Gunboat Diplomacy

Book Fourteen of The Empire of Bones Saga

Terry Mixon

Contents

Gunboat Diplomacy

Also by Terry Mixon

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Also by Terry Mixon

About Terry

Gunboat Diplomacy

Book 14 in The Empire of Bones Saga

by

Terry Mixon

The war against the AIs is won but the fight for humanity has only just begun. With the xenophobic Clans rampaging though the Rebel Empire, Princess Kelsey Bandar must convince the skeptical resistance to help them to establish a base of operations to fight back.

To do that, Kelsey needs every ally she can get and a whole lot of luck. Instead she finds herself trapped in an alien universe while her mother tries to save the day.

As her friends struggle to accomplish the work without her, she has to decipher the alien place holding her. Even if she does get free, can she turn the situation around in her own universe before everything comes apart in their faces?

Gunboat Diplomacy

Copyright © 2021 by Terry Mixon

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including information storage and/or retrieval systems, or dissemination of any electronic version, without the prior written consent of the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review, and except where permitted by law.

This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Published by Yowling Cat Press ®

Digital edition date: 8/22/2021

Print ISBN: 978-1947376380

Large Print ISBN: 978-1947376397

Cover art - image copyrights as follows:

DepositPhotos | lurii (Юрий Коваленко)

Dreamstime | Forplayday

Luca Oleastri

Donna Mixon

Cover design and composition by Donna Mixon

Print edition design and layout by Terry Mixon

Also by Terry Mixon

You can always find the most up to date listing of Terry’s titles on his Amazon Author Page.

Note: the links below (ebook only, obviously) redirect you to my website where you can click a button to go to Amazon. This allows me to participate in Amazon’s associates program and earn a little more. Sorry for any inconvenience.

The Empire of Bones Saga

Empire of Bones

Veil of Shadows

Command Decisions

Ghosts of Empire

Paying the Price

Recon in Force

Behind Enemy Lines

The Terra Gambit

Hidden Enemies

Race to Terra

Ruined Terra

Victory on Terra

When Luck Runs Out

Gunboat Diplomacy

The Imperial Marines Saga

Spoils of War

Imperial Recruit

The Humanity Unlimited Saga

Liberty Station

Freedom Express

Tree of Liberty

Blood of Patriots

Single Novels

Scorched Earth

Storm Divers

The Vigilante Series with Glynn Stewart

Heart of Vengeance

Oath of Vengeance

Bound By Law

Bound By Honor

Bound By Blood

Box Sets

The Empire of Bones Saga Volume 1

The Empire of Bones Saga Volume 2

The Empire of Bones Saga Volume 3

Humanity Unlimited Publisher’s Pack 1

Want to get updates from Terry about new books and other general nonsense going on in his life? He promises there will be cats. Go to TerryMixon.com/Mailing-List and sign up.

Dedication

This book would not be possible without the love and support of my beautiful wife. Donna, I love you more than life itself.

Acknowledgments

I want to thank the folks that support me on Patreon. You got to read this book as I was writing it and that kept me working. You have my deepest thanks.

In particular, I want to thank those patrons that supported me at the $10 level:

Bryan Barnes

Robert Broadly

Tony Craven

Bill Colston

Dave Dolan

David Goldstein

Eugene Humbert

Mark I Marcum

Christian A. Michelsen

John Page

Carl Rumbolo

Lisa Slack

Dale Thompson

Raymond Wang

Clark Williams

Finally, I want to thank my readers for putting up with me. You guys are great.

1

Kelsey Bandar felt her tension rising when Persephone’s helm officer, Senior Lieutenant Jack Thompson, called out, “Sixty seconds to the multiflip point.”

“Do you think Audacious is still in the Home system?” Major Angela Ellis asked her from her command seat at the center of the cramped bridge.

Kelsey’s old seat.

She shrugged. “It’s hard to imagine that she’d go anywhere without us. Getting them to rejoin the fleet before we moved on Twilight River was impossible, since we couldn’t get a message to them. I’m sure they’re still here.”

Sadly for Kelsey, that meant that someone else would be waiting for her: Justine Bandar, her mother. The thought made her grimace.

“Is something wrong?” Angela asked, quirking an eyebrow.

She shook her head slightly. “I’m just not looking forward to the inevitable meeting with my mother. She’s going to go absolutely crazy.”

Angela laughed. “Crazy will probably just about start covering it, I think. I hope you’ve had time to build up a little bit of patience for her. She’s going to be a grandmother, and having something like that drop on one out of the blue is a trial for a normal person. Justine Bandar is anything but normal.”

“Isn’t that the truth,” Kelsey muttered with feeling. “I wonder if she’s still paired up with Don Sommerville. Maybe having a guy in her life will distract her.”

“Your mother has had… a number of men in her life, and none of them has ever distracted her when it comes to you,” her friend said delicately. “Let’s not build up any false hope, shall we? Your mother is going to lose her mind when she finds out that you’re pregnant. Just accept it and focus on minimizing the consequences.”

Kelsey hoped that her mother was still with Don Sommerville, even if he was literally half her mother’s age. The man was a former Fleet officer with the Rebel Empire, and one didn’t rise to the rank of lieutenant commander without being levelheaded and cool under fire.

Thompson turned from the helm console and cleared his throat. “We’ve arrived at the flip point, Colonel, Major.”

“Jack, don’t go forgetting that Her Highness is a general now,” Angela said slyly, shooting a look at Kelsey that sparkled with humor. “Admittedly, it won’t be official until somebody back on Avalon says it is, but let’s treat her rank as a brevet promotion. After all, she’s made Talbot a colonel, and she’s still his boss. That means she must be a general.”

“Or just his wife,” Carl said as he stepped onto the bridge. “Any good husband will tell you that his wife is always the boss.”

“Sure, but that doesn’t work in a military setting,” Angela argued. “Besides, it’s making her blush.”

From the heat she was feeling from her face, Kelsey didn’t doubt it. She wasn’t sure why, but her hormones had been out of whack since she’d reached the third trimester. Lily Stone had locked her pharmacology unit down to keep it from interfering with the developing child inside her, and that occasionally left her open to wide swings of emotion and weird things like blushing.

“My apologies, General Bandar,” Thompson said with a grin. “In any case, if the map is accurate, we should be popping out at the multiflip point in the Home system. The odds are good that they’ve found it by now and have it under observation.”

“Send the probe through,” Angela said.

“Probe away and transitioned. Awaiting scanner readings via FTL. It’s set to only use passive scanners, just to be safe.”

Thompson abruptly straightened. “Vessel detected. Correction, three vessels detected. One right on top of the flip point and two set farther back. They look like corvettes. They’ve detected the probe, and their scanners have gone fully active.”

“Then I suppose we best identify ourselves before somebody starts shooting,” Angela said. “Open a channel via FTL to normal space coms on the other side.”

At his nod, she continued speaking. “This is Major Angela Ellis, commanding officer of the Imperial Marine Raider strike ship Persephone. We are on the other side of this flip point with an accompanying destroyer and request permission to enter the Home system.”

Moments later, the viewscreen changed from showing the starscape to the bridge of a small ship. Kelsey recognized the man sitting in the central chair. His name was Gavin Sommerville, and he was Don’s older brother.

“I have to say that I didn’t expect to have you try to sneak in through the back door, Major, Your Highness,” he said with a grin. “Though, considering that’s what you did last time, I’m glad I was sitting here to catch you. How did you know that it would lead to Home?”

“That’s a very long story,” Kelsey said with a smile. “The good news is that we’ve beaten the Master AI. The bad news is… well, there’s a lot of bad news. Nothing that we can’t work around, but I’d much rather tell it only once. Do you mind if we come in?”

“It’s not like you haven’t gotten a scan of the system already,” the man grumbled. “Permission granted, and welcome to the home of the resistance.”

* * *

Commodore Zia Anderson stood to the side of the large boat bay aboard the carrier Audacious. Brandon Levy—her flag captain—and Annette Vitter—her wing commander—bracketed her. A platoon of marine honor guards rounded out the welcoming committee.

Also present was her girlfriend, Veronica Giguere.

Their relationship probably pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable under regulations. Still, she’d justified it because Veronica wasn’t an actively serving officer, and the Rebel Empire wasn’t part of the New Terran Empire in any case.

At least not yet. If that changed, she’d deal with that complication too.

Thus far, her subordinates had been supportive of the relationship. She’d half expected there to be fireworks, but it seemed that everyone else already knew that a potential romance was in the air, even before she did.

She wanted to put an arm around Veronica’s waist and pull her a little closer, but Kelsey’s pinnace was almost there. She needed to speak with her privately and make sure that her friend understood what was going on and approved.

Not that her disapproval would change anything unless she put her Imperial foot down, which Zia didn’t expect her to. Even then, Zia would fight back. She wouldn’t give Veronica up even if she lost that fight, and damn the consequences.

The pinnace came through the massive airlock at the far side of the boat bay and hovered as it turned adroitly in front of them and settled to the deck. The ramp at the rear lowered almost immediately, and the marine honor guard snapped to attention.

Kelsey Bandar, Crown Princess of the New Terran Empire and senior Marine Raider, came down the ramp with Major Angela Ellis at her side. The short blonde looked more than a bit haggard, and her petite frame seemed almost… bloated. Had she gained weight?

She opened her mouth to welcome them aboard her ship, but the sudden realization slammed into her before she could speak.

“Oh. My. God,” she said, her voice rising slightly. “Kelsey! You’re pregnant!”

Kelsey sighed and shook her head as she came to a halt in front of them. “Did you have to tell everybody in the boat bay? Is it really that obvious? Please tell me you’re a really good guesser.”

Veronica leaned slightly forward with a slight smile. “Not at all. I’m sure that almost no one would notice that belly. From maybe two kilometers out.”

“I’m so screwed.”

“Apparently.”

With that, Veronica nudged Zia with her elbow. “Aren’t you supposed to be trotting out that flowery welcome speech that you spent the last hour agonizing over?”

“I can’t remember a single word of it,” Zia admitted. “Kelsey, Angela, welcome back to Audacious. And, apparently, congratulations. It seems like you’ve got quite the story to tell. Perhaps we should adjourn to somewhere a little bit more comfortable. You look like you need to put your feet up.”

“That works for me,” Kelsey said with a gesture toward the hatch behind Zia. “I’ve got a lot of information to pass along, and I would like to get off my feet. They’re a little swollen, as you’ve rightly guessed.”

With that, Zia led the way into her ship, and they all took a lift up to the flag deck. She’d originally intended to take her visitors to the main briefing room, but she now suspected that her office would be a lot more comfortable. Certainly, the chairs were more agreeable to sensitive backsides.

She discreetly sent a message to Commander Zac Zoboroski, Audacious’s chief medical officer, letting him know that Princess Kelsey was in a family way. He immediately responded that he was on his way, and she directed him to her office.

If Kelsey had been hoping to avoid extra medical attention, she’d be sorely disappointed. The woman was a menace to her own health and well-being. Someone needed to keep an eye on her now that she had a child inside her. Or, knowing her, she’d need a lot of someones.

Frankly, Zia was absolutely shocked that Lily Stone wasn’t with her. And Talbot. How could Kelsey have escaped that kind of attention? Zia wasn’t sure that the answer was going to please her.

Once they were all settled into her office, including Doctor Zoboroski, who hurried in at the last moment, she decided to kick off the party with her own news. Honestly, compared to Kelsey’s pregnancy, her having a girlfriend was… downright pedestrian.

“Before you start, I need to tell you that Veronica and I are seeing one another,” she said in a level voice. “The Rebel Empire Fleet isn’t our Fleet, and I don’t consider us to be in the same chain of command. There’s also the fact that she’s working for the resistance and not active duty. Are you going to give me any trouble over that?”

Kelsey grinned. “Absolutely not! Consider it blessed by me and woe to anyone that gives you flak. Congratulations to the pair of you.”

“See?” Veronica said in a slow drawl. “I told you it wasn’t going to be a problem. You’re such a worrywart.”

Even though she’d been sure that would be the case, Zia still felt herself relaxing a little. Just because there wasn’t much of a chance of a huge complication didn’t mean there was none. Still, the fact that the Crown Princess of the New Terran Empire had blessed the relationship meant that no one else was going to question it.

She looked pointedly at Kelsey’s mildly swollen belly. “So, I suppose I don’t need to give you the lecture about the birds and the bees at this point, do I?”

Kelsey laughed. “No, thank you. By now, I’m quite aware of where babies come from. Sadly, I didn’t realize that my contraceptive implant had failed until it was too late to transfer the baby—a girl, by the way—to a gestation pod.

“In another piece of the news, Elise is going to have twin boys, and they were successfully transferred. The pods are aboard the destroyer, and Elise is on Persephone. It’s complicated, but there’s a reason for that.”

If the fact that Kelsey was pregnant rocked Zia’s world, the news that her former commander and the admiral of their fleet was going to be a father was like a brick falling on her head. A good brick, but still.

“I’m looking forward to hearing that story, but I suspect that you have other news we need to hear first. What’s been going on for the last eight months?”

Kelsey grimaced. “The good news is that we beat the Master AI. It’s now completely under our control, even though I’m not sure just how much that’s going to help us with the Clans rampaging through the Rebel Empire.

“The bad news is that Jared’s fleet is destroyed.”

That news was like a brick to the face—an awful brick thrown at high velocity.

“I think you’d better tell us everything,” Zia said gravely. “What about the admiral and Talbot?”

“Jared’s alive and in good health, and so is Talbot. Invincible survived the fight, but she’s destined for the scrapyard. We lost most of our ships outright, and the rest are severely damaged. Caduceus is the biggest ship that survived intact.

“The Master AI wasn’t located at Twilight River. That was a trap. It was actually hidden in Alpha Centauri. We went all the way out and had to come back. I’m going to send you all the data we have on the fight itself and the details of our plans going forward.

“But first, I need to tell you about Raptor and the rest of Eagle Squadron.”

Kelsey’s sad expression and dispirited voice told Zia what she would say before she continued, and she felt her heart clench.

“During the final assault on the Master AI, we launched every marine and Marine Raider we had, but we weren’t going to be able to get through the station’s battle screens. I had a front-row seat when Raptor and the rest of the pilots used every weapon they had to destabilize the battle screens, but it wasn’t enough.

“So they rammed them. There were no survivors.”

That really was a punch to the gut. She hadn’t known Gus Grappin for very long, but he’d been a cheerful soul, a dedicated officer, and a friend.

Now he was gone. Now they were all gone.

“Did they complete their mission?” she asked quietly. “I assume so, since you’re here, but I want to hear it.”

Kelsey nodded. “With distinction. Their sacrifice allowed us onto the station. Without them, I’d be dead, so would everyone else, and humanity would still be enslaved.”

The short blonde woman’s gaze never wavered, but she had tears gathering in her eyes. “It was a slaughter. Every Marine Raider, except Talbot, myself, and Persephone’s bridge crew, died in the attack. Less than a dozen marines survived. Fleet lost almost two-thirds of their people.

“It was by far the closest fight we’ve ever been in, and if we hadn’t attacked with surprise and Eagle Squadron hadn’t made the ultimate sacrifice, not only would we have lost, but we would all have died.”

Zia swallowed hard. She started to say something, but Veronica took her hand and squeezed it hard.

She took a breath, and then she took another. No one said anything.

“We’re going to have to have a wake,” Annette said. “I’m so proud of them. They did what I’d hope we’d all do under similar circumstances and trade our lives for those we protect.”

“I’ll give you the details later, but I recognized each of them for their bravery as much as I could,” Kelsey said as Veronica handed her a tissue to wipe her eyes. “Promotions and awards don’t mean much to someone when they’re done posthumously, but they didn’t exactly give me a chance to order them to abort. Not that I expect they’d have obeyed me anyway.

“In any case, I’ve made a few changes that are going to impact you. First of all, Eagle Squadron is now the Princess’s Own Fighter Squadron. You’re going to have to figure out how to reconstitute them, but they’ll carry that distinction wherever they serve.

“And this last thing is probably going to cause you a big, fat headache. Having a class of fighter called the Hornet is all fine and good, but from this day forward, whatever the design may be, the New Terran Empire’s frontline fighter will be called the Raptor.”

“That is going to be… so very complicated,” Zia said. “Do you know how much of a pain in the ass that’s going to be for headquarters? Not just changing the name but changing it every single time there’s a new iteration of fighter. You’re saying that the ones that are currently called Raptors revert to being Hornets later? How would that even work? Are you sure about this, Kelsey?”

“I’m sure, though I have no idea what happens to the names after they’re replaced. Maybe these are now the Raptor Mark 1. I want every single fighter pilot to think about him every time they get into their fighter. His example—all their examples—are what set the bar going forward.

“Besides, that’s not nearly as bad as what I did to Jared. I declared that the fleet that trashed Alpha Centauri while providing us the distraction we needed to get aboard that station would now be called Alpha Fleet.”

Zia laughed. “You know that Fleet uses numbers for that sort of thing, right?”

“I do now. Well, it’s not exclusively numbers anymore.”

