It took about fifteen sessions over the next week with a sleeping Simone, one in the morning and one at night, to help her work through all of her issues and problems. Previously, she had made great progress in removing Luxea's influence on her own, so we helped her get rid of the last of it. We knew it was necessary to do that, since Luxea's views on aliens was not something Simone should have in her head, especially now that she had her extra arms back and was now distinctly alien-looking.
During the day, I worked on making satellites and also taught Simone how to use her considerable Presence to reinforce her extra arms. I also taught her how to circulate extra nutrients and energy through her body to keep herself healthy and energized. I pushed her hard during those lessons and she slept well each night, which made Hailey's and my efforts in her mind that much easier. She didn't fight against us at all and welcomed our assistance with an open heart and an increasingly peaceful mind.
I made her wait for the next day everyone had off before I allowed her to leave the medical bay. Hailey heartily agreed with my assessment. Simone also agreed that it was time for her to try and function once more as a part of the crew after being incapacitated for so long. After a sizable meal, she stepped out of the medical bay with Hailey and I behind her. She was surprised when she was greeted by a succession of hugs and teary eyes.
“You look so great!” Gleas said with wet eyes and gave her the first hug.
“We've been watching your progress!” Beatrice said and gave her the next hug.
“It's the best show on the screen.” Sandy said and hugged her. “Except when you're asleep. Only Hailey and Hunter enjoy those episodes.”
Simone chuckled, because she could hear the underlying thoughts from the joke. She knew Sandy and the others had watched her just as diligently as Hunter and Hailey did.
“We are all so happy for you.” Deborah said and hugged her, then stepped aside.
“You know I'm not big on displays like this.” Jelly said and reached out a hand to shake.
Simone nodded and held a normal hand out and shook it, then she was surprised when Jelly held her hand there and waited.
“Keep going.” Jelly said with a smile.
Simone caught her breath at Jelly's intention to shake all of her hands and tentatively lifted one of her extra arms and shook Jelly's hand.
“That's a little weird.” Jelly said and turned the hand a little and pat it with her free hand. “You really can use it like an extra arm and not like a copy of the other one?”
“Yes, thanks to Hunter and Hailey.” Simone said. “I had... forgotten... what it was like to use extra arms.”
“That's actually pretty cool.” Jelly said and let the hand go and held her other hand out to be shaken.
Simone obliged and shook the hand with her other two hands. “Jelly, you didn't have to do that.”
“Of course I did.” Jelly said. “How else was I supposed to evaluate your ability to pilot?”
“Huh?” Simone blinked her eyes at her.
“Someone hasn't had a flying lesson in a while.” I said with a smile. “I was going to take you out myself; but, since Jelly is the expert shuttle pilot, I thought it would be better for her to give you the flight test.”
“F-f-flight t-test?” Simone looked at me and then at Jelly with worry on her face.
“Don't worry. It's only the basic flight test to prove that you can operate a shuttle without killing yourself or anyone else.” Jelly said with a laugh. “Believe me, with your extra arms, you're going to pass with flying colors.”
“Did you just use a bad pilot pun?” I asked.
“I'm a pilot.” Jelly smiled. “That doesn't make me better than the average person... just much, much cooler.”
Gleas, Beatrice, and Deborah burst out laughing.
Sandy laughed as well, because she had to agree that Beatrice was cooler than her because she was a pilot. “We... promise not to... watch this episode.”
That made everyone laugh, even Simone. Jelly took Simone's normal hand and started to walk towards her room.
“WAIT!” Simone yelled and Jelly stopped walking.
“What is it?” Jelly asked, confused.
“My... my flight suit...” Simone sighed and looked at me. “You wasted all that money on me.”
I chuckled. “If I thought it was a waste, I would have left you wearing the military space suit.”
“But... now with...” Simone lifted her extra arms.
“Just go get washed and changed.” I said and waved away her concerns.
“But...” Simone wanted to object to my casual dismissal.
“Come on.” Jelly said and tugged on her normal arm.
Simone went with her and they entered Simone's room.
“She is going to be so surprised!” Hailey said with a grin.
A couple of minutes later, there was a delighted scream that we all knew was Simone.
“I told you that sometimes delaying information is important.” I reminded Hailey and she giggled.
A couple of minutes after that, Simone came out of her room wearing a custom flight suit that covered all four of her arms and had two sets of mag-lock gloves, one normal set with four fingers and a thumb and one with only three fingers and a thumb.
The others gave her wolf whistles and applause, like they had given me when they saw me the first time, and Simone's face was flushed red. She gave each of them a nod and then walked right over to me.
“Hunter, you cheated me.” Simone said in a stern voice as she glared at me. There were thoughts of confusion from everyone and I couldn't help but laugh.
“Okay, fine. I did that to distract you.” I admitted.
