to his fireteam to help the man before tugging down on his uniform blouse and standing up straighter.
“Yes Senior?”
“At ease. I want to talk with you about reasons for the state of your squad, and what ways we can mitigate this . . . sorry state in the future. When I finish my meetings with Sergeant Rickman, and later Commander Varma, I want ideas. Is it post-battle zoomies? The rarity of overnight liberty, etcetera. You should have eight hours before now and then, so get some sleep and consider a recovery injection.”
He snaps to attention, salutes and marches off toward the main corridor. He’s also got the two properties to brief me on—here’s hoping he remembers that.
I que in the first jump’s coordinates and indicate that a second jump will be necessary. Once we arrive I put in Kismet’s coordinates and we jump within a kilometer of the ship before engaging the ripple drive and having Kitty coordinate with the Corvette for the rest of the docking maneuver.
Rickman and the Navigator meet me at the hatch.
“Welcome aboard Commodore. Instead of the Wardroom, Rickman and I have arranged the Bridge to accommodate the Intel brief.”
“If someone is using the 3-D nav plot in this presentation, I am definitely on board.”
I draw attention as we walk through the corridors, making me wish I’d docked closer to my stateroom. At least I remembered to put on my Navy jumper this time. We get to the bridge and somebody yells attention on deck again, and at one point I’ll get used to it—they aren’t going to stop doing it after all.
“At ease everyone. OOD, can you confirm this briefing will not inhibit your ability to fight the ship?” I look over and hear a response from the Captain’s Cabin.
“We have briefly repurposed this staterooms desk as a bridge relay. It is a less convenient but workable solution.” Says the Lieutenant Commander at the desk.
“Excellent news. Rickman, start me in order of priority, not urgency. Unless we have to act on it tomorrow, or earlier.”
“We’ll start with the corporate fleet from a new entity called Mos-Transit. They are headed by two Frigate-sized fighter carriers, half a dozen freighter gunboats, and one oversized battle barge. We estimate the carriers can each carry eight to twelve fighters depending on how gutted they are.” A pulled out view of the systems between us on the view screen and an exploded view on the nav plot of the failed planetary system the corporate fleet was hiding in.
“What the hell is a battle barge?” I ask my counterintelligence specialist.
“It’s a classification for a non-standard ship that needs to be towed or pushed. This is a cargo, personnel, and rocket barge. Some of the rockets fire boarding teams, others fire A-M torpedoes. This one also seems of hasty construction so most of its capabilities are unknown. As far as I can tell, the fleet would need two to three jumps to reach Twilight from the shattered system they are currently scattered amongst, roughly in line from here to the Moiraix system.” He pauses for a few moments waiting for me to interrupt.
I chuff in impatience and gesture for him to continue.
“I have suspicions based on some less than reputable investigations on an off the books prospect venture that is less than three lightyears from Prospect 5.”
“This smells like another Aethrite problem. Any chatter about deposits within the Bronies?” I ask.
“The Imperial mandate to allow them to purchase the rare material chafes most of the prospecting firms and most of them think they can fetch a higher price. The drawback is that even if they were inclined to blab, the crackdown on one of the Castillo companies for unreported Aethrite has people spooked and using physical media to transfer that kind of information.” Rickman changes the exploded view to that of the system he suspects the folks at Prospect 5 were scamming from.
“I fear this problem will take a lot of money to not just analyze but to fix. Put together a map of what a Marshal intel network would look like, and how much it would cost. Asset development, bribes, rewards; the works. I also want to know why the local miners are so desperately avoiding the government buyback rate. I’ll talk to the relevant Consuls and we’ll see if there’s a discrepancy. We might have to just monitor this transaction and act on it next time.” I set a reminder to message Tessa and Consul Mercer. Maybe ping the Governor of Atropos and see what he knows about Mos-Transit.
“A big complication, is that much of the merchant traffic through Twilight is subdued or heavily encrypted since the new government meeting you went to. We’ve been operating off third party intel or following up on rumors. The network you’re suggesting should help with this, but not soon. That said, we are seeing an increase in transit delays between Twilight and the Prospects, and the most traffic into Apple Jack.”
“Wait, is this more hostage taking on Apple Jack goods, or just more clandestine meetings before going to AJ?”
“The second. Hostage taking of whole shipments to AJ have reduced, but the economic impact is approximately the same.” He sends me a report that I will read later.
“Alright, seems like I have a lot of catching up to do with this project. What’s next?”
“I need money. A budget to work with, separate from the Marshal budget.”
“Is it shuttle related?” He shakes his head. “Alright, I’m asking my AI to set up an account with rotating encryption with 10k credits in it. You’ll get access once I get my extra employees I was promised.”
“Darcy was hoping to meet with you after this.” Rickman replies.
“Good. I’ll address the shuttle issue now. I have two standard shuttles on request with the Navy, and three more special requisitions for combat shuttles for my Marshals. I was told that all current Navy assets were assigned and that it would take Empress approval to reassign them. I should have a meeting with her in the next two months, but she is mercurial as ever. What’s next?”