“Yeah, we definitely got the easier end of the deal,” Annette said with a low chuckle. “You know they’re going to stop you from changing any other names when you get back, right?”

“I imagine they’re going to stop me from doing a lot of things when I get back home. Talbot was supposed to come with me, but we made a last-minute decision that he needed to be with Jared.

“We had the Master AI summon as many of the computer-controlled ships that were hidden around as possible, and Marcus is going to control them for us. We’ve decommissioned the Master AI, and we’re putting it somewhere that it’s never going to be easily accessed again.

“The problem is that the Clans aren’t working alone. The Singularity was behind this from the very beginning. One of their agents perverted the master AI and started this whole thing back during the Fall.

“Not only that, they’ve been supplying and guiding the Clans since who knows when. They’re the puppet masters. The only thing that prevented them from taking complete control of the Empire five hundred years ago is that the Master AI found a loophole that allowed it to keep them on their side of the border.

“Somehow, we have to find a way of stopping the Clans with just the forces we can gather without stripping the borders of the defenses that keep the Singularity out. I suppose that’s going to be up to Jared to figure out, since we’re just passing through to give you the information, and then we’ll be headed for Avalon.”

Zia felt her eyes narrowing. “Kelsey, that’s an incredibly dangerous journey, particularly with just a couple of ships.”

“Not if you have a map and a secret way of getting there. One of the little side trips that we took on the way to Twilight River put us in contact with an alien artifact from a long-dead race. One of the things that we found was a map of the flip point system, including a couple kinds of flip points that we didn’t know existed.”

Zia perked up at that. “Over what kind of area? Is it enough to get you all the way home?”

Kelsey grinned. “You’re not going to believe this, but it covers the entire Milky Way. Every. Single. Flip point. However it’s doing it, the map is current and seems accurate.

“That means that we know where every single multiflip point is and where all of its branches go. There’s also a kind of extremely far flip point that sits way out past where that kind of thing normally exists, and it can go up to ten times farther than a far flip point.

“One of them brought us from close to Twilight River all the way back to Alpha Centauri in a single flip. A six-month journey completed just like that. Sadly, there’s not one that leads from close to here back to the New Terran Empire, but with the map, we can take all the time we need and never come close to being detected on the way home.”

They all sat in silence for a while, adjusting to everything that Kelsey had said. Then Zac spoke up. “I’m sure you’ve been looked at any number of times by now, but I’d appreciate it if you’d stop by the medical center so I can give you a checkup. I know that Commodore Anderson would feel better that way.”

“Why do I have the feeling that everyone is going to want to put me through the medical wringer every time I turn around?” Kelsey asked rhetorically. “Sure. It’ll give me time to plan out what I do next.”

“And what will that be?” Zia asked.

“Something a lot more dangerous than anything I’ve done so far. I have to go tell my mother that she’s going to be a grandmother.”

2

Carl Owlet walked into his main lab aboard Audacious with Ralph Halstead and Austin Darrah at his heels. The compartment was far roomier than the makeshift one he’d had aboard Persephone, and he was ready to enjoy the extra space for as long as they were going to stay and use some of the advanced equipment that he had here to study the alien device that followed Elise Orison around like a puppy.

They’d done the best they could aboard Invincible, but the makeshift equipment he’d been able to salvage wasn’t up to the same standards as what he’d been forced to leave here. Sadly, all of that other equipment was gone now, having been in a section aboard the superdreadnought that had been destroyed.

At the very least, Carl intended to salvage as much as possible and put it aboard the destroyer for the trip back to Avalon. He wouldn’t be able to take Elise or the strange alien robot on the destroyer because that was where the gestation pods holding her children were, though he could at least bring some equipment over to Persephone later if needed.

“I forgot how big this place was,” Ralph said, looking around. “We’re never going to be able to take all this stuff.”

“No,” Carl agreed. “Most of it will have to stay. Still, there’s a lot of sensitive equipment that we can bring along that might make a difference in studying the picotech. Heck, we might even be able to detect some of the femtotech if we’re lucky.”

“That stuff is like magic,” Austin said.

“That’s what sufficiently advanced technology looks like,” Carl said. “I doubt very seriously that we’re ever going to understand how femtotech works. We just don’t have the tools to examine the little things. I can’t understand how you even program something that small, yet it’s obvious the aliens did so.”

“Are we going to bring the robot over here and put it in one of the big scanners?” Ralph asked. “We might be able to pull more of its programming out and use Fiona to help break it down for us when we get back to Persephone.”

“That’s the plan if Commodore Anderson agrees to let it on board.”

“Do you think she’ll say no?” Austin asked.

“I’m not going to assume the answer is yes until I hear it. We’d best plan on taking all of the equipment that we can back to the destroyer. We could disassemble the main scanner and move it over. That would be a huge pain in the ass, but it’s doable. We won’t do anything unless we have to. This is just a planning trip.”

“What’s our end goal?” Ralph asked. “I understand that you want to examine everything you can about this alien technology, but don’t we have more pressing things to do? There’s still a war going on.”

Carl turned and faced his friend. “There is, but what exactly are we supposed to do to win it? This is a war being fought with ships and on the ground. There’s nothing that we can add to the mix that will improve our odds. Not really.

“Oh, we’ve done a few things that’ll make a difference. The portable battle screens that the marines can strap to their arms will help protect them. The improved communications radius that the upgraded implants have is important too, but those are only incremental things. That fight is going to be in someone else’s hands from this point forward.”

Carl smiled at Ralph. “Are you going to go visit your aunt and uncle while we’re here?”

The young man rolled his eyes. “I should, but I’m afraid of what they might say.”

“You think that they’re going to be upset that you’re helping us?” Austin asked.

“This is going to be really hard for you to understand, but they’re criminals. Not just run-of-the-mill criminals but ones that really care about earning as much money as they can while breaking the law. It’s almost like a religion with them.

“I’m doing real science, and they’re going to see that as a waste of time. Hell, they’ll probably try to buy information off me that they can sell somewhere else if they ever escape the resistance. It’s almost like knowing someone that’s addicted to drugs. You can’t trust them because you never know what’s going to drive their next action.”

“But you’re still going to go see them, right?” Carl asked pointedly. “No matter how much you don’t like them being criminals, they are your aunt and uncle.”

Ralph sighed. “Fine, I’ll go see them. What are you going to be doing while I do that?”

“I’m going to bring in some of the big guns to help us figure out the alien technology. Jacqueline Parker and the rest of the people from the Dresden Research Facility are here. I know that they’ve been continuing to work on the secret projects that they were overseeing before, but I suspect that they’d be more than happy to set some of that aside and take a look at real alien technology.”

His friends nodded, their expressions granting him the validity of his statement.

“They probably have better equipment than you do, too,” Austin said. “Perhaps they can probe the robot in ways that we haven’t thought of yet. There’s something to be said for bringing in a lot of new eyes to look at a problem.”

“We can’t count on that,” Carl said with a sigh. “Now, get to making that list while I go talk with Commodore Anderson. If need be, we’ll gather the small things that we can move quickly and make a list of the bigger things that we can move later.”

While they started the task of inventorying the lab, he headed for the flag bridge. Time to be as convincing as possible.

* * *

Justine Bandar stood in front of the full-length mirror and examined the conservative dress she was wearing, turning slightly to the side in either direction, and frowned. Too formal. It needed to be more cheerful.

She headed back to her closet and began rummaging through it, looking for something that would be suitable for a casual yet thoroughly planned meeting with her daughter. She hadn’t heard much more than the fact that Persephone had arrived in the system and that Kelsey was aboard, but she knew that meant that her child would be along sooner or later.

Or that she would have to go confront her again, though she hoped that wasn’t necessary.

“Isn’t that something like the sixth thing you’ve tried on?” Don Sommerville asked with a drawl. “This isn’t a state dinner or something like that. Just pick something that looks okay and roll with it.”

She shot him an incredulous look. “Have you lost every brain cell in that pretty little head of yours? One never gets a second chance to make a first impression.”

“This is your daughter we’re talking about,” he said as he came up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. “I believe you’re way past the first impression stage.”

Justine wanted to argue, but she wasn’t sure whether he was right or not. She and her daughter hadn’t been on the best of terms for years. They’d had a rapprochement just before Kelsey had left with Mertz, but it had been almost eight months now. Were things still the same, or had they gotten worse? She wasn’t sure she could take a chance.

“My relationship with my daughter is… complicated. I just want things to be perfect this one time.”

Don turned her around and pulled her into a hug. “Trust me when I say that everything is going to be just fine. You can be proud of the things you’ve accomplished while she was gone. Don’t fret over something that isn’t going to happen.

“Besides, her cutter docked ten minutes ago, and she’s almost at the door.”

“What!” she shrieked, jumping out of his arms as a feeling of panic washed over her. “If you’re joking, I’m going to kill you.”

He shook his head with a smile. “Apparently, they were keeping her itinerary under wraps. Somebody just gave me a heads-up that she’ll be at the front door in less than thirty seconds. I suggest this is a bad time to try getting into a different outfit.”

Justine whirled and ran to put on just a bit more makeup. She stared at herself in the mirror of her vanity and decided that it was just going to have to be good enough. The sands of the hourglass had run out.

The chime at the front door sounded, and she raced into the living room. She stopped just inside the door, took one calming breath, pasted a welcoming smile on her face, and opened the door just as Don stepped up behind her.

In the corridor stood her daughter. Kelsey had a smile on her face, but Justine could tell that something was wrong. There was a hint of tension around her daughter’s eyes, and something in her posture looked… off.

She opened her arms and pulled her daughter close. “I’m so glad you’re safe. I’ve been worried the entire time you were gone.”

Kelsey hugged her back tightly, which only confirmed the fact that something was drastically wrong. Alarm bells rang in Justine’s head, telling her that some kind of crisis was at hand, but she couldn’t figure out what it was.

“It’s been a trying time,” Kelsey said. “Can I come in?”

“Of course! You know Don.”

Kelsey extracted herself from the hug and extended a hand to Don. “It’s good to see you again, Commander.”

“I think we can safely stick with Don at this point,” he said as he shook her hand. “Welcome back. I hope your trip was productive.”

“More than you could possibly imagine.”

Justine closed the door behind her daughter and turned to face her as she stepped into the living room. Now Kelsey was in profile, and she immediately saw the difference and froze.

“Is that a baby bump?” she almost whispered.

Kelsey nodded, her eyes bright with unshed tears. “I hope you’re ready to be a grandmother.”

With a shriek of pure joy, Justine charged her daughter and dragged her into a tight embrace. Now they were both crying.

“I’m a little young, but I suppose I’ll have to adjust. Is it a boy or girl?”

Kelsey drew back slightly so that she could look into her eyes. “Talbot and I are having a little girl. She’s about six months along, and I’m hoping to get back to Avalon before she’s born.

“There’s a lot of other news, but I figured this would be what you wanted to hear first.”

“The rest of it can wait,” Justine said firmly. “I want to hear everything about the baby. Let’s get you sitting down. Don, get something Kelsey can put her feet up on.”

“Please don’t treat me like a fragile flower,” her daughter objected. “I’m fine.”

“I’ll be the judge of that. Are you thirsty? Maybe some fruit juice? They’ve got some interesting flavors here that you might like. I’ll get you something.”

She ran into the kitchen but not to get some juice. Instead, she clutched her hands to her chest and stared at the ceiling, trying to blink away the tears threatening to overwhelm her.

Her little girl was having a baby. She thought that she’d known what her future held, but in less than a minute, everything had changed.

She grabbed a towel from the counter and delicately dabbed at the corners of her eyes before getting three glasses and pouring juice. She had to regain her composure because she didn’t want to miss a single thing that Kelsey had to say.

And then she’d make sure that Kelsey saw a doctor. The girl was a menace to her own health on the best of days, and she wasn’t about to take chances with the health of her daughter and granddaughter.

Kelsey thought she was the ferocious one—and in most things, she probably was. So now it was Justine’s turn to show her fierceness. Nothing could be allowed to threaten her girls.

Nothing.

* * *

When the chime to her hatch sounded, Elise sighed and considered not answering it. She didn’t feel like talking with anyone right in the middle of her emotional funk. Maybe if she didn’t answer, they’d go away.

The chime sounded again—two times in quick succession.

Nope, whoever it was, they knew that she was in here, so she might as well see what they wanted so that she could send them on their way as soon as possible.

To her surprise, Julia stood on the other side of the hatch when she finally opened it. She could tell it was her at a glance, since she’d cut her hair into a cute bob that hovered just above her shoulders a few weeks back.

What she didn’t understand was why Julia wanted to see her. She and the other woman were friendly, but she hardly knew her. Not really, even if she did share the same background as Kelsey. The part of Julia’s life that included her was significantly different than Kelsey’s and her shared experiences.

“Do you mind if I come in?” Julia asked after a few seconds. “I’d like to talk with you about something.”

Elise stepped back, feeling her face flush at the rude way she’d been gawking. Once Julia was inside, she closed the hatch and stepped over to the tiny kitchenette that allowed for the service of drinks and snacks.

“Can I get you something? Tea?”

Julia shook her head and sat down on the small double seat that served as a couch on the small ship. She then patted the seat directly next to her meaningfully.

With a sigh, Elise walked over and sat beside her. “I’m not in much of a chatty mood.”

“I know. That’s why I’m here. You don’t know me very well, but the two of us are very close friends in my universe. So I’m worried about you, and I want to know what’s wrong.”

Before Elise could say a word to deny any of what she’d said, Julia raised a hand. “Honestly, I already know what’s wrong. I just want to sit and talk with you about it. It’s the children, right? You can’t be with them, and it’s eating at you. You can’t keep bottling all of those feelings inside you, or they’ll tear you apart. Trust me when I say I know that for a fact. Talk with me.”

When she didn’t respond, the other woman reached out and took Elise’s hands in hers, squeezing them gently. “You’re very important to me. Let me help.”

Elise felt herself sag a little. “I don’t think you can help me. I can’t even be on the same ship as them, I won’t be there when they’re born, and I’m not even sure that I can see them as they grow up. It’s all I can think about.”

“Carl and the other scientists are doing everything they can to get this sorted out,” Julia said in a tone that was meant to reassure. “It may not seem like it right now, but they’re going to find an answer.

“Will it be soon enough that you can be with them when they’re born? I don’t know. What I do know for sure is that you can’t give up hope. Without hope, life isn’t worth living, and all you can see is darkness. Believe me. I know.”

That made Elise cry a little. And once the tears started, she couldn’t stop them. She sobbed as her friend pulled her close and held her.

When she finally got hold of her emotions and stopped the faucet, Elise wiped her eyes with tissues that Julia produced and leaned a little bit back from her friend.

“I want to keep a positive outlook on this, but they’re so close, and I can’t even see them. It’s driving me crazy. I can’t control any of this.”

“Maybe you need to focus on something that you can control,” Julia said in a sympathetic tone. “Like maybe exploring exactly what that mechanical monster is.”

Elise turned her head to stare at the alien robot as it rested in the corner of the compartment. It wasn’t active right now, but she knew it would follow her if she got up to go anywhere.

Exactly what it was supposed to be doing, she had no idea. It wasn’t as if it acted as a serving robot. It was almost as frustrating as the situation with her children.

Actually, having the alien nanites and other devices inside her was the worst part. It was like having superpowers that you couldn’t control. Or having Marine Raider implants forcibly implanted inside you but having no instruction manual.

Well, it seemed that Julia understood her situation far better than she’d initially thought. The two shared a similar experience, and neither could undo what had been done to them.

“How did you learn to accept what the mad computer did to you?” she asked the other woman softly. “Having these things inside me is similar to what you went through, though not nearly as horrifying. Maybe you can help me figure out how to accept it.”

Julia’s expression darkened a little. “I won’t say that’s easy because it’s not. Honestly, I’m not sure that Kelsey and I will ever accept the things that were done to us, and I’m not sure that you will either. All you can do is push through the pain, horror, and terror.

“You can find happiness, love, and peace even with what was done to you, but honestly, you’re going to have to learn to understand it a lot better than you do now if you’re ever going to be at peace with what you’ve become.

“Mastery of the stuff that’s inside you may actually give you an avenue to protect your children. If you can give those things orders and put the kids off limits, then you can see them and keep them safe. But to do that, you’re going to have to work a lot harder at figuring out how any of it works.”

Carl and the others had done what they could to help, but working with strange alien controls that only she could see was a guessing game at best. It became so frustrating that she didn’t want to have anything to do with it after a while.

Maybe that was the wrong choice. Maybe she needed to rededicate herself to mastering this alien interface and learning what she could do.

“That’s not what I wanted to hear, but maybe it’s what I needed to hear,” Elise said slowly. “Thank you.”

Her friend smiled, squeezed her hands, and stood. “I think I’m ready for that drink now. Let’s make it something a little bit stronger than tea, shall we?”

3

“And I think that brings you up to speed,” Kelsey said from the lectern at the head of the small briefing room. She’d just finished briefing Coordinator Sara Gatewood and the rest of the senior resistance staff, including the higher-ranking Rebel Empire Fleet renegades that supported them.