“I know.” Simone said. “I was the one that was supposed to choose when to cash in the bet.” She said and put her arms around me, all of them, and her stern expression vanished as she kissed me. Surprisingly, she kissed me the exact same way that Hailey had kissed me. Hailey started to giggle as Simone shared the experience with her, and it was just different enough from her own memory to delight her.
Simone broke the kiss and let me go. “Now the bet is paid off.”
“Hey, you didn't even suspend her first!” Sandy exclaimed and then covered her mouth as she let the secret out. She had mentioned knowing it when Rhubin and Kalina had tried their little coup.
“There goes that open secret.” Deborah said and we all looked at her. “What? You don't think I would be stupid enough to bet a kiss with the boss if I didn't know how to bypass getting fired for it, do you?”
“Ha!” Sandy barked a nervous laugh, then then we all started laughing. After a few minutes of tension dissolving laughter, Jelly pat Simone's shoulder.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
“Let's get this done.” Jelly said and Simone nodded to her and they walked down the corridor.
“Stop staring at my ass.” Simone said as she caught me doing just that with her modified version of Detect Presence that let her see around her, except that it mostly used her telepathy.
“I was only testing you.” I said with a chuckle and she almost stumbled as the Presence wavered from the lie. “I think that means we have to work on your sensitivity training next week.”
Simone cursed out loud and also in her head, and both Hailey and I laughed.
With her new dexterity and her ability to keep one set of hands on the main controls and she a free set of hands to run everything, Simone very easily passed her provisional flight test to get her license. All she needed to do now was get actual flight time on her record to qualify as an actual pilot. That was great, because the next day the military contacted me to let me know Rhubin's and Luxea's trial had finished.
They had been found guilty of various charges, the lowest of which was grand theft of my personal money. I asked what to do with their things, and they said to drop it off at the station. It would be brought to the prison facility on the planet and left there for when they got out in twenty years. I could also pick up my stolen credits at the same time, so Jelly flew Hailey and I to the station and it also became Simone's co-pilot mission. It was the fastest way for her to get flight experience, until we left the system and the restrictions on new flyers weren't as strict.
I dropped off their things that had been cluttering up the ship and picked up my credits. I checked the chips of course and was glad to find that the money was all there. I thanked the military officer and we left the station without doing anything else. The medical supplies had been delivered a week before and the trick I had Sandy do had worked like a charm. We got the supplies for a bulk price, rather than the individual sale price, and the medical bay was completely restocked.
With nothing left to keep us in the system, I had Gleas plot us separate courses that took us to the same rendezvous points, except that we hopped into each system along the way and dropped off the appropriate number of satellites. It added a week of travel time to the new ship; but, since the Udelis was so much faster, it had the task of visiting twice as many systems.
By the time we reached the Fogaris System, we had successfully deployed over a hundred satellites and all of them were online and working perfectly. I had built in so much redundancy and over-engineered the damn things that they wouldn't need any kind of maintenance for at least fifty years.
Dropping the satellites wasn't the biggest thing we did along the way, either. As we stopped in each system, we left discrete messages letting random people, both reputable and not so reputable, know about a hidden network that wasn't tracked or had Order monitoring software on them, making it a clean network without prying eyes. The messages were mostly met with disbelief and were seen as a joke, which was my intent.
Only certain people would consider the ramifications of what having a clean connection meant, and those were the people that were going to be our main customers. Word would spread from them very quickly, once they used their trace programs and saw that it really was a clean network.
The more satellites dropped and the more systems added to the network, the more it would automatically update the list for people on the network. That was going to guarantee both new clients and more people for them to spread the word to. That alone should have been enough to draw attention to it. Who doesn't want a secure connection? That wasn't what had people's mind's blown.
It was the cost.
One credit for a message. Two credits for a five minute video message. Ten credits for half an hour of live video or text, their choice. It was a pittance. In Earth terms, it was pennies on the dollar compared to what a normal call cost. No one believed it until they tried it. When they did, word about it spread faster than light.
After arriving in the Fogaris System, we made the rounds and visited everyone to deliver food and to see how everything was. Tensions were still a little high, even though all of the domestic terrorists had been rounded up. It was the lack of definitive closure that was getting to people.
Since the government didn't want big show trials to incite the population, everything was handled quietly and only the news outlets were allowed to report on it, as long as they kept the sensationalism to a minimum. Of course, I contacted Sheph as soon as I heard about it and she cleared her office of workers to speak to me. I instead told her to call me on my private network and gave her my com code. Sheph's face flushed red as she accepted and cut the call, then she was back barely a moment later.
“I know it's a mistake, Hunter.” Sheph said. “I can't overrule the president.”
“Uzahne is falling into the same traps the previous government fell into.” I warned her. “Most of the citizens had no idea there was even a Chofaris Liberation group until the capital city was destroyed from an orbital bombardment.”
Sheph sighed. “I know... it's just...”
“You're outnumbered.” I said and she nodded. “Do you want me to make some noise for you?”
Sheph caught her breath at the offer. “Hunter, you... no, you can't...” She faltered in her argument.