Rickman starts shuffling screens and then pulls up a exploded view of Dash with a top-down system view on the big screen. “The one inner and one outer gas giants of this system have been seeing a sharp increase of traffic over the last month and none of them are equipped with hydrocarbon mining devices. Their communications have been point to point, and unless we’re willing to break several Dash laws on a continual basis, we won’t be able to intercept those comms.”
“We can still track weapons postures right? Kismet and Kitty both have the sensors necessary to tell the difference between weapons arrays in active or in standby. Does our listening station?”
“With an exchange of data and a minor upgrade, I think so, yes.”
“Then get that gear and get me the data. If they are charging and targeting as a threat, that counts as armed coercion. I’m willing to board or drive off a ship under those auspices. Sure we need the shuttles we don’t have to keep a presence up, but gathering the data is important as well.”
Rickman, the comms folks and a few Marines have a side-bar while I contemplate the scope of my mercenary fleet. I message Darcy to tell her that I’m ready for a personnel report.
Darcy and Rob both come to my stateroom with grave looks on their faces.
“After this hiring resolves, Rob and I are done, Mik.” Darcy charges in.
“Hello, friends. I haven’t seen you in months. Good to see you are well.” I smile sarcastically. “If you want to talk about the issues you have so that we might resolve them, I’d be happy to. If your mind is made up, I’ll jump you to Dash, with prorated pay and a recommendation letter and wish you well.”
“That’s all you have to say to us? After ten years?”
“What should I say Darcy? I fucking hate that you would bail on our friendship without talking to me? Rob, you fucking coward, where was my message? Is that what I should say? Because from my perspective you are abandoning me. I have so many things I’m working on, that I probably can meet your concerns without you having to walk away, but that’s not what you came here to say is it?”
“You haven’t talked to us either!” Rob accused.
“Yes, but the last time we met, you basically called me a heartless monster. Because we’ve been friends so long, we get a re-do. Tell me your qualms, and I’ll see if we can solve them and we can forget about the bullshit that came in through my door.”
Darcy scowls at me, looks like she’s building a solid head of steam to yell at me, but she eventually collects herself to reply. “We don’t like living in space, and don’t like being party to the violence.”
I nod, appreciative of her restraint. “I can’t fix the violence. Even if I start a new company on Dash, they’ll still be a party to violence, just like I was while we knew each other.”
“Wait, could I have a desk job again, talking to people?” Rob asks, brightening up.
I smile, Rob is an honest man, despite his gift for public relations. “Yep. I have another meeting to get to after this, but by tomorrow I should be making inroads to starting a Mercenary company with offices on Dash and Twilight. From what I’ve seen, you would get to be an estate manager as well, with enough rooms for you to live in and decorate said estate.”
Rob beams looking between me and Darcy, knowing Rob would be a hard sell without her.
“What about me?” She asks.
“The job I would have for you would be dispatcher and logistics.”
“A murder merchant and bean counter? Are you serious?” She scoffs.
“Yes. And I’m serious when I say this: I can respect the uncertainty of being involved with the violence that my work includes, but the levels of disrespect you are showing me are too much Darcy. I don’t want people around that are comfortable with that so I’m letting you go.”
“Fuck you, Mikaela.” More disrespect, and a personal attack. Fun. “You’re not getting my hiring report.”
“Well, if you leave me not knowing who I’ve hired, I will simply reclaim their wages from your fraudulent activity. If you haven’t hired anyone yet, I will simply reclaim you wages for the last month and move on.”
She scoffs at me, “You can’t do that. That takes a Governor or Justicar’s authority.”
I shake my head, smiling sadly at my menus as I suspend her accounts and access to the Exchange.
“Rob, if you’re still interested, I’ll give you a stipend for managing the grounds of my Dash holding, with other responsibilities should you want them. Keep in touch.”
I tap a restraint around Darcy’s arms and take her to the elevator. It blips us to the cargo bay where Kitty is shining and drag my prisoner by her collar before Kitty un-docks and speeds into the void where at 50k kilometers, she jumps back to Pinkie Finger Station to drop Darcy off. I hand her a ticket for a cargo barge headed for Dash, AJ, and eventually Twilight and then hand her a transaction notice of the funds I reclaimed.
If she comes around, I’ll give her the money back, but trying to hold me hostage for something I’d already paid her for was the wrong choice.
\You can’t do this!! I’ll report you to the Empire for this.\
/The Brony Confab is now governing these systems. I’m sure if you petition them, they’ll get to your complaint in due course./
\If I talk to Petra, maybe she’ll listen.\
/I advise against that route Darcy./ I message, wondering what I did to hurt her so badly.
\You made your choice, Mikaela. I mean to make you pay for it.\
I nod, send her an apology explaining that I didn’t know what I did for her to hate me so much, but I erase her records anyway. I then send her the actions I took and the conspiracy to commit treason charges that would be coming her way if she wanted to make a fuss. She has enough in her bank account to cause trouble and a small residence on the outside of Capitol City on Dash. She’ll live.