Their senior Rebel Empire Fleet officer was technically Veronica Giguere, but since she was new and already working with the New Terran Empire, that task fell to Lieutenant Commander Don Sommerville.

A lieutenant commander was a fairly low rank to be in charge of the various military forces that the resistance had at their fingertips, but needs must when the devil drives.

She made a mental note to suggest that Coordinator Gatewood promote Sommerville to something more suitable. It wasn’t exactly like Rebel Empire Fleet command would object any more strenuously than they already would if they caught them.

There were a couple of her people scattered around the table as well, including Zia and Veronica. They made a cute couple. She really hoped their relationship worked out. Zia deserved whatever happiness she could get out of life, and so did Veronica.

Captains Brandon Levy and Annette Vitter sat side by side next to their commanding officer. They also made a lovely couple.

Sitting on the far side of the table from them were her mother and Don Sommerville. That was a couple that she wasn’t sure she understood as well. Her mother’s history with men made her wary. Still, she’d been with Sommerville for more than half a year, and they seemed content.

Maybe her mother really had changed.

With all these couples around, it made her long for her husband. She understood why he’d had to stay back with the fleet. He’d made the argument himself that they’d need every marine they could come up with because there was virtually no one left.

Gatewood cleared her throat and stood, directly facing the podium where Kelsey stood. “Thank you for that report, Your Highness. Or should I be referring to you as General Bandar? I’m not quite certain.”

“Most times, neither am I,” Kelsey admitted. “I think Your Highness is probably the more appropriate title for now, but I’d prefer you didn’t use one at all and just call me Kelsey.”

“Very well, Kelsey. I understand that there are still many items that we need to discuss, but it will take me a while to come to grips with the fact that you’ve conquered the AIs. I’m not quite certain that I believe that even now.”

“You’re not alone. I still wake up in a cold sweat, worrying about them. Unfortunately, we haven’t had an opportunity to run into any of the subservient AIs to verify our new codes, but since the master complied with our demands, I have no reason to doubt that they will submit once they get the instructions to do so.”

The tall, curvy blonde woman nodded. “I believe you, yet I need to see proof as well. Then we need to negotiate for those codes. Forgive me for saying so, but this is our Empire. We deserve to control our own fates, and we really don’t know you.”

“And there’s the rub,” Kelsey said as she gripped the lectern. “You deserve the right of self-determination, yet the New Terran Empire is ruled by the unbroken line of emperors since before the Fall. So somehow, we’re going to have to figure out a way to make everyone happy and still fight the Clans.”

At that point, Kelsey’s mother rose and clasped her hands in front of her. “I believe that this is the point where I interject myself into the conversation. Of course, nothing is off the table, but we need to speak more privately on these matters. As my father once said, no one wants to see the sausage being made.”

Kelsey almost laughed. Her grandfather had been an avid hunter and had often made his own sausage. She had no problems making sausage and had even found the process enjoyable, but she got the metaphor.

Since she’d already distributed the electronic files via data chips to all the relevant attendees, she had no objection to calling this meeting over. Besides, her feet were killing her.

Pregnancy sucked.

Coordinator Gatewood dismissed everyone else at her nod and escorted Kelsey, her mother, and Don Sommerville to her private office and the comfortable nook off to the side. Kelsey gratefully sank into the chair and didn’t argue when her mother found a stool to use for her to raise her feet.

“You’d figure somebody with Marine Raider-grade medical nanites would be able to handle swollen feet and ankles,” she complained.

“Considering that we didn’t even have regular medical nanites until Commodore Anderson graciously allowed those of us with implants to get them, I’m sure I wouldn’t know,” Gatewood said with a chuckle. “Besides, I’ve never had children of my own, so the entire process has been one that I’ve watched only at a distance.

“I understand that this is a ticklish subject, but while your people have been nothing but professional, we’ve been fighting the AIs for generations. You escaped the truly awful things that happened over the last five hundred years and are late to the party.

“Admittedly, you’ve done tremendous things, but this is still our fight. We deserve those codes and the ability to rule ourselves.”

“This isn’t going to be a subject that we settle in a single meeting,” Justine Bandar said soothingly. “That’s what negotiation is all about. Taking different points of view and finding where we can file the edges off until the final product is acceptable to everyone at the table.

“The New Terran Empire isn’t going to surrender its authority, and even today, all of your computer systems recognize Kelsey’s position as the heir.”

The last time they’d been here, that had been a real shock for the resistance. The realization that all of their computer systems would bow to her authorization codes had almost gotten Kelsey restricted to her ship.

If she chose to use the authorizations granted her as the heir to the throne, Kelsey could force their security systems to yield to her and get into any data she wanted. Carte blanche.

Yet, she was sympathetic to their point of view. People wanted to determine their own fate, and she sympathized with that urge. Her mother’s task was to show the resistance that there were benefits to being governed by the New Terran Empire.

“What do you think is going to happen to the Rebel Empire now that the AIs are ceding control to the humans?” Justine asked the coordinator. “Do you think that the various systems will be inclined to accept a single point of leadership? I’m sorry to tell you this, but it’s going to fall into clusters where various warlords hold sway.

“Just because the AIs start deferring to humans doesn’t mean that the humans are worthy of ruling. How do you intend to force someone to acknowledge anyone else being in charge once they’ve seized control of several systems? Or even one?”

Gatewood rubbed her face. “I haven’t got the slightest idea. With the various system defense forces being turned over to local control, just about everybody will outgun us. Yet that doesn’t mean we don’t deserve the right of self-determination.”

“It’s going to take a lot of work to figure out what the best path forward is,” Kelsey said. “I’m not going to be here for that, so you’re going to have to work out the details with my mother, and my father is going to have to agree to the end product. Unlike me, my mother isn’t an ambassador plenipotentiary, so she can’t make binding pledges or sign treaties.

“While the emperor is a fairly easygoing sort, he’s going to insist on the New Terran Empire’s primacy. We’ve bled far more than the resistance has in recent memory, and you’ll want to keep in mind that we’re still stronger than you, even after we’ve gotten the crap kicked out of us.”

“Now, now,” Justine said severely. “There’s no need for anything that sounds like it might be a threat. The details can be worked out. Just because the New Terran Empire is in charge doesn’t mean that they have to control everything that happens on every single world.

“In the old days, the Empire appointed nobles that ruled over each world, but those local worlds had different forms of government to rule themselves as they chose within that framework. I’m sure that we can work out something similar.

“And in any case, it’s not as if there isn’t a precedent for a Rebel Empire world recognizing the New Terran Empire as its ultimate authority: Harrison’s World.”

Kelsey nodded. “Olivia West wants to talk to you, but she wanted me to clear the way first. She was a member of the resistance there and became Coordinator of Harrison’s World before making the decision—with the concurrence of the council supporting her—that they should fully join the New Terran Empire.”

“I want to talk to her, and she’s in no danger by coming here,” Gatewood said firmly. “I’ve never met her, but once I heard that she existed, I made sure to ask the right people to tell me about her.

“All contact with Harrison’s World seems to have been cut off, and I’m told that that was intentional, but it means that we can’t get any information about the situation on the ground. I need her to convince me that she’s made the right choice, and then I can think about the consequences of what doing that means for the resistance and the Rebel Empire, as you call it.

“I’ve looked at the map that you sent to me, and there are a couple of paths through these new networks that will allow us to get to some of the worlds that might have been missed by the Clans. We’re going to have to send scouts to determine what’s really going on, and I want to verify that humanity really does have control over the AIs. Without that, none of the rest of this conversation is going to make any sense.”

“I can make sure that some of my officers have the appropriate codes,” Kelsey conceded. “They can go with your people and verify conditions in some of the systems. Getting intelligence on what’s going on makes a lot of sense, and it would be best if we start this negotiation on a foundation of trust.

“I wish I could be here to do my part, but I’ve got to continue on to Avalon. The clock is ticking, and there’s only so long that I can stay here before I have to move along. Babies wait on no one.”

Her mother smiled. “And that’s a subject that I wanted to talk about as well. I’m told that it’ll take roughly two months under ideal conditions for you to get back to Avalon. Is that correct?”

“Roughly,” Kelsey agreed, trying not to narrow her eyes in suspicion. Where was her mother going with this?

“Then I’m afraid that my position is that it’s too dangerous for you to continue on. First, babies can come quite early in a pregnancy. Second, we can’t chance you being caught in an emergency somewhere that leaves you trapped on a ship in that condition. So I’m afraid that I must insist, for the safety of you and your child, that you remain here until you give birth.”

Kelsey sat up and planted her feet on the floor. “You don’t get to make that call!”

“I can’t dictate your actions, no, but I certainly speak for the Empire in this matter. You rushing home will do absolutely nothing to improve the situation. There’s no reason to rush things. In fact, doing so puts you and the child in grave danger.

“I had words with Commodore Anderson and Major Ellis. They are in agreement with me. There is little to be gained by rushing and much to be treasured about taking your time. Your presence here can serve the Empire much better than trying to get home before you give birth.”

“Also, since you’ve been in transit and had to use mobile medical centers, it might be useful for you to visit one of our facilities for a full prenatal exam,” Gatewood added smoothly. “One with a complete lab and a dedicated team of professionals to give you the very best care possible.”

“The New Terran Empire would be in your debt,” her mother said before Kelsey could say a word.

She eyed her mother coolly. This was obviously another one of her manipulations, but she’d done it so skillfully that it was hard to argue with the points that she’d brought up.

Did she really need to get home before she gave birth? Probably not. Did she want to? Yes.

Was she going to be able to bully Angela and Zia into backing her?

Likely not.

One of Talbot’s first lessons was never giving an order that one knew wouldn’t be obeyed. If she ordered Angela to set a course for home, her friend might refuse.

What was the best course of action?

She had to admit that there were a lot of interesting things going on here. Though, if she did stay, Jared and Talbot were going to be very upset with her.

Well, it wasn’t the first time that she’d upset a man in her life. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be the last either.

“Perhaps there’s something to what you’re saying,” she admitted slowly. “I’m not going to be bullied into a decision, though. Give me a couple of days to ponder this. I promise that I won’t try to sneak out before I give you my decision.”

Then Kelsey gave her mother a sharklike grin. “Besides, there’s someone I really want you to meet. Honestly, it’s someone who’s been aching to meet you for a while.”

“Who?” Justine asked, her tone suspicious.

“Her name is Julia, and I think it’s going to be fascinating to be there when you meet her.”

And with that, she stood. “I think we’ve done enough for today. Why don’t you accompany me to Persephone, Mother?”

Coordinator Gatewood rose smoothly to her feet. “You’ve certainly given us enough to think about. Thank you for taking the time to fully brief us and to at least consider our position.”

“This is all very mysterious,” Sommerville said with a grin, “yet I still have a few things to do here. You girls have fun.”

Justine was the last to stand, and she still looked like she knew a trap was being sprung though she couldn’t possibly understand what it entailed.

“You’ve certainly piqued my curiosity. It seems I’ve got a little bit of spare time, and I’m interested in meeting this Julia. Shall we go?”

“Oh yes, we certainly shall.”

4

Zia hadn’t been sure that she’d believed Carl when he’d described the supposed alien device that was following Elise around, yet there it was.

As he’d indicated, the device bore a striking similarity to a crab, though there were more than enough differences in proportion and detail that there would never be confusion on that issue.

For her part, Elise seemed to be taking the thing trotting along behind her like a puppy in stride. She was far more composed than Zia would’ve been under the same circumstances.

“Welcome aboard Audacious, Highness,” she said when the honor guard snapped to attention as the Pentagaran crown princess walked down the ramp of the pinnace. “Would you care to introduce me to your guest?”

Elise smiled sourly. “He’s not much of a talker, and he doesn’t respond to other people. Or to me, for that matter. As a robotic servant, he pretty much sucks.”

Zia turned to Carl, who was standing next to her, wearing a smug expression. “Okay, so this wasn’t some elaborate practical joke. At least, I don’t think so. You might’ve built an alien-looking robot just to fool me, but that seems unlikely.”

He held up his right hand with three fingers pulled together and facing straight toward the overhead. “It’s an actual alien device, scout’s honor. I’ve examined it in every way that we can with the makeshift labs I was able to put together, but I’d like to use the main lab to get a really good look at it.

“The materials that it’s made out of could be revolutionary, and it’s absolutely infested with nanotech, picotech, and femtotech. We can’t detect the smallest of them, but we know they’re there.

“We can see the picotech but don’t really understand anything about it. Elise can do some amazing things with it, and we really need to understand that, since, honestly, I don’t believe that she’s ever going to be rid of it.”

Elise sighed. “And that’s the hardest thing to get used to. At least we’ve determined that the damned things deactivate after being away from me for a while. No one else is at risk of being infected with this stuff.”

“Infected?” Zia asked, her eyes narrowing.

“It’s not like that,” Carl reassured her. “The devices seem to be tuned to her. They become dormant a short while after they leave the area around her. They don’t seem to have a desire to spread, except to her children. No one else is at any risk whatsoever.

“There’s something about the way that the original device targeted her in the first place that seems to have marked her in some way that I can’t understand or detect, and it did so for the children as well.

“We’ve conducted a single experiment after I cleared them of all the alien devices. Bringing Elise back into their presence reintroduced the devices to the children’s bodies. We cleared them out again and put them into different gestation pods to be absolutely sure that we got them all, and the rechecks show that they’re still clear.

“Unfortunately, that means that at some point once they’re born, they’re either going to be reinfected, or Elise isn’t going to be able to have any contact with them whatsoever unless the little beasties lose interest in them.”

Zia was aghast and pulled the other woman into a brief hug of sympathy. “That’s horrible. Elise, I am so sorry.”

“Thanks. It’s hard to accept, but even so, the little bugs have been kind of useful. We wouldn’t have beaten the Master AI without them. I also removed the core rule that mandated obedience to Kelsey and Jared from Marcus and Fiona. They’re free beings, and they should be able to make their own decisions. I’ll offer the same to Harrison when we get back to Harrison’s World.”

“It’s hard for me to imagine someone wielding that kind of power,” Zia said. “I don’t doubt that it took place, but I just can’t envision it.”

“If you like, we can arrange a small demonstration,” Carl said. “Elise has a significant ability to control machinery with a touch that she shouldn’t be able to do because of the devices inside of her. It used to be fairly slow, but over the weeks that she’s had them inside her, their numbers have increased significantly, and she’s got the ability to do things that I wouldn’t have considered possible.”

“I have something different that I’d like to try,” Elise said. “But I think it might be more useful to do it in the lab without all of these prying eyes.”

Zia looked around the bay and saw that they were indeed the center of attention. She gestured toward Major Gabe Collins, Audacious’s marine commander.

“Dismiss the honor guard and assign two of your people to follow that thing around, Major. I don’t want it unescorted.”

“Understood, ma’am.” He selected one of the other marines to join him, and they followed the three of them to Carl’s lab. Well, the four of them, if one counted the robot. Ralph Halstead and Austin Darrah were waiting for them.

Once they were securely locked inside, Carl secured the hatch and turned to face Elise. “What do you have in mind, Your Highness?”

Rather than answer, she turned and walked to the center of the large room and spread her arms to the sides as she gazed toward the ceiling far overhead. Nothing seemed to happen for long seconds, but just as Zia was about to speak, something twinkled in the air above the princess.

Within just a few moments, it was joined by other signs of something taking place. Tiny lights that suddenly grew brighter as their number expanded almost exponentially. Then, with a suddenness that shocked her, most of the open space above the princess burst into light and motion as a swirl of light simply appeared above them.

It took her a few moments to realize that it was shaped like a galaxy. In fact, it looked like the Milky Way.

“Are you using one of the holoprojectors in here for that?” she asked as she stared up in awe.

“I don’t have any holoprojectors in the lab,” Carl said softly. “That has to be the devices from inside her and the ones that fill the air around her doing this. I had no idea that there were that many of them.”

“Since you said I had so many of them, I was wondering if I could do the same sort of thing that happened in the large chamber that you discovered. I tried it on a smaller scale, and it worked, so I knew it was at least theoretically possible.”

The princess made a strange gesture with her hand and reached out as if she were touching something. The map overhead seemed to expand, and the large-scale galaxy disappeared to show just an area of space. Shot through it were lines of color that Zia recognized must represent flip point connections.

“How did you control that?” she asked.

“Elise, can you show the commodore your controls?” Carl asked.

The woman nodded, and suddenly a cylinder of strange sigils and a bar of golden light that spiraled around her body from her shoulder down to her waist appeared. Elise reached out and made a motion, and the spiral turned around her as if she’d moved it. She then touched one of the strange alien symbols and drew a line to another one, and both of them began glowing.

The map above them rotated in place, and they zeroed in on a single system. The Home system, Zia quickly realized.

Elise touched the main world, and a column of strange alien text appeared next to it.

“I haven’t got the least idea what this says, but I’d wager that was some type of basic description of this world. I can’t zoom in any closer than orbit, but at some point, devices that belonged to the aliens were present in this system and mapped the flip points and cataloged the planets.”