“Sheph, all I have to do is step onto the planet surface and I'll cause an uproar.” I said. “What do you want me to tell the press? The trials are happening but it's all private? Demand the government be forthcoming and honest? What?”
“Hunter, you... we covered up for you...”
“Sheph, you didn't have to cover anything up. No one would blame me for what I did. In fact, if I remember correctly, they kind of revere me.” I said with a wicked smile.
Sheph chuckled. “Did you know that you have a one hundred percent approval rating?”
“Wow, that high?” I asked, a little surprised. “I figured maybe the high nineties.”
“No, one hundred. You could tell them the sky was green and they would believe you, even while looking at the blue one.”
I laughed. “I'm not that persuasive.”
“Okay, maybe they would only doubt that blue was the real color.” Sheph corrected.
“All right, point taken.” I said. “So, we should discuss exactly what you want people to know.”
“Hunter, you do realize that this could be considered treason by the government.” Sheph warned me.
“I'm not defying the government.” I said honestly. “I'm telling the people that the government hasn't learned its lessons from the mistakes of the last one.”
Sheph sighed. “That's the same thing.”
“Not if you help me word it properly.” I said, and she closed her eyes for a moment, then nodded.
“I'm going to have to resign after I explain.” Sheph opened her eyes. “This is what you need to do.” She said and told me what to say and where to go to say it.
*
Every single person in the capital city was surprised when an unexpected and telltale beeping came over the emergency frequency, which meant an announcement was coming. The frequency was wired into every screen, speaker, and display across the capital, which in turn was sent out as a backup signal to all of the other emergency stations in every other city and town across the planet.
Soon, the entire world was watching every available screen to see what was coming. The people's surprise turned to shock when the Hero of Chofaris appeared on the screen wearing his trademark powered armor suit, cloak, and blast shield.
“Good afternoon.” Hunter said and smiled out at everyone, then he dropped the hood and took off the suit coat and his blast shield to make himself more friendly. “I've co-opted the emergency network for a special announcement that I'm sure a lot of you have been waiting for a while to hear.”
*
“For goddess' sake! Shut it OFF!” A woman exclaimed as Hunter started to tell the general population about the Chofaris Liberation group, a closely guarded government secret, how many there had been, how they had been captured with his help, and what was currently being done with them.
The woman that yelled was the current head of the main broadcast network and she smacked someone on the back of the head. The man she slapped was the vice president in charge of programming.
“We can't shut it off. It's the emergency network and it has all the overrides.” He responded and didn't try to stop the woman's follow-up strike.
“Change the feed! Pull the power! Something!”
The man laughed. “There's a reason it's the emergency network. None of that can happen. Barring blowing the whole building up, there is no way to stop the signal.”
“Call the military! They can...”
“...sit there and watch like everyone else.” The man said with a smile. “I doubt their communications are working right now.”
“What?” The woman asked, surprised.
“Do you really think any of them want to be the one sent after the Hero of Chofaris?” The man asked and laughed.
The woman didn't respond and then groaned as Hunter played videos about the captures as he talked.
*
“Oh, Goddess!” Uzahne's aide exclaimed as she watched the emergency broadcast in the president's office. Uzahne didn't speak and watched silently. The door burst open and Ahaen stormed in.
“Are you watching this?” Ahaen asked and waved at the screen. “I can't believe he's doing this to us!”
“You did it to yourselves.” A woman's soft voice said and they turned to see Sheph in the doorway. “You wouldn't listen to what I was trying to warn you about, and you wouldn't change your opinion on how you thought Hunter was going to react when he came back and saw what has been going on.”
“Sheph.” Uzahne said. “Now isn't the time for recriminations.”
Sheph walked into the room and handed Uzahne her resignation. “As the one who was supposed to be in control of the media, I'm forced to take responsibility for this and resign.” She waved at the screen. “I'm not sure how he gained access to the emergency broadcast network...” Because I didn't ask him how he was going to do that and I didn't want to know. She thought. “...and it can't be stopped once it's started, except from the source.”
“I want him arrested for treason!” Ahaen said.
Sheph laughed. “Good luck with that.” She said. “He's not actually committing treason.”
“What?” Both Ahaen and Uzahne sait at the same time.
“He's only telling things he knows about and is showing footage for things he had access to personally. He's not spilling state secrets, inciting sedition, or even advocating any kind of uprising.” Sheph said and both women looked at her with wide eyes.
The aide only had a contemplative look on her face and then smiled. “He's only providing information and no actual opinions on what should be done, what could be done, or what he would have done.”
“Exactly.” Sheph said and walked across the room and looked back when she reached the doorway. “Uzahne, we've known each other for how many years now?” She asked and held a hand up to stop the other woman's response. “You don't know how disappointed I am than you didn't even consider rejecting my resignation or tried to convince me to stay.”
Uzahne looked down at the paper in her hand, then let it go as if it was a snake that was about to bite her. It dropped to the desk without a sound and when she looked up, Sheph was gone.