“It doesn’t look like there are any alien facilities on the planet, or we’d be able to see dots of light. We have absolutely no idea how far these aliens spread, but they were at the height of their power roughly seventy million years ago.”

“Can you show me the rest of this system?” Zia asked. “Are there any flip points that we missed?”

“I looked for flip points here before we arrived. The multiflip point and the regular flip point that you already know about are all that’s here.”

“Still, I’d like to see what the system looks like in this map.”

Elise made another gesture, and the view changed to show the entirety of the solar system as it must’ve been millions of years ago. At least she hoped there weren’t still alien devices present monitoring what was going on. That would be creepy.

Things hadn’t changed much in the last seventy million years. The system still had three asteroid belts, and all the planets seem to be pretty much exactly as they’d been before. The map also showed quite a few objects in the Kuiper belt and Oort cloud. She hadn’t bothered trying to map any of them, since they were so far out.

“That’s very impressive,” Zia had to admit. “It’s also really, really intimidating. This is basically a random system, so the aliens were monitoring everything. Have you tested planets on the far side of the galaxy?”

Carl nodded. “We’ve examined a random selection of systems spread throughout the galaxy, and they all have information that we can explore. The aliens even got all the way into the central core of the galaxy, and the massive black hole there is represented.

“Seventy million years ago, these aliens were able to send the equivalent of probes to every single star system that they could reach. There are even flip points that look like they might lead to other galaxies departing the central core of our galaxy.

“There’s no data about what might be on the other end, so maybe the aliens weren’t able to use them, but it only goes to show how powerful they were at the height of their civilization.”

Zia walked around the map of the system, examining it from multiple angles. This wasn’t just impressive; it was terrifying. What could’ve exterminated a race that powerful? Did they just fall apart from within, or had there been someone else that they’d fought that had been even stronger?

Zia focused her attention on the larger objects at the outer edge of the system. One of them was significantly bigger than the rest. In fact, it was a sphere that seemed to be roughly planet sized.

That wasn’t all that unusual in space. She knew that there were rogue planets floating around in empty space. They’d been ejected from various systems during their formation. It looked like this one might have been captured at the Home system’s very outer reaches in the distant past.

There was almost no chance of anything interesting on it, but it was so far out she was willing to bet that no one here really understood it was even there. The resistance was always talking about having a base somewhere that no one would ever find them, which would certainly qualify.

“Can you zoom in on this?” she asked, pointing at the object.

“Not a problem.” Elise made more strange gestures, and the planet expanded to fill the entire area above them. It wasn’t much to look at, really. That far out, it was undoubtedly covered in ice and was probably a rocky body. There wouldn’t be anything unusual about it other than its location.

At least that was what she thought until she noted a flashing green dot on its surface.

“That’s something that I didn’t expect to see,” Carl said slowly. “That’s the symbol that we’ve seen with other alien facilities, though the color is new. Up until this point, they’ve all been white.”

He turned to face her. “It seems our alien friends have been here and that they built a facility that we should probably explore. We can’t tell the resistance about this, but maybe you can do some exercises farther out in the system to check it out.

“It might be mostly nonfunctional, but you never know. If we have a chance to learn more about the aliens, we should take it.”

“The resistance is going to be very upset with us if we don’t tell them about this,” Zia warned.

“This is our secret for now,” Elise said firmly. “They’ve had every chance to search their system and discover it on their own. It’s not like we’re going to claim it for ourselves, so keeping quiet and taking a look costs us nothing.”

Zia looked over at Collins. “No word of this gets out of this room. Clear?”

“Clear, Commodore,” the marine officer said. “None of us is going to say a word.”

She nodded, already trying to figure out how they could locate this rogue world so far away from the inner system after all this time. It could literally be anywhere in the outer system, and even if they located it, how would they justify a long-duration mission to take a look?

“Is there any way to determine where your simulation thinks it’s going to be at this point in time?” she asked.

“Exactly where it is on the map right now,” Elise said. “Every flip point that we’ve gone looking for has been roughly in the area the map positioned it. This will get you close enough to detect it.”

The princess shrank the map back down to show the entire system as it currently was. Zia took an image of it via her implants and did some rough calculations. Getting out there would take at least three days, but the rewards were obviously worth it.

She’d have to talk with Kelsey and Justine Bandar to figure out what Imperial policy was actually going to be regarding these aliens. They might decide that it was best to share this information now. Personally, that was what she’d have done in their place.

“I’ve got some calls to make, so I’ll leave you two to your science projects,” she said. “I’ll leave the marines here to keep an eye on everything. Call me if you need anything, and we’ll make it happen.”

With that, she gestured for Collins to accompany her and headed for the flag bridge.

5

The fact that her daughter insisted on taking her to visit this Julia person mystified Justine. Honestly, she suspected Kelsey wanted to poke her in the eye for insisting that she get looked at by a real doctor, not one of those people working on the ships with whatever they had at hand.

Whatever the reason, she’d play along. They’d worked far too hard at rebuilding their relationship to let a silly prank annoy her. In fact, it was a positive development and should be encouraged.

The small craft they were traveling on wasn’t the most comfortable mode of transport, but it got them to the ship quickly enough, she supposed. Why couldn’t they make any of these military ships pleasant to travel on? Was that really so difficult?

Once they’d docked with the destroyer, Kelsey led her into the cramped personal spaces aboard the ship. Justine remembered from traveling aboard Audacious just how restrictive conditions were aboard ships designed by the military. Yet another flaw in her opinion.

They stopped at a seemingly random hatch, and Kelsey pressed the button to announce them. A few seconds later, the hatch opened, and Kelsey was standing on the other side.

Justine swiveled her eyes between the identical women. Well, mostly identical, since the woman in front of them had shorter hair.

“What’s going on here?” she asked. “If this a joke, I’m not sure I get it.”

“If you go inside, I’ll explain,” Kelsey said. “This is Julia, and once you get to know her, you’ll understand everything.”

Still eyeing the other woman uncertainly, Justine stepped into the small quarters. The woman really did look like Kelsey. She was the same height and build, and their faces were identical.

Literally identical.

If Kelsey had somehow been born to a set of twins, this would be her sister.

It was a good thing she had a very clear memory of when Kelsey was transferred to the gestation pod. There had only been one child.

The other woman closed the hatch behind them and gestured toward the small double seat that was only big enough for two. “Please get comfortable, and we’ll explain everything?”

Even her voice sounded like Kelsey’s. This was getting incredibly spooky.

Justine took a seat on the couch and looked expectantly between the two women when Kelsey remained standing. “I have to admit that you’ve intrigued me. So, your name is Julia?”

“Actually, that’s only what I’m calling myself while I’m here,” the woman said. “My real name is going to confuse you more. You see, I’m Kelsey Bandar.”

Justine felt her eyes narrow. “I see. Actually, I don’t. Why don’t you explain it to me?”

Kelsey sat next to her mother while the other woman—Justine knew it was the other woman because of her hair—pulled up a small chair and sat down in front of them. Her daughter took her hand and squeezed it gently.

“Mother, one of the Imperial secrets that you haven’t been read in on is the fact that we’ve managed to contact other realities. Basically, alternate dimensions, some of which are very similar to our own. For example, Julia is me, but she came from another reality.”

Justine started to reject that, but the other woman held up a hand. “It’s hard to believe, but I can prove it. Ask me a question about anything in Kelsey’s childhood, and I’ll answer it.”

Justine shook her head. “If this is some kind of prank, then you can simply ask my daughter to give you the correct answer via your implants. I don’t understand what kind of game this is, but I don’t like it.”

“I give you my word that I’m not going to feed her any answers,” Kelsey said seriously. “I’m telling you the truth, and this is a way that we can prove it. I suppose that there’s another way that we can make sure that I’m not cheating.

“Fiona, could you ask one of the crew to send an implant jammer to Julia’s quarters?”

“Of course,” a melodious female voice said from the overhead. “They should be there in just a few moments because I foresaw the need for something like this.”

There was a rap at the hatch, and the woman identified as Julia went to answer it. Someone outside handed her a small device that she brought back inside and set on the small table in front of the seats.

Justine wouldn’t know what an implant jammer was if somebody threw it at her. Still, when the device was activated, her implants lost their connection to the ship’s network. She tested this by sending several messages to the ship and Kelsey, but her implants indicated they hadn’t responded.

She supposed she’d have to play along with this charade because she couldn’t imagine how the device could be blocking only her. Better yet, she had no idea why anyone would get some kind of makeover to look exactly like her daughter. It just didn’t make any sense.

“Fine,” she said with a huff. “I’ll accept what you’re telling me on a provisional basis because I don’t really have a choice. When Kelsey was little, she had a friend. They both loved reading books, and for a couple of years, they were as thick as thieves. What was her friend’s name, and what happened to him?”

“Her,” the other woman said. “Her name was Janice Winter. And it wasn’t reading books, not really. We went to the library, and while we did a bit of reading, we mostly talked about what life outside the palace was like. I wanted to have more freedom, and we told you that we went there to read, but really it was more like gossip and adventures of imagination.

“Her father was transferred somewhere off-planet. It was devastating to me at the time. I honestly don’t remember where they went. Unfortunately, I didn’t have implants back then to keep track of the memories, so I can’t tell you that detail.

“What I can say is that I saw her again as an adult, just shortly after I turned eighteen. She stopped at the palace to visit with me on her way to attend Imperial University. She’s probably graduated by now.”

That was a lot more specific than Justine had expected. The part about them wanting to have Kelsey go outside the palace was known to her, but she’d never told Kelsey that she knew. The Imperial Guard kept an eye on the family a lot more closely than a little girl would realize.

“How is this possible?” she asked quietly.

“Alien technology,” Kelsey said. “I’m going to send you a file with all of the details, and it has a message about it and its security levels from my father. So that’s how you can know that this is completely serious.

“It might seem like some kind of trick, but Julia is going home and won’t have a chance to meet with you again. This was the one time we could make it happen, so I’ll leave the two of you to talk.

“Let me be frank. Julia hasn’t had as good a life as I had. She caught a lot of bad breaks, and her father in her universe is dead. Seeing him here was an emotional moment for her, and he accepts that she’s real. I think you need to do so as well.”

Kelsey picked up the device off the table and stood. As soon as she turned it off, Justine received an implant communication request from her daughter and accepted it. Moments later, a series of files arrived, and she stored them away for later perusal.

Her daughter gave the other woman a hug and then walked out of the room.

The two of them that were left sat in awkward silence for a few moments before Justine picked up the conversation that had been dropped. “You look exactly like Kelsey, but this can’t really be happening.”

“Believe me, this was as big a surprise for me as it was for everybody on this side of Omega Station. It’s taken a lot for me to adjust to just how different this universe is from my own. There are so many things that are the same, yet they all started going wrong in my universe shortly after I left on the expedition to explore the Old Empire.

“The Kelsey in your universe had a lot of good luck. Yes, she was implanted with the Marine Raider technology against her will, and that wasn’t a pleasant thing, yet, on the whole, you’ve beaten the computers.

“In my universe, it’s the opposite. Jared Mertz is one of the key differences. In my universe, he’s a monster. He killed my father and tried to usurp the Imperial Throne. He took all of the tools that we needed to fight the computers and fled. Ethan rules there now.”

“Ethan is still alive?” The news hit her where it hurt. She’d seen more than enough of the evidence that proved her son had tried to kill her ex-husband and almost succeeded. He’d tried to blame it on Kelsey and Mertz. He’d died because he’d been paranoid and delusional—a megalomaniac.

And he was supposedly ruling the Empire in this crazy other universe? That made no sense at all. She’d never been a fan of Jared Mertz. After all, he was living proof of her ex-husband’s infidelity.

The absurdity of the idea that she resented Mertz because her husband had slept with the help one time almost made her laugh. She’d slept with so many men during the marriage that she wouldn’t dare guess at their number.

It had taken a lot of introspection to come to grips with the fact that she had a problem. One that she had to solve herself. There’d been somebody in the medical staff aboard Audacious that had been counseling her since before they’d arrived in the Home system, and it had helped.

She’d been in a monogamous relationship with Don Sommerville since before her daughter had left for Terra. Yes, there’d been challenges, but he generally seemed to love her, and she cared greatly for him.

Maybe she even loved him. She wasn’t really sure that she understood how the word applied to men. Until recently, she’d only really loved her children.

Including, for all his flaws and crimes, Ethan.

“I think you’d best tell me everything,” Justine said slowly. “And why don’t you sit here next to me? If you really are my daughter, even if I never realized you existed, then you should be more comfortable. What about… me in your universe? Am I dead too?”

The woman Kelsey had called Julia shook her head. “No, though you and I haven’t had much contact over the years. You tried to come back into our lives after my father died. I’m afraid you caused so many problems that Ethan had to just say no.

“And before you think he’s a madman, he’s not the same in my universe as he apparently was here. He’s perfectly sane and not thirsting for power. He’s a good ruler.”

Julia sat down beside her and turned so that she was facing her. “The story I’m about to tell you isn’t a very pretty one. Things are grim in my universe, and some bad things have happened to me as well.

“I was captured by the computer, just the same as Kelsey was, only I wasn’t rescued so quickly. The people that that computer changed were like beasts. I was dropped into a society—if that’s even the right word—where the powerful took what they wanted no matter how much it hurt someone else.

“I was raped and beaten more times than I could possibly remember. I lost one of my eyes in an attack and had to use a cobbled-together replacement for years. One that made me look like a monster.

“Only once I arrived here did I get one that looked normal. I was scarred across the face and body in ways that couldn’t be healed until I got here too.

“The damage wasn’t just physical either. I was withdrawn, bitter, and hostile. I hated my existence and thought about ending it almost every day just to make it stop. I’m glad I didn’t, but it was a painfully close thing.”

Justine didn’t know what to say. What could she say? She couldn’t begin to imagine this girl’s pain and suffering.

No. Not this girl. Her daughter.

No matter where she came from, this was Kelsey. Her own flesh and blood, impossibly duplicated. She deserved to be treated the same as her daughter because they were one and the same.

She held out her arms, and Julia came into them. And then they both sat there, hugging one another and crying.

The anguish that she felt was indescribable.

When they’d finally cried themselves out, she pulled back enough to look into her daughter’s face. “I’m so sorry. If I could change any bit of that, I would.”

Julia shrugged slightly. “No one can change the past, but I’ve learned that the future doesn’t have to be so grim. Your people are helping mine, and we’re going to dig ourselves out of the hole we’re in. I’m not the same kind of person that Kelsey is now, but I think I can find a life for myself that will make me happy.

“Even though I’ve got so much that I need to do when I get back to my universe, I’m going to find you, and we’re going to have a talk. You’re too important to me for us to stay estranged.”

Justine laughed slightly. “Kelsey doesn’t know this, but I’ve been going through therapy. It’s made me realize how I’ve hurt everyone around me. If this other me hasn’t done the same, she’s not going to understand that she’s the problem.

“Sadly, I can now see how I caused most of the bad things that happened to me. I behaved incredibly badly, and I’ve had to make a lot of changes in my life. Kelsey hasn’t been here to see it, but I’ve been with the same man for more than half a year. Just him. I’ve never been monogamous before.

“I’m a recovering addict, a serial cheater that wants only pleasure for herself. Even now, I still have to fight those urges sometimes. I’m broken inside, but I’ve made the decision to heal myself because I’m tired of being the person that everyone thinks I am.

“Your mother over there is going to be trapped inside that same kind of thinking. You’re going to have to break that cycle for her. You’re going to have to convince her that if she wants your love, she’ll have to make changes and seek help. Don’t let her talk you out of it. Don’t let her skate with glib excuses.

“She’ll say or do anything to get what she wants. Don’t be fooled. You’ll have to be firm. The only one who can save her is herself. She has to make the decision to seek help for herself, and you can’t let her squirm away from making it.”

Julia leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. “I appreciate you telling me that. That’ll make things easier. Or maybe harder. In any case, maybe it’ll give my mother a path to actually regain some self-respect.”

She reached out and took Julia’s hands in hers. “When do you go home?”

“I believe that we’ll be moving on in a couple of days. It’ll probably take us two or three months to get back to the New Terran Empire, and then I’ll make the trip back to my universe. I doubt very seriously that I’m going to be in a position to meet you again anytime soon, so I want to thank you for doing this for me.”

“I’m doing this for both of us. Since we only have a few days, how about we have some lunch and talk about things that aren’t so depressing. We’ve got so much to catch up on.”

“I’d like that,” Julia said with tears in her eyes. “I’d like that a lot.”

6

Elise stood inside a large scanning array, trying not to feel like she was inside a cage. The machinery was so dense that she couldn’t clearly see the lab with it arrayed around her.

Though claustrophobia wasn’t usually a problem for her, she was feeling it this time.

“Can we get this rolling?” she asked, gritting her teeth. “If you keep me waiting too much longer, I’ll have to use the bathroom, and then we’ll have to start over.”

“Starting scan,” Carl said.

“Do you have any idea how long this is going to take?” she asked. “It’s a little claustrophobic in here.”

“Sorry about that. Maybe fifteen minutes. Think of something relaxing because if you start twitching and moving around, it’s going to take longer.”

She resisted the urge to sigh. Nothing was ever easy. Then she closed her eyes and forced herself to take calm, even breaths.

“The resolution is a lot better,” Carl said, disrupting her meditation. “We’re getting some good data.”

“If you want me to relax, stop engaging me. Tell me it all once we’re done.”

“Sorry.”

Time dragged, but eventually, Carl turned the scanners off and spoke to her through the bars of her high-tech prison. “The resolution was high enough to get a good look at the picotech. We have their shape and materials data now.

“There are a lot of them in your system. Far more than there were in the early days of your infestation. At least ten times the number of units.”

“I really wish you wouldn’t call it an infestation. That sounds gross. Can you get them out?”

“Ralph is going over the data, but I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you. I won’t say that it’s impossible, but we won’t be in a position to make a breakthrough until we can read their programming and alter it. That’s not happening today, this month, or likely this year.”

None of that surprised her, but it was still disheartening.

“Do you mind if I cut your skin just a little?” he asked, making her blink.

“What? Why?” she asked, narrowing her eyes.

“I think that the alien devices may be working in tandem with your medical nanites, and I want to get a scanner reading of them working around an injury. I promise not to draw too much blood.”

“The things I put up with for science,” she said with a sigh. “Don’t get carried away.”

“I promise to keep it as small as possible.”

He disappeared for a few moments and came back with a small laser scalpel. He had the others turn the scanners back on, edged the tool through the gap nearest her left forearm, and triggered it.

It had to be at a low setting, but it still stung as he split the skin. Since there was a burning sensation, she suspected that it had also partly cauterized the wound. She’d suffered worse in the wilds of Terra, so she just accepted the pain stoically.

“The Marine Raider nanites are working on both the cut and the burn,” he said. “And so are the alien devices. The two groups are operating in tandem, just like I’d suspected that they would. The alien tech is acting in an auxiliary role, fixing damaged tissue and reconnecting things around the medical nanites.

“That tells us a lot. The alien tech understands your biology. It probably got the data from the medical nanites, as well as from mapping you themselves. Even more, they’re replacing cells that aren’t physically present anymore. That’s not healing; that’s true regeneration.”

“Like what happens in the regenerators in the medical center?”

“No. Those simply speed and boost the effectiveness of normal healing. This is more like those species on Terra that can regrow lost limbs and such.”

“You’re not cutting part of me off to test that crackpot idea.”

“How about just the little toes? Think about how much they hurt when you stub them. It could be like removing wisdom teeth.”

“Not funny and not happening.”

“Trying to teach heathens about the glories of science is so disheartening.”

She wasn’t fooled. He wouldn’t suggest amputating any of her digits, but he’d still try to get her to do something. If he was convincing enough, she might even go along.

“Are we done yet?” she asked, more than a little peeved. “I really do need to use the bathroom now.”

“Sure,” he said, gesturing for the others to help get her out.

Five minutes later, she was out of the scanner and breathing a lot easier. She looked down at her arm and was surprised to see that the wound was already almost closed.

“Wow. Not even medical nanites can close up a wound this quickly.”

“It has to be the alien devices,” Carl said. “They’re significantly more advanced than the Marine Raider nanites, and they’re literally rebuilding you.

“Are you sure that you don’t have a mole that we could remove?”

She shot him an exasperated look. “I like you, Carl, I really do. That’s why I’m going to let you live. Now, if we’re done—which we are—my robot and I are going to the bathroom and then back to Persephone. I think I’ve had about as much science as I can stomach for one day.”

With that, she headed toward the hatch with her head held high and the alien robot scurrying along behind her. If the tech inside her could learn her biology, why couldn’t it learn to interface with her? It had to understand Standard, since the blasted devices obeyed the instructions she gave them aloud. Why did this have to be so hard?

Well, Carl was brilliant, and he’d eventually figure it out. Without cutting parts of her off.

* * *

Carl watched Elise sail out of the lab with a smile and a slight shake of his head. “She’s tough. I don’t know how well I’d handle everything that’s been thrown at her. Having those things inside her and being separated from her kids has to be really hard.”

“Do you think she understands just how drastically this is changing her?” Ralph asked. “And that the process isn’t done?”

“How can she?” Austin asked. “Other than that big alien robot following her around, all of the changes are much too small to see. Did you get a look at those readings? Now that we finally have a baseline, the alien nanites and picotech outnumber her Marine Raider nanites by orders of magnitude. They’re everywhere inside her. Not only that, they’re swarming in the air around her.”

Ralph nodded. “And there’s no guarantee that this is the final density that they’re going to end up at. Everything we could see in the alien installation below the obelisk indicated a much higher percentage of nanites and other devices. A level capable of making stone walls appear and disappear at will in a matter of moments. If she’s destined for that level of infestation, what kind of changes do they herald for her?”

Carl wished that he knew the answer to that question. Of course, it was entirely possible that the alien devices wouldn’t change her at all, but he didn’t believe that. They had their own agenda, even if it was merely a programmed one.

He didn’t attribute intelligence to the devices because they weren’t acting on their own. They needed a guiding force—which was Elise—but they were also constrained by whatever the aliens had programmed them to do.

“Somehow, we’re going to have to figure out how to crack that alien language. If we go through the map and take enough readings of planetary systems that we know things about, we may be able to decipher some of it.

“Once we do that, we can work on trying to understand the parts that we don’t. Fiona will be able to help, and that’s going to be a real boon, but it doesn’t mean that the process is going to be quick or easy.”

“And that’s only the first step,” Ralph said, putting his hands on his hips. “Once I figure out how to draw their programming out, you can bet that it’s not going to be a plain language like whatever the displays are showing.

“It’s going to take another level of decoding and decryption to figure out anything about what these devices are programmed to do and what they’re capable of. Everything we’ve seen thus far indicates that they have incredible power, but we don’t know what the limits are.

“To truly feel that we’ve got a grasp on how to get them out of her, we’re going to have to understand these things well enough to be certain that we won’t be putting her in any danger.”

Carl nodded and took a deep breath. “Then let’s get to work. This problem isn’t going to solve itself.”

* * *

Zia was in her flag cabin when Kelsey called. There always seem to be a never-ending series of reports and decisions to be made that even her flag captain couldn’t make for her. Or, on the fighter side, her wing commander. That meant she spent a fair chunk of her regular workday in her office just off the flag bridge.

She was grateful for the interruption because it was challenging to figure out exactly how they could reconstitute Eagle Squadron from the two existing squadrons. They didn’t have enough fighters, and they didn’t have enough pilots.

When she opened the incoming call on her screen, she could see that Kelsey was seated in what looked like her quarters aboard Persephone. Honestly, somebody of her rank should have something larger than the closet she was using.

“Hey, Zia. I got the message that you needed to talk with me about something important. Can we do it over the com?”

“We can, but we’re going to need to go encrypted. Again, this is Alpha level stuff.”

“Alpha level it is,” the princess said, her eyebrows rising slightly. “Encrypting.”

Zia touched the controls on her screen, and the connection between the two of them blanked out for a second and then came back as if nothing had happened. What was really going on was that the computers on their desktops were encrypting their transmissions so that nowhere in between could they be deciphered.

That wasn’t to say that it wouldn’t be possible to decipher them with enough effort, but the signal was also being broadcast by a narrow beam, so it would be tough to intercept.

“Now, what’s so important?” Kelsey asked.

“When Carl and Elise were over here earlier, they displayed the alien map of the Home system. There was one of those flashing dots—a green one in this case—on a large Kuiper belt object.

“Carl says that he’s never seen one using color of any kind, and it showed no indication of any kind of floor plans that they could access remotely, so I’d like to take Audacious out on maneuvers to see what we can find.”

“Wow, that’s something,” Kelsey agreed. “Of course you can go, but before then, I think the two of us need to talk about something else. My mother—and just about everyone else around me—seems to think that it’s a terrible idea for me to continue back to Avalon with my pregnancy so far advanced. They’re nagging me to stay here until I give birth. I want to know what you think.”

“I think staying here is the right call,” Zia said immediately. “At best, you’re only just going to get back home just before you give birth. That’s begging for something to go wrong. Is rushing home really going to make a difference?”

“No, I suppose not,” the blonde grumbled. “It just sticks in my craw that everybody thinks I need watching over. I can take care of myself.”

“No argument here, but they’re not worried about you. Well, not directly, anyway. They’re concerned about your daughter.

“Let’s be honest. You’re the kind of person who rushes in where angels fear to tread. You’re a menace to your own health, and while you can take that, the child developing inside you can’t.

“I’m sure that you don’t want to be pampered, but pregnancies can be complicated things. Having doctors do routine checks on you to make sure that everything is going smoothly so that they can intervene if it’s not is just smart.”

Kelsey seemed to deflate a little. “I know that, but it feels like I’m being hemmed in. If they could get away with it, they’d lock me in a room and keep me there until I gave birth. I’ve never been one to handle overprotective people very well.”

“And there’s the root of the problem. They’re not being overprotective. They’re being protective. I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but you really do need to take it easy.

“Girl, you’re six months pregnant. It’s only going downhill from here. I don’t care how much enhancement you have as a Marine Raider, that baby is going to wring you dry.”

“You’re not being very helpful,” her friend grumbled. “But I won’t argue. If I’m staying, so is Persephone. And don’t think that you can lock me in some cabin somewhere. If there’s something that needs doing and I’m capable of doing it, I’m going to do it. That’s not up for discussion.

“The destroyer can continue back to the New Terran Empire and make sure that Julia gets safely across to her own universe. I’ll ask Elise to stay as well, but the choice is hers. Wherever she goes, Carl and his people go with her.”

Zia sat back in her chair a little and considered the issue. “She’s going to want to stay, I suspect. We’ve got a lot better equipment to look at those things inside her aboard Audacious, and she wants to keep her babies safe. That means sending the gestation pods back to Pentagar solo.”

“You really think she’d send the children back without her?” Kelsey asked with a frown. “I’m not sure I could do that in her place.”

Zia shook her head. “No, I’m not sure. Why don’t we let her put off making a final decision until Audacious makes the trip out to the Kuiper belt and back again? We can call it maneuvers. In fact, Elise can come with us to see what we find out there.”

“What kind of time frame are we looking at?”

“Probably close to three days out. Depending on how long we stay, that means a minimum of a week before we can have her back in orbit here. If there’s something significant out there, we may want to stay for a few more days.”

Kelsey seemed to consider it for a few seconds before shaking her head. “I think you’ve got it backward. Rather than sending Audacious, I think it should be Persephone. Moving a small ship is going to draw less attention than the carrier. I realize that means that Carl won’t have access to his full lab, but I still think that might be for the best.”

“Uh-huh. What you’re really thinking is that if you can get away from everybody who’s hounding you to go get a full checkup, you won’t have to do it. You’re not going anywhere until you have a complete prenatal checkup at a real hospital. Don’t make me put my foot down.”

Kelsey threw her head back and made a frustrated noise. “You people drive me crazy. Fine. I’ll go have my checkup as soon as we end this call.”

“Good. And I still think that Audacious should go along for the ride. We’ll leave the destroyer here, and all of us will go see what’s hiding in the outer system. The trick, I suspect, is going to be keeping anyone from following us.”

Kelsey laughed. “This is their turf. They’re going to send somebody along to see what we’re up to. The challenge will be taking a look at what’s there without revealing all our cards.

“If they find out what’s out there, then I’m going to have to read them in on some of what we’ve discovered. I’d rather not, but I’ll crack the door a little bit if that happens.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go submit to all that poking and prodding. Get everything set up so that we can leave orbit as soon as I’m done. I’d really like to find out what’s going on out there.”

“Will do,” Zia said with a nod. “Try to be a good patient.”

Her friend laughed and killed the connection.

It would be a challenge to make sure that Kelsey got as many checkups as she needed. She needed to talk with Zac Zoboroski about that and make sure that he kept a remote eye on her.

There were specific protocols necessary to authorize continual monitoring of any kind aboard a Fleet ship, but between the two of them, they could sign off on the necessary medical requirements to make that happen. A little bit of a conversation with Angela and Fiona would ensure the same was true aboard Persephone.

And that was the best she could do. Maybe all of them could keep Kelsey from being a menace to herself and the baby inside her.

If they were very lucky.

7

Kelsey took a cutter to one of the hidden stations that Coordinator Gatewood had recommended. For once, she was happy to let someone else do the flying while she relaxed in the back. She didn’t want to let anyone see her this run-down, but the pregnancy really was taking it out of her. The strain on her body must be significant.

That meant that they were right to demand that she see a professional, and she knew it.

The flight over gave her time to think about the situation they’d found themselves in. Right now, the resistance knew about them defeating the AIs. What they didn’t know was that her fleet had run into the remnants of an alien civilization that was tens of millions of years old and that it had given them a map of the entire galaxy to explore.

That was a secret that she’d been able to keep thus far. While they’d come in through the system’s back door, she and her people had been the ones to introduce the idea of multiflip points to the resistance in the first place. They had experience exploring them, and it had been simple enough to say that they’d found their way to the back door by exploration.

If they found an alien facility in the Kuiper belt, she’d have to tell them about the aliens. They might be angry, she knew, but people kept secrets about important things all the time. This one wouldn’t hurt them, so there would be few negative repercussions for revealing the secret if they had to, but she didn’t want to.

Secrets were only good as long as you actually kept them. Once everyone knew that something was out there, there was no telling what would happen next. At this point, Elise was the only one who could examine the map in the kind of detail to get the locations of alien facilities.

The moment someone from the resistance found another facility, there was always the possibility that they’d gain some kind of control as well. That would make it more difficult for the New Terran Empire to regain control over its former territory inside the Rebel Empire.

Yet, if they wanted to know what was going on inside the Rebel Empire, she’d have to provide them with maps of routes that they could use to get people to areas of interest promptly. The Home system was secure because of its isolation. That made it ignorant of current events.

So she had two options: she could tell Gatewood about the aliens and give her a limited map to get them where they needed to go or make up another lie that would allow her to pass along that same information.

The problem was that she had no idea where the best places to get information would be. If she provided a map, it would have to be reasonably comprehensive, and there was no way that she could make up a believable excuse for how they’d explored so deeply into this general area when they hadn’t had the time to do so.

She could also gain some points by passing the information about the aliens along, at least to the leadership of the resistance, thus earning some goodwill.

Kelsey was still pondering the various courses of action when her cutter docked, and she made her way out into the station. Two women and a man in civilian clothes were waiting for her.

One of the women, a short, plump older woman with dark hair that was beginning to gray, smiled and extended her hand. “Princess Kelsey, welcome to Luger Station. I’m Doctor Breanna Johansen, the senior obstetrician at Luger Medical Associates. These are Doctors Jenna Stevens and Greg Hulbert. Jenna is my senior assistant, and Greg is the senior administrator of the hospital.”

“Thank you for seeing me on such short notice,” Kelsey said as she shook each of their hands. “I’m sorry for being troublesome.”

“It’s no trouble at all,” Doctor Hulbert with an easy grin. “Frequently, we physicians have the difficult task of trying to heal the injured and sick, but helping to bring new life into the universe is always a pleasure.

“I can assure you that the team of professionals that will be overseeing your care will do everything within their power to make this process as easy and rewarding as you might want. Your health, and that of your child, is our highest priority.”

“I’m still getting used to the idea of becoming a mother. It’s only starting to feel real now that the physical effects of the pregnancy are manifesting.

“I want to be perfectly clear that I haven’t been dodging professional care. I didn’t realize that I was pregnant until roughly a month and a half ago. Since then, the medical officers on the ships I’ve been on have diligently monitored my condition.”

“And I’m sure they’ve done the very best they could with the equipment they had on hand,” Doctor Stevens said. “What we have to offer is specialized equipment and experience geared toward the health of you and your child. I’m confident that you’re in excellent health and that the baby is, too, but this is just an extra precaution to make sure that all the T’s are crossed and I’s are dotted.”

“If you ladies will excuse me, I got other things needing my attention, so I’ll leave you to take care of business,” Doctor Hulbert said. “Thank you again for allowing us to help you have the safest pregnancy possible, Your Highness.”

With that, the man inclined his head toward them before turning back toward the lift behind them.

What followed was only kept from being the most extensive examination Kelsey had ever had by the fact that she’d had many procedures and scans after she’d had her Marine Raider implants forcibly installed inside her.

In this case, the difference was that everything they were doing was aimed at making sure that the baby was healthy and that her reproductive system was fully up to speed. As a result, the list of things that she needed to be doing and supplements she had to take was seriously expanded from what Lily had provided.

She also got lectured about overdoing it with her Marine Raider augmentation. While the stress would be acceptable for her body—at least for a little bit longer—it put the child in danger, and she needed to tone it back to something approximating human normal.

Kelsey didn’t like the restrictions, but she understood them. The next three months would slowly whittle away at what she was allowed to do until she gave birth. And then her life was going to be forever changed, in ways both good and bad.

Well, maybe not bad. Just irritating.

The doctors finally finished going over her with a fine-tooth comb and escorted her back to the cutter after she declined to have a meal at the station. She wanted to get back to Persephone so that she could figure out what else she could do to make the situation here in the Rebel Empire better for the New Terran Empire.

As she approached the dock, she spotted Coordinator Gatewood standing there. The other woman smiled and nodded to each of the doctors.

“I hope everything came out perfectly fine, Your Highness. I happened to be in the neighborhood and decided to ask if you could give me a lift back while we talk.”

Well, that sounded ominous.

“I’m more than happy to give you a ride, and we can certainly talk, but any negotiations should go through my mother.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, shall we? As I said, I just want a little alone time with you so that we could talk one-on-one.”

Kelsey turned to the doctors and thanked them again for their care before escorting Gatewood onto the cutter. The pilots would be fine up in the control area, and the two of them could sit comfortably in the rear and activate privacy screens to have that quiet little chat.

“If you don’t mind, I’m going to make myself some tea and a substantial snack,” Kelsey said. “My augmentation takes a lot out of me, and I have to eat a lot even under the best of circumstances. Can I make you something?”

“Tea sounds lovely, and some of whatever you make will be perfectly acceptable. Thank you.”

Kelsey quickly made them both tea and sandwiches after determining which condiments her unexpected guest preferred. Her stack of sandwiches was significantly taller than the other woman’s.

Gatewood raised one perfectly sculpted eyebrow at the size of the plate that Kelsey had in front of her but said nothing about it.

Once they’d taken a few bites and sipped their tea to ensure that it was what they wanted, the coordinator showed that she understood Kelsey much better than might be expected by getting right to the point.

“Do you mind if I turn on the privacy screens?” the woman asked.

“Not at all.”

It only took a few moments for the coordinator to have them screened so that no one could overhear them, and since they were alone in the compartment, no one would be reading their lips.

Kelsey took the additional precaution of disabling the single vid cam that showed them from the front. She sent a message to the pilots letting them know that she’d done so to prevent them from coming back to check on her.

Even in her condition, she could handily deal with the situation if the coordinator wished her harm, not that she thought that was the case.

Gatewood took another sip of her tea and then set the cup on the saucer to focus her attention on Kelsey. “I’ve taken the time to go over all the data that you gave us. I want to clarify my understanding of a couple of things. First, the master AI was not located at Twilight River, correct?”

“That’s right. It was hidden in Alpha Centauri the entire time.”

The other woman nodded. “Then I’m uncertain exactly how you got from Terra to Twilight River and back again in such a short amount of time, particularly since you’d have to be searching for a path using those multiflip points. You shouldn’t be sitting here with me right now.”

“And yet, here I am.”

“And yet, here you are,” Gatewood agreed. “What I’d like to know is exactly how you managed that. I’m going to assume that that’s one of your secrets, but even if you don’t intend to reveal it, your explanation should be fascinating.”

Kelsey considered exactly how she should respond. Perhaps finding out exactly how far this information had spread would be helpful.

“Might I ask if you’ve shared this information with anyone?”

“Don Sommerville brought the discrepancy to my attention. If anyone else raises the point, they’ll be instructed to keep that information to themselves.”

Kelsey sighed and gave up. Physics could ruin an otherwise perfectly good plan.

“What I’m going to tell you now is something that we’ve classified at the very highest level, and I ask you to treat it with the same care.”

She proceeded to lay out the story of what they’d found on Dinosaur Planet in general and the map in specific. She didn’t mention Elise or her newfound condition. This was going to be a case of revealing only what she simply had to.

Of course, it also meant that she had to reveal the existence of the extremely far flip points. In conjunction with the map, that allowed a much greater ability to travel than had previously been known to exist. It was a shame that they were rare and that there wasn’t one closely connecting the zones around Terra and Avalon.

She also didn’t admit the size of the map they had. The scope of their discovery would remain a secret, limited to just a few people inside the New Terran Empire.

To top it off, she took the map that she had stored in her implants and quickly trimmed away the areas she didn’t want to share, including the flashing green dot on the Kuiper belt object. It covered the area around the Home system out to roughly a thousand light-years when she was done.

The woman’s eyes widened as she started examining it.

“This is… stunning. It opens up so many avenues that we didn’t have before if it’s accurate. How sure are you of its precision?”

“Everything we’ve checked thus far has been just where the map predicted it would be. Well, there was always a little bit of searching around to find the flip point, but none have been very far from where this map predicted they would be.

“Apparently, the machinery in question can either accurately foretell where the flip points are, or the network is being monitored via some method that we’re unaware of.

“I was already considering telling you this because we need to know what’s going on in the Rebel Empire, and this provides you with a method of getting observers to the areas you’d find most interesting.

“If I could’ve figured out a way to just give you the parts of the map that would take you to those points, I might’ve thought about it, but I just don’t know the situation inside the Rebel Empire well enough to make that guess.

“You should consider this part of those secrets we’re sharing as we hold up our end of the deal. And, as part of that, we’re still verifying whether or not these maps are even close to accurate, and we intend to take a little sojourn to the outer system to see if a few of the Kuiper belt objects that it shows really exist if you have no objection.”

The woman was distracted by what she was examining. Kelsey made that worse when she forwarded images of the dinosaurs and the obelisk.

“That’s amazing. For the entirety of the existence of the Terran Empire, or even humanity in space, we never ran into a single alien entity, and you’ve run into three in just the last few years. That’s remarkable. You’re either extremely lucky, or someone was watching out for you.”

“I’ll go with lucky. We’ve wandered a long way off the beaten path, and that’s helped. There’s no telling what else is out there that humanity never found because they weren’t looking in the right places.”

Gatewood’s eyes narrowed. “Do you think there’s anything out in our Kuiper belt?”

“If there is, it’s probably going to take a lot of searching to find it. The aliens that created this map haven’t been around for something like seventy-five million years. You’re more than welcome to search everything in your system, of course, but be aware that the facilities we found thus far are shielded devilishly well.”

If the resistance ever found any of the alien facilities and figured out what the teleportation chambers were, they’d quickly determine that Kelsey had held back information, so she might as well be honest about that too.

“I’ll be honest. The map I have is significantly larger than what I’ve shared. You’ll note that what I give you is only out to about a thousand light-years from this system. We can always discuss sharing more information, but for our purposes now, this is a gesture of good faith.

“One of the other things I need to share with you is that the alien facilities that we found had chambers that can send someone to a different alien facility in real time. Carl believes it scans the traveler down to the molecular level, disassembles them, and then transmits the data via FTL to the destination, where they are reassembled.

“Some of our people have gone significantly more than a thousand light-years away. And by significantly, I’m talking tens of thousands of light-years. The facilities are dangerous because we don’t understand them, and the people that found these chambers were almost trapped. My husband might never have come back. We were very fortunate.

“So, if you do find something in your explorations, be cautious of what it is and run at least some of the information past my mother. I’m going to give her the complete briefing, and if you find information that I haven’t shared with you, and we have something that could help, I’ll have her share that information with you.”

Gatewood studied her coolly for long seconds before she nodded. “There’s more to the story that you’re not telling me. I’m going to wager that even though you’ll deny it, that you’re going into the outer system here to see if there’s anything there of interest.

“To help keep honest people honest, I’m going to send Don Sommerville with you, and I want to make it clear that if anything is found in this system, it’s ours.

“That said, we can share data on anything we discover so long as you’re willing to share some back. This type of technology could prove to be game-changing in so many ways. Let’s not build our foundation on distrust. Let’s find ways to work together.

“It’s going to take you a while to get out there, look around, and then come back. I should have information from a few select locations based on this map by the time you do. We can then reassess what the best course of action will be going forward. Can you work with that?”

“I’m not the best diplomat in history, so I’m not going to lie. There’s always the possibility that there’s something out there. It’s not exactly like we can take an alien facility and transport it somewhere else. Wherever we go, you’ll be able to go later and double-check everything that we’ve seen, so I might as well just accept that Don is going to be along as an observer.”

The two of them spent the next hour discussing the details of what they’d found in the alien facilities, but it was difficult for Kelsey to focus. Her mind was already considering what they’d find in the Kuiper belt and how it would affect their relationship going forward.

Well, she’d find out soon enough, wouldn’t she?

8

Justine had just finished visiting with Julia when she received a message from Kelsey. She considered not listening to it until she’d calmed down a little bit because she was still furious with her daughter. Maybe what she’d done might seem like a prank to her, but it had been painful for both Julia and herself.

Even so, she swallowed her anger and listened as her daughter explained what she’d discussed with Gatewood. In retrospect, Justine supposed that it was obvious that someone would figure out that something strange had taken place with the timeline.

Now that at least part of the secret was out of the bag, it was going to be her job to handle the inevitable questions. Joy.

At least her daughter had added plenty of detail about her visit with the doctors. That saved Justine a trip to pull the information out of her daughter in person.

Before she spoke with Gatewood, there was one thing that she needed to do. So she boarded her cutter and had it take her to Persephone. Once she was aboard, it was a trivial task to locate the person she was looking for because the ship was so small, and the computer—the AI—was so helpful.

Olivia West was seated in the small dining area that the crew used, sipping coffee over the remains of a meal.

Justine made her way over to the table and smiled at the woman. She didn’t know her, other than by name, but she’d seen her picture enough to recognize her.

“Pardon the disruption, Coordinator, but might I join you for a few minutes?”

“Certainly, Ambassador. Would you like some coffee?”

She shook her head. “No, thank you. I’d like something much stronger, but this isn’t the right time or place. As you probably already know, I’m acting as the diplomatic envoy from the New Terran Empire to the resistance, and I need your help.”

The other woman took a sip of her coffee while considering her. “I’m certainly more than willing to give you what assistance I can, but depending on the matter, my insight might not be that helpful.

“Before we start, why would you feel the need for stronger drink? And it’s not out of the question. They have some stashed away. Perhaps some wine?”

It was so tempting, but Justine shook her head. “I really should keep my head clear because I’m expecting to have a fairly important conversation with Coordinator Gatewood in the next couple of hours. As for why I feel the need to drink, I think the answer is my daughter. I’m told many parents feel this way at some point.”

West laughed. “I’m not a parent myself, but I’ve certainly heard other people make similar comments over the years. So what exactly did Kelsey do?”

“She took me to see Julia without any warning of what I was walking into. Then she left while we talked, and I had to listen to her heart-wrenching story. I’m not certain what Kelsey expected, but I’m gravely disappointed in her.”

She expected the other woman to defend her daughter, but all she did was slowly shake her head. “Kelsey is an amazing person, but sometimes she has trouble predicting the consequences of the actions she takes. I’m not trying to minimize your feelings, but I will say that her judgment has been even less straightforward now that she’s entering her third trimester.

“Also, she probably hasn’t really adjusted to the fact that you’ve changed so much from when she was younger. From everything that I’ve heard, you’ve been diligently working in the interests of the New Terran Empire here. I don’t have any personal contacts with the resistance here, but the amount of information you’ve compiled on them is impressive. For someone not trained as a diplomat, you’re doing quite well.”

“While I might never have received formal training as a diplomat, you can rest assured that an empress has to learn how to navigate murky waters. Especially if one is having multiple affairs simultaneously and one wants to keep that information to oneself.

“I never saw myself as a monogamous person before, but I’m happy in my current circumstances. It’s certainly less complicated than keeping track of multiple lovers and the lies needed to keep them all in the dark.

“But this isn’t about me. I’ll figure out how to deal with Kelsey in my own time. This is about the resistance and Coordinator Gatewood. Kelsey sent me a message that she had to tell her about the aliens and gave her part of the map they’d found on Dinosaur Planet. I expect to be negotiating with Gatewood in the next couple of hours, and I’d like your insight on the best way to do so.

“She’s going to want more access to the technology and information that I’m sure she suspects exists. I want to find out more about what’s going on here in the Rebel Empire. The two of us have to find a way to work together, but she’s resistant to the idea of my ex-husband and the New Terran Empire being dominant in the relationship.

“The New Terran Empire isn’t going to sit back and let the Rebel Empire break up. And that’s what will happen now that the AIs are no longer directly controlling events, even though I’m sure Coordinator Gatewood thinks that they can save the day.”

West set her coffee cup back down on the saucer. “That is going to be a thorny discussion. As a leader in the resistance, I had very generalized information about the various cells and what we were doing. That said, I never met or even heard about Coordinator Gatewood.

“The fact that Harrison’s World has submitted to the New Terran Empire’s sovereignty can possibly be used as a discussion point to help you. I’m unsure how much time I’m going to have, though. Kelsey indicated that we wouldn’t be staying here more than a few more days before we move on to Avalon.”

“Those plans have changed,” Justine said. “If you’re going to help me, you’re going to have to leave Persephone behind. It seems that my daughter is taking Audacious and Persephone out to the Kuiper belt to look at something. They’ll be gone for at least a week, so if you would, I’d like to ask you to come back to the station with me. I feel more than confident that they’ll be able to provide you with quarters.”

West smiled. “I’m more than happy to help. Maybe once we’re finished having that talk, we can have that glass of wine and discuss your daughter in more detail. Or perhaps I should say, your daughters.”

That made Justine smile. “I think I’d like that. Shall we go?”

* * *

Elise stared at the gestation pods through her implants. Carl had set up some vid cameras around them so that she could get a look at her kids anytime she wanted. The only thing she couldn’t do was visit them in person.

And that was what she wanted to do the most.

“I have to let them go on without me,” she murmured. “It breaks my heart, but it’s the right thing to do. The longer I keep them here, the more danger I put them in.”

Julia put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed gently. “That might be true now, but it’s not going to be true forever. You have to believe that.

“Carl is a genius, and he’ll figure out what has to be done so that you can see them again. I’ll bet he does it before they’re born too.”

She turned to face the short blonde woman and pulled her into a hug. Julia tensed momentarily but then relaxed. She still wasn’t comfortable with physical contact, but Elise needed it.

“I know he will,” she said after a few seconds. “When he told me that the number of these things inside and around me had grown, I knew this had to be the choice I made, but it still hurts. I’m glad that you’re going to be there to make sure they get to my father. Are you going to go all the way to Pentagar before you return home?”

Julia nodded and took a step back, probably to try to dodge any more hugs. “While I need to be back in my universe as soon as I can, a side trip to Pentagar isn’t going to delay me that much. It’s been a long time since I’ve been there, and it will be nice to see your father again.

“I’m going to have to make sure that he comes up to the destroyer. You and your allies went to a lot of trouble to make sure only a very limited circle even suspects that there are other universes, so it would be foolish to put that at risk now.”

Elise nodded. “That makes sense because he’s going to want to take possession of the gestation pods in the safest manner possible. It’s not like you’re going to tell him that he has grandchildren in orbit over the com. That’s the kind of story one has to tell someone face-to-face.”

The two of them stood there without saying anything for a long while before Julia spoke again. “I’m going to miss you. This trip hasn’t been a picnic, but it’s been a revelation to me. You and I were close friends in my universe, and I’m looking forward to renewing that friendship when I can, but seeing how all of you are working together to bring victory to this universe gives me hope.

“I’ll never be your Kelsey, but I can find people that can do what needs to be done. With your folks’ help, we can start making our own Marine Raiders. We can take the New Terran Empire back from the AIs, and then I can make my way to Alpha Centauri.

“For the first time, I truly believe that we have a chance of eventual victory.”

Elise smiled. “You’ll win. You’re stronger than you think you are. You’ve been knocked down, and it’s time to get back up again. Thank you.”

Julia pulled her into an unexpected hug and squeezed her with a little bit more strength than Elise would have been comfortable with otherwise before releasing her.

“Keep an eye on Kelsey. She’s way more impetuous than I am. She’s a danger to herself and the little girl inside of her. I’m relying on you to keep her safe for me.

“Genetically, that’s my daughter too. I may never have kids of my own, so I’m invested. All of you are going to have to keep her safe for me.”

Elise’s smile quirked wryly. “Oh, I think you’ll have children of your own. From conversations that I’ve had with Angela, Carl can be… energetic and attentive, shall we say. So focus on bringing him into your circle, and you’ll have children, mark my words. You’ll also have a brilliant and competent partner to stand with you.”

“I don’t know if I can even think about that now. It just seemed so unlikely. Of course, I’d like it to work out that way, but who knows? Then again, you got together with Jared Mertz, so I shouldn’t count anything out.”

Elise chuckled. “He’s not the same, as you well know. Let me be clear on this. If you find that bastard in your universe, kill him. Do it quickly and make sure it’s done. Whoever that monster is, he’s not my husband, and he needs to be put down for the good of humanity.”

Julia’s smile vanished, and her eyes grew hard. “I will, with pleasure. Take care of yourself, Elise.”

The two women hugged one last time, and without another word, Julia turned and left.

Elise stood there watching the feed for another hour until the destroyer pulled out of orbit and started the long trip home. Only then did she say goodbye to her children. She prayed it wasn’t the last time she saw them.

9

Carl looked up from his workstation when Elise walked through the hatch to his lab on Audacious. Her alien robot companion skittered in behind her as he rose to his feet.

“You wanted to see me?” she asked.

“I did. I’ve finished going over the information we’ve gathered, and I wanted to talk with you about it.”

“Are you still wanting to cut part of me off to see if it grows back?” she asked suspiciously. “I’m not okay with this idea.”

He shook his head. “Not really. Would I like to know the answer? Sure. That said, I don’t think we need to explore it in great depth right now, though I think you’ll want to know before we get too much further along. This is more about the state of the devices inside you and some recommendations that I want to make.”

She dragged one of the chairs over beside him as the robot squatted in the corner like she’d trained it to do. Once she looked comfortable, he started laying out what they’d found.

“As I mentioned when we did the scanning, the number of alien nanites and smaller devices inside you are significantly greater than what we saw at the beginning. The cloud around you is a lot more populous as well. I’m convinced this isn’t the maximum number that we’re going to see either.

“The good part of this is that there’s no indication that they’re doing anything harmful to you. Not only are they leaving your medical nanites and implants alone, they’re not interfering with any of your biological processes.”

He hadn’t realized how tense the woman was until she relaxed. “That’s a relief to hear. I’m not happy that I can’t get rid of them, but you can’t understand just how paranoid my people are about having something else control them.

“What implications do you see from this new data?”

“I’m not sure. There’s no indication that the devices are acting autonomously. They’re programmed to do whatever tasks they do for you, but they don’t seem to have any type of intelligence beyond that.

“I suspect that’s why they refuse to change the interface that you’re using to something that you can understand. That’s not something they were programmed to do. They can interpret what you want them to do, but they’re not going to change the way they communicate with you.

“But that doesn’t mean that there are no consequences.”

The tenseness that had left her shoulders quickly returned. “Like what?”

“I suspect that as your children grow and change that the devices will become less interested in them and almost certainly not bother them once they’re born. That’s an educated guess, but I think that it’s a good one.

“The problem is that until that point, they’re at risk. If they become infected with these devices, it may prove impossible to get them cleaned up again. My recommendation to you is that you stay here with Kelsey and the rest of us that are staying and let the destroyer carry your children home without you.”

“You’re not the first person to suggest that,” the woman said with a sigh. “In fact, I’ve already agreed, and the destroyer is headed for the multiflip point as we speak. Julia will see that my children get to Pentagar safely before she heads back to her universe.”

“That… was surprisingly easy. I thought I’d have to argue about it. I know that’s not the best solution for you, but it’s the right one for them. I’m sorry.”

“There’s no need to be sorry. We’ve all had to make sacrifices to beat the AIs. Do you really think that they’re going to be safe once they’re born?”

He nodded. “At this point, they’re not really beings, and I suspect that the devices still think that they’re part of you. My guess is that the aliens had three brains. I’m not sure that there were three intelligences in each of them, but the facility that granted you the nanites in the first place likely thought you were similar enough to the aliens for this to work.

“Now that the process is done, it doesn’t matter what it thought, I suppose. As the children develop and become beings in their own right, the nanites will no longer see them as part of you. They may still realize that they are your progeny, but I doubt very seriously that they’ll attempt to reinfect the children.”

“I hope you’re right,” she said with a sigh. “I’m not going to be able to stay separated from them forever, and I want them to grow up and have normal lives. Whatever happens to me, I don’t want that to be part of what happens to them.

“Now, do you really want to cut part of me out to see if it grows back?”

“I do,” he said with a little bit of a grin. “Nothing like a finger or toe but just a sizable tissue sample that wouldn’t grow back under normal conditions but that we could fix with a regenerator if it doesn’t work. I’m pretty sure it will work, though.”

Elise cast her gaze toward the ceiling and sighed again. “Fine. Let’s do that now before I change my mind.”

Carl leaped to his feet and headed toward the hatch. He wouldn’t give her time to think about it because the opportunity might never come again.

* * *

The four days it took for Audacious and Persephone to reach the general area around the suspected Kuiper belt object dragged for Zia, but they were finally in a position to launch probes to scan the object.

The planet was an ice-covered, rocky body roughly the size of Mars in the Terra system. It was fractured in several places where it looked like it had been struck by other Kuiper belt objects over the millennia, so it looked like a lopsided sphere.

Once they were close enough to do so, Zia launched both squadrons of fighters to do a flyby and get some human eyeballs on the target. That put a total of forty-eight fighters into the area.

She’d have preferred to keep a squadron around their ships for protection, but they didn’t have those extra twenty-four fighters or pilots anymore. The resistance had offered to assist in building new fighters, but that was a technology that she and Justine Bandar had been unwilling to trade until they’d brokered a deal.

Even if that did happen, it would be some time before they had extra fighters, and that still wouldn’t replace the pilots they’d lost. When she’d reorganized the fighter groups before Persephone left for Terra, she’d brought Black Jack Squadron and Scimitar Squadron up to full strength with twenty-four pilots each.

Fortunately, Audacious was built on a superdreadnought hull and was armed, and they were in a supposedly safe system. She still should’ve kept one of the squadrons close by, but she really wanted to know what was out there, and the only way to make that happen was to blanket the area with scanners and humans to interpret the scan results.

Kelsey and Don Sommerville stood beside her command console on the flag bridge. The large plot at the front of the compartment showed the Kuiper belt object and all the fighters circling it.

The one thing it didn’t show was the position of the suspected facility. Kelsey had decided that they weren’t going to reveal the fact that they could detect alien facilities on the map itself. If they could see something from space, they’d explore it—at least a little.

If not, then they’d take what readings they had and go back into the system. It wasn’t as if they lacked alien facilities to explore, so this was just indulging their curiosity to see why the flashing dot was colored rather than white.

The scanner readings were coming back from all around the rogue planet, and everything looks normal enough. Not that she was all that familiar with Kuiper belt objects, but it looked to be in roughly the same condition as the smaller objects that they’d seen on their way to this location.

Without showing any exterior intent, she focused her attention on the area that supposedly held the alien facility and examined the scanner data in more detail via her implants.

The pilots didn’t know what they were looking for—or that they were looking for anything in specific—so they couldn’t reveal something by paying too much attention to it. That made it somewhat challenging to get the data they needed without revealing that that was what they were doing.

“Black Jack Seven just spotted something on the surface and is going in for a closer look,” one of her staff officers said. “No specific details yet, but there’s some kind of anomaly in the scanner readings on the surface.”

Zia did a quick check and almost grumbled. That was the area that held the blinking green dot. It looked as if they were going to have to reveal more cards than they’d hoped if they were going to be relatively honest with their hosts.

“Put it up on the screen,” Kelsey ordered.

From what Zia could see, there wasn’t that much there. If the anomaly rested on the surface, it wasn’t that big. Certainly not the size of the obelisk that Admiral Mertz had found or even the large hill that Kelsey had described as the area that they’d arrived on that strange planet.

As the data populated the plot, Zia ordered several nearby fighters to change course and add their efforts to the task. Within a couple of minutes, they had a reasonably decent idea of what was down there, and it was not what she expected.

Rather than a facility, it looked like the wreckage of a small ship. It seemed to be roughly the size of a pinnace, so maybe it was an alien small craft or probe.

“We need to get closer and scan the rest of the area around that ship,” Kelsey said. “It’s possible that it was trying to get to some larger facility. Order Persephone into a close orbit and use her scanners to see as deeply under the ice as she can. If there’s something down there, I want to know about it.”

“Is that really an alien ship?” Sommerville asked.

“It looks like one,” Kelsey said. “We’ll have to get inside it to see for sure. Since it doesn’t look intact, I’m not sure that there’s going to be anything operational, but the salvage could be interesting.”

The short blonde smiled and held up a hand before Sommerville could say anything. “And yes, I know that you’re claiming it for the resistance. No argument. It’s yours.

“Would you like us to explore it for you using the experience we’ve already gotten? We have several experts—if you’re loose enough with the term—available. You could be present to make sure that nothing hinky happens, but since we found it, we’d at least like to take a look inside.”

“Agreed,” Sommerville said immediately. “Why don’t we go down with your experts and take a look?”

Kelsey turned toward Zia. “Don, Carl, and I will take a pinnace over to Persephone to pick up Elise. Let her know to get ready.”

Sommerville frowned. “Princess Elise? She’s one of your experts?”

“Ready for another those secrets that I’ve been keeping? Elise has had significantly more contact with the alien facilities than the rest of us and has a few tricks up her sleeve that I’m sure will amaze and astound you.”

Zia sent the message to Persephone as the others left the flag bridge. Now that she was alone, she ordered all of the fighters in the zone over the wreck to scan it as intensely as they could to get as much data as possible.

The wreck wasn’t in great shape, and she doubted that it still held pressure. Everyone would need vacuum suits.

There wasn’t a detectable power supply, which might not mean anything since this was alien technology, but it certainly fit with the impression that this was a derelict. Its temperature matched that of the ice on the surface, so it had been there for a long time.

She opened a channel to Gabe Collins. “Major, I want you to get a team of marines in powered armor ready to go. You’ll accompany Princess Kelsey, Princess Elise, Mister Owlet, and Lieutenant Commander Sommerville to an alien wreck. We’re not seeing any signs of activity, but take all precautions, including for vacuum work on an icy surface.”

“I’ve already got my team in motion. Don’t worry, ma’am, we’ll keep them safe.”

“See that you do, Gabe. I’m counting on you.”

With that done, she sat back in her chair and stared at the scanner readings that were still pouring in. What exactly was that ship? What purpose had it served? Was it one of the supposed probes that kept track of the flip point network?

She had no idea and honestly wasn’t expecting to get any answers. Thus far, they hadn’t been able to determine a lot about the aliens that had created the obelisk. Their motives were obscure at best.

They’d just have to do the best they could. Honestly, this was just a side trip, and they had more important things to be paying attention to, but those tasks were outside her control.

Justine Bandar was negotiating for them, and she’d have to hope the woman could be convincing. The New Terran Empire needed a win to start building an organization inside the already-splintering Rebel Empire.

Time was not on their side, and if they didn’t get it done soon, all of this might be for nothing.

10

Kelsey watched through the scanners as the pinnace landed beside the crashed ship. Now that they were down, she could see debris scattered across the dead vessel that looked like splinters of ice or chips of stone from nearby impacts of other objects from the Kuiper belt.

While she certainly didn’t know how long it would’ve taken to build the thick layer of debris, it didn’t happen overnight. That vessel had been here for an extended period of time.

Had it been millions of years? Possibly. That would be up to Carl to figure out.

The marines had decked themselves out in powered armor, and they led the way out of the pinnace to make sure the area was clear. Because she’d been with others, she hadn’t gone down to marine country to get into her own armor, so she was in the same reinforced vacuum suits as they were.

It was kind of annoying because she felt more at risk. Hell, she wasn’t even armed. It was almost like she was going soft.

Carl had brought along one of his portable scanners, and as soon as the marines allowed them close to the other vessel, he began using it.

“The hull is similar to material I saw inside the obelisk and on that planet that we visited,” he announced. “I can definitely confirm that this ship was built by the same civilization.”

“Can you tell how long it’s been here?” she asked.

“I’m going to need more time and the correct equipment to make that determination. Based on the amount of debris, it’s been here for a very, very long time. Quite possibly millions of years.”

Don Sommerville stepped up next to the scientist and looked at the craft. “Even out here in space, how can something like this have survived that long?”

The young scientist turned to face the resistance officer. “Those aliens built to last. While nobody has been out here to maintain the ship, the materials were more than strong enough to survive being exposed to radiation for this long.

“That said, I’m not going to make any guesses about operational status inside the ship. The aliens have already proven that they can pull off miracles, but I doubt anything inside is functional.”

“Exactly how are we planning to get inside it?” Elise asked as she walked around to the ship’s side with her alien robot at her heels.

Seeing Sommerville’s reaction when they’d picked up Elise and the robot had been priceless. That, of course, meant that they’d had to explain that they’d found an operational alien device and that it had attached itself to Elise.

What they hadn’t told him was that she had a colony of alien nanites inside and around her. Oh, and picotech and femtotech. Since he couldn’t see those things, he didn’t need to know about them.

The officer turned and watched the robot as it moved adroitly across the surface. The uneven ground didn’t give the crab-like device anything like the trouble it did humans.

Since Kelsey was also watching, she noted when it stopped following Elise and went around her to the ship’s rear area. “Where the heck is it going?”

They all followed and watched as the robot began working on what was obviously a hatch of some kind. Rather than trying to manipulate the door through its technology like she’d seen it use to open hatches on board their ships, it was using its manipulator legs to find places to grab the material and tear it.

That certainly wasn’t an easy task, but it looked like it was making progress. The metal was bending and tearing slowly.

“Did you tell it to do that?” she asked Elise.

Elise shook her head. “It decided to do this all on its own. It sometimes does that when it determines what it thinks I want to do.”

It probably would’ve been more efficient to allow the marines to use their weapons to blow a hole in the ship’s side, but this had a lower chance of damaging the interior. They all stood by and watched as the robot worked.

She was impressed. Even though the hull had been ruptured, the device had still torn what was presumably very strong material. Maybe it had degraded over the millennia.

Or maybe it hadn’t.

Once the robot had made the hole large enough, it scurried inside. The problem that confronted them now was that the hole was shorter than the humans. Everyone else had to get down on their hands and knees to crawl inside.

The marines went first, and the rest followed.

When Kelsey entered the dark interior, the marines were already looking in every direction with their suit lights so she could get a decent idea of the size of the vessel and the fact that nothing inside seem to be threatening.

The exterior was about the same size as the pinnace they’d come in, but the interior only looked to be about two-thirds the size of the pinnace’s interior. Something in the alien vessel was taking up more space.

What she saw certainly seemed to be made for alien personnel to control the vessel. Small pedestals sat in front of what had likely once been control panels. It was somewhat difficult to tell for sure because they’d been shattered in whatever crash had destroyed the vessel.

A secondary pedestal somewhat farther back was presumably where the vessel’s commanding officer had been. Its control panel was more intact than the other two though not whole by any means.

The vessel was in a vacuum and apparently had been so for a very, very long time. There were three carapaces in the control area. All the soft flesh was gone, but the aliens’ shells were still present. That was the first time they’d come across any biological samples from the alien race at all.

At the rear of the compartment was something unusual. The aliens favored tunnels made to accommodate their particular body style, so basically an oval on its side. At the rear of the compartment was something roughly similar in shape, though it looked more like an attached piece of equipment, and there was nothing but a blank wall behind it.

Elise stepped up to the supposed command console and put a gloved hand on it. She didn’t say anything, but Kelsey knew she was trying to get the alien devices inside her to do something with the machines. Nothing happened.

“Since I think it’s obvious that there’s no threat here, other than the environment, I’d like to get a little bit more room to work,” Carl said. “Is it okay if the marines go out and set up a perimeter or search for other bits of the ship that may have been thrown out in the crash?”

“Good idea,” she said. “See to it, Major.”

He could’ve argued but apparently didn’t think there was much danger present inside the wrecked vessel, so he led the rest of the marines out, leaving the four of them alone inside. Five, if one counted Elise’s robot.

Kelsey started a timer in her implants. They’d give the ship a good look, but it was obvious that they weren’t going to do anything more than salvage the vessel of useful parts to examine. Other tasks needed her attention, and her curiosity had now been satiated.

Sommerville made his way to stand next to her and watched as Carl and Elise moved through the compartment, looking at things. He didn’t say anything for a few minutes but eventually spoke.

“I have to say that I originally doubted this whole alien story, but I suppose this means there’s something to it. You run into the strangest people in your adventures.”

She laughed. “You have no idea. If you have no objection, I’ll let Carl figure out what might be interesting to salvage and examine in more detail. I’ll be happy to share whatever insights he makes, and of course, the objects themselves belong to your people. I’d rather not spend more than another day out here before we head back.”

“I’ve got no objection to that. You at least have some basis for understanding what you’re looking at, whereas we would be guessing at everything. Frankly, I don’t think there’s going to be much left that can be used.”

He turned his attention to the small oval structure attached to the back of the compartment. “What do you think that is?”

“I haven’t got the slightest idea. It’s about the right size for one of the aliens to go through, but that blank wall in the back would be an obstacle. I suppose the engineering section is back there, but I doubt very seriously that anything is intact.

“Carl will do his best, and he might be able to figure out its purpose. For the moment, it’s just going to be a mystery.”

“I found something,” Elise said.

Kelsey turned and saw the woman reach down and pick up something off the compartment floor in front of the central platform. When she stood back up, there was some type of bracelet or clasp in her hand. It looked like pewter or old silver.

Carl went over to look at it. He didn’t touch it, only running his scanner across it.

“Interesting. I think this might be the first loose bit of technology that we’ve come across that belonged to the aliens. Oh, there was a bunch of stuff in that house, but I don’t think it was like this. That was mundane.”

Elise made a point of looking at the robot. “Even the mundane can be strange. Are you sure it’s a device?”

Carl nodded. “Definitely not decoration. There’s technology inside of it even though there’s no power source. This served a purpose of some kind. Maybe it was a watch. Even aliens need to tell the time, right?”

Kelsey was about to agree with that when her friend frowned and shook his equipment. “That’s weird. My scanner just went dead.”

At that exact moment, the bracelet in Elise’s hands began to melt. Her friend shrieked and tried to drop the thing, but it clung to her glove, seemingly melting into it, and was gone.

Kelsey rushed over, ready to patch the damaged suit, but the glove was whole and seemingly undamaged.

“Are you kidding me?” Elise demanded. “I wasn’t even messing with it!”

“Take off your glove,” Kelsey commanded. “You’ll be fine in a vacuum for a little bit. I need to see if there’s an injury.”

Then, rather than waiting for her friend to fumble with the suit, she reached out and detached the glove before pulling it off.

Elise’s hand was just as undamaged as the suit.

“What the hell was that, and where did it go?” Don demanded.

“I have no idea,” Kelsey said. “Now you see some of the dangers of exploring alien ruins.

“I think we’d best get back to the ships. This wreck has been here for millions of years, and it’ll still be here later. We need to get Elise checked out now.”

11

Justine arrived at Coordinator Gatewood’s office with Olivia at her side. She’d been preparing for this meeting for days with the other woman’s help and felt as if she was on solid ground.

Unfortunately for her, she knew that diplomacy was often like fighting in shifting sands. Any advantage was fleeting, the tides could turn at a moment’s notice, and nothing happened quickly or without great effort.

The coordinator’s secretary indicated that they could go right in. This wasn’t the first time that she’d been in Gatewood’s office, so she was prepared for the amazing view of the gas giant out beyond the windows.

The station was well concealed inside a hollowed-out asteroid, but that didn’t prevent it from having all the amenities. In fact, she’d been on space stations that were far less well appointed.

Gatewood rose from behind her desk and walked out to greet them with her hand extended. “Ambassador Bandar, Coordinator West, welcome. If you’d come over to the table I have set up, we can get comfortable. If you’d like anything to drink or snack on, I’ll have it sent for at once.”

“I think I’d be pleased with a glass of water, and I already see a pitcher waiting for us, so I’m fine,” Justine said.

“That works for me as well,” Olivia said.

“Then let’s sit down and get started,” Gatewood said as she led them to the table.

Once everyone had taken a seat and poured water for themselves, Gatewood focused her attention on Olivia.

“Coordinator West, I’ve taken the time to go over the information that the resistance has on you, and I have to say that I’m impressed. You’ve accomplished a lot on Harrison’s World.”

“Thank you,” Olivia said with a smile. “Though I don’t think you know the half of it. Just like the leadership inside the resistance didn’t share much information with us, there are certain aspects of what was going on that I didn’t share with you. Operational security, you understand.”

Gatewood nodded. “Completely understandable. In any case, I believe that your world may be the only one that freed itself before this war broke out with the Clans. Not only that, you beat the AI in your system and suborned it. That’s remarkable.”

“I wish I could take credit for it, but that was all Jared Mertz and Kelsey Bandar. We were going to take a shot at the AI, and we thought we had everything in place to win.

“We were wrong. The AI would’ve crushed us. Even as it was, it exterminated what it saw as the most likely seats of resistance to its rule, and we were lucky to get away with as little harm as we did. The AIs prepared much more thoroughly for rebellion than we’d anticipated.”

“It had to do with all of the hidden warships,” Justine added to the conversation. “There were four battlecruisers hidden in one of the gas giants inside that system, as I know you know from our report. The thing is, I’m confident, based on some of the information that my daughter observed in several other locations, that this is true in just about every system that the AIs allowed humanity to remain.

“They have a number of strong military forces stationed along the border with the Singularity. While those ships can’t be moved to deal with the Clans, they keep the Singularity from invading. I feel it necessary to point out that that duty now falls to the New Terran Empire.”

That killed the conversation for a few seconds, but Gatewood simply shook her head slightly. “Force doesn’t dictate who rules the Empire. That’s the argument that the AIs would use. Just because your people have the keys to utilize those ships does not make you fit to rule humanity.”

“Nor does it make us unfit,” Justine replied. “I have to point out that the resistance is currently unable to intervene in the fighting between the Rebel Empire and the Clans because you don’t have the warships to make a difference.

“Admiral Mertz and the New Terran Empire sacrificed far more people, ships, and firepower to take down the Master AI than you could’ve assembled. That remains true even now. Audacious by herself is far more powerful than every other ship you have combined unless I’m sorely mistaken.

“I hate to be crass about this, but while you can claim that the New Terran Empire needs to recognize your moral authority inside the Rebel Empire, that isn’t going to get a single system under your control.

“As it is, none of us have any information about what’s taking place around us. I know that you sent out ships to scout what was occurring in a few locations and to bring back word, but let’s assume for the moment that they’ll find the systems in one of three possible conditions.

“First, they could discover that the Clans have already run through, crushed any resistance, and now have the planets firmly under their heels. Second, the AIs could’ve ceded control to humanity, and someone will have assumed that power for themselves, for good or ill. Third, the AIs might not have gotten word to surrender at all at this point, and you’d have to treat them just like you have for the last five hundred years.

“How does any of those situations translate to an advantage for the resistance? I have to admit that I’m very curious to hear your answer.”

Gatewood sighed. “The situation is far more complex than laying out three potential outcomes and simply choosing one. We have people in positions of authority in many of those systems, and we may be able to turn the situations to our advantage. I’m not willing to simply throw away the possibility that we can rule ourselves and submit to an outsider, no matter how benign they seem.”

Olivia leaned forward slightly, picked up her glass of water, and took a sip. When she set it back down, she gave Gatewood a sympathetic look.

“The complexity of the situation does not play to your advantage, I’m afraid. I’ve learned firsthand how trying to take advantage of others from a position of hidden power can go wrong because I didn’t understand all of the circumstances. I lost many close friends and even my longtime lover because of my hubris.

“I’m not telling you that you shouldn’t hold out for more in any negotiation with the New Terran Empire. You don’t know them the same way I do, and you’ve got to be cautious. I get that.

“Yet my resume inside your database will tell you how ardent a supporter I am of the resistance. I believe that it’s our duty to go with the path that gives humanity the very best chance of ultimate victory.

“With so many enemies sitting at the table, we can’t afford to split our strength when we don’t have that much to begin with. The New Terran Empire brings something we can’t to the table: military force.

“The thing the resistance can bring to the negotiation is widespread integration on many planets. Justine is right that you’re going to find some people that have set themselves up as warlords.

“As soon as they get control of the ships that the AIs were using, they’re going to seize power for themselves, and they’re going to be reluctant to release it to anyone else.

“In fact, they’ll almost certainly go to war to keep anyone else from taking it from them and strive to accumulate more for themselves as quickly as they can.

“If the situation is that the Clans are in control, then that’s just as bad as if the AIs are still calling the shots. Nothing the resistance does will influence those two situations.

“Yet, if the Clans are in charge, they’re going to have to be fought. We’ll have to seize control of those systems by force of arms, and the resistance just can’t do that.

“How long will it be before it’s too late to keep the Rebel Empire as a single unit? Do we really want to fight what amounts to a general civil war in the middle of an invasion while a powerful third player sits just across the border, waiting to intervene?”

Justine didn’t envy the position that Gatewood was in. There were no easy answers to the problems she faced, but the woman wanted to maintain some level of control. Her job as the New Terran Empire’s negotiator was to find a way to meet that need in such a manner that humanity prospered, and the New Terran Empire ended up in the driver’s seat.

“Forgive me for saying so, but since you’ve agreed that Harrison’s World is now under the control of the New Terran Empire, I’m not sure that you qualify as a resistance spokesman anymore,” Gatewood said politely. “Everything that you’ve said is valid, but until we get word from the scouts over the next week, I’m not going to assume that the worst has happened.”

“Then it sounds like we’re done for the day,” Justine said. “Why don’t we shelve this discussion for now and go have dinner? I’d honestly like to get to know you a little bit better, and I think that we can have a productive conversation that doesn’t revolve around this dispute.”

Gatewood nodded and rose to her feet. “That sounds like an excellent idea. If you’ll allow me to choose, I know a little place with the most divine seafood. All imported, of course.”

Justine smiled as she stood. The official negotiation was over for the day, but the maneuvering had just begun. Every bit of knowledge she could glean would help her when the time came to strike a deal. And she was hungry.

* * *

Elise rode back to Audacious in silence, furious that she’d allowed herself to get caught by the aliens again. She should’ve learned that touching anything in one of their ruins was dangerous.

Whatever it was that she’d picked up, it had dissolved completely, and that almost certainly meant that it had gone somewhere inside her body. The very idea made her skin crawl. It was a violation only just short of being turned into a Pale One.

Carl and Kelsey continue to ask questions and use the equipment they had on hand to scan her, but she wasn’t very personable in her cooperation. She was just too furious with herself, but she supposed that beat being afraid.

Honestly, that was the most tempting reaction. Would this new situation mean that she could never see her children again? Would it mean that she was a danger to those around her and would have to isolate herself? Would the new addition kill her?

She had no way of knowing and even less confidence that Carl would be able to figure it out. The man was a genius, but even he had limits.

Eventually, they made it back to Audacious, and her friends escorted her to Carl’s lab. When ordered to, she stripped off the vacuum suit and climbed into the scanning rig again.

As Carl powered it up, she barely noticed how claustrophobic it made her feel because her attention was so focused on berating herself.

“You can’t be so hard on yourself,” Kelsey said softly through the gap in the scanner bars. “There’s no way you could’ve known that whatever that was would do that.”

Elise snorted. “That damned alien technology does whatever it pleases, and it’s never something that I like. I should’ve just left that thing sitting on the deck and told Carl to scan it. If I had done that, this wouldn’t be happening.”

“You don’t know that. In fact, the results might have been the same. I’m not sure that the fact that it was touching you is what made it disappear into you. Whatever it was might’ve been called to you by what was already inside you. Honestly, we’re all guessing here.”

Elise sighed. That didn’t make her feel any better, but Kelsey was right.

“I’m ready to start scanning,” Carl said. “Put your hands down by your sides and stand as still as you can. This probably won’t take more than five minutes.”

Elise closed her eyes and tried to clear her head. She pushed the worry away and just focused on her own breathing. Slowly, she felt her heart slow down as she relaxed a little. It didn’t make the situation any easier, but nothing was going to do that until she finally beat the alien things inside her.

She relaxed to the point that Carl’s voice startled her when he spoke again. “Scan complete. Let’s open this thing up and get you out while we interpret the readings.”

Elise stood there with her eyes still closed and waited for Kelsey to help guide her out of the opening. When she did, Elise found herself led to a chair and sat down.

Honestly, she needed the support. She felt herself trembling and wasn’t sure exactly how to interpret the emotions coursing through her. Why had she been so stupid?

“Elise?” Carl asked, his voice just in front of her.

She opened her eyes and looked up at him. He looked concerned, not overly so. Maybe the news wasn’t as bad as she feared.

“What is it? What did that thing do to me?”

“All that we can detect is that it seems to have increased the number of nanites inside your system. Austin is going over the details now, but they don’t seem to be the same style of nanites as the one you picked up from the alien facility. That probably means they have a different purpose, but we won’t know what that is until they manifest in some way.

“It also doesn’t mean that whatever this is is bad. The aliens wouldn’t have put devices inside themselves that were a clear threat to their own existence. Don’t jump to conclusions. Give us a chance to figure this out.”

“You know the news isn’t going to be good,” she said in a low voice. “Whatever this thing added to me is going to be a complication that none of us needs. How did it happen?”

He shrugged slightly. “We may never know the specifics, but when I scanned it, it somehow drew all the power out of the storage cell and brought itself back to life. I’d guess that some of the nanites were still active, but most of them were in some kind of standby mode.

“I’ve got the scanner readings of it in that dormant state, and I’ll be going over them to see what I can determine, but almost certainly, that entire thing was made up of nanites. That’s how it was able to dissolve so completely and get inside your body and into the air around you.

“We’ll do the very best we can to understand what they are and what this means for you. I’m sorry this happened, and I wish we’d been more careful.”

She shook her head. “This isn’t your fault. It’s mine. I need to learn to be more cautious around these alien devices. There’s no telling what they are or what they want. To them, I’m just a tool.”

Kelsey shook her head and squeezed her shoulder. “Not a tool. To them, you’re a chance to serve someone again. The problem is that we don’t know what their capabilities are.

“These things may not be harmless, but they’re not a direct threat to you or those around you. These aliens don’t seem like a warlike race to me, so while they might be incomprehensible, I suggest that you don’t jump to the worst possible conclusion.

“Give Carl and his people time to figure out what they did to you. To figure out what these new nanites are designed for. I suspect that’s going to become clear in fairly short order, and then we can all take a deep breath and figure out what we need to do next.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Elise grumbled. “When you got your implants, you finally found an instruction manual. I doubt very seriously that I’m ever going to understand what the hell these things are.”

“Don’t rule it out,” Kelsey said with a grin as she pulled her to her feet. “Now that that’s done, let’s get something to eat and try to unwind a little bit. Carl and the others can go back down and salvage everything worthwhile off that ship, and then they can get to work figuring out exactly what those nanites inside you are doing. We’re going to fix this. I promise.”

Elise snorted. “Don’t make promises that you can’t keep. This problem might be unsolvable. Still, maybe a good salad and a glass of red wine would make this more bearable.”

12

Zia almost rolled her eyes when she heard that Elise had had some trouble with a piece of alien technology and was rushing back to Carl’s lab to see what had happened. Part of her wanted to laugh because that outcome seemed almost inevitable in retrospect.

The rest of her was, of course, worried.

What had the woman gotten into now, and how was it going to interact with the alien technology already inside her? This was just one more unnecessary bit of drama in an already complex situation.

She restrained herself from going down to see what was happening as Carl scanned the woman to try to figure out what had happened. She’d get a copy of the report when he was finished.

Other work kept her busy until she received Carl’s first report. Basically, the device had been made up of nanites that had joined with those already inside Elise. They were different in some way, but he didn’t know what that meant.

Kelsey had made the decision that she’d allow Carl and his cohorts to go back down to the crashed ship and remove some of the technology and materials. The odds of them being molested by the dormant tech seemed minuscule.

She wasn’t willing to allow them an unlimited amount of time, so she set a deadline of forty-eight hours.

He and his fellow scientists didn’t sleep for the next two days, stripping the wreck of everything they could carry off.

Then he and the rest slunk off to their cabins to catch up on sleep while the two ships started back toward the inner system. Kelsey was back aboard Persephone with Don Sommerville, and Elise was here aboard Audacious in case Carl needed to check anything with her in a hurry.

Even though all the major players of this little drama were scattered on various ships, she still wanted to form her own opinion of what was happening, so she headed down to Carl’s lab. She knew she wasn’t going to find any of them there, but she wanted to see this alien technology for herself.

Most of the equipment they’d salvaged was still sitting in various places in his lab. For example, the three consoles taken from the crashed ship were lined up against one of the bulkheads. They were interesting to look at but had no power and no means of being played with.

Not that she intended to play with them in the first place. She wasn’t that stupid.

The other intriguing thing they’d found was an attached oval rail at the rear of the crashed ship’s compartment. It had been mounted to the bulkhead, so Carl had taken the time to mount it to the bulkhead here as well to keep it in the same orientation.

Zia walked over and gave it a close look. It was an oval-shaped railing that was wide and short. It was perfectly sized for that device that followed Elise around, so it was probably shaped like the aliens as well.

Its purpose was obscure. After all, there was a bulkhead directly behind it on the ship where they’d found it. That pretty much precluded the ability to go through it.

Or did it?

She turned and looked at the large transport ring that they’d been gifted by Omega. Unfortunately, they only had one half of the pair because they’d had to sacrifice the other one, but could this be a similar technology?

With the transport ring, they applied power to one end, and it opened a wormhole to the other so that one could step through and travel up to five thousand kilometers without traversing the space between the two. The question was, where exactly would a ring on a small ship have taken someone?

They’d taken a peek in the ship's crushed rear section and found that it had contained what was left of the engines but no ring similar to this. So wherever the ring would’ve linked to—if that was its purpose—wouldn’t have been on that ship.

Just one more mystery for them to examine when the time came. It was an interesting sideshow and not something that their lives depended on, thank goodness.

She was just getting ready to walk back out of the lab when the hatch slid open, and Veronica walked through. The other woman gave her a smile, came over and embraced her, and gave her a slow kiss.

“There you are. I was just thinking about what we could have for dinner and wanted to get your input. Are you done for the day?”

“As much as any commanding officer can be done, yes. Whatever you want to eat for dinner is good with me, as long as we have a bottle of wine and some relaxing music. I’d like to unwind just a bit this evening.”

Veronica grinned impishly. “I believe that I know how I can help you relax.”

“I believe that you do, and your plan has my enthusiastic endorsement,” she said as she pulled the other woman close beside her and started toward the hatch. “Let’s go see about making some magic happen, shall we?”

She made a mental note to mention the possibility of the alien ring being a transport device to Carl the next time she laid eyes on him. Odds were good that her assessment was probably flawed, but the similarities were enough to make sure it was considered.

For now, she intended to give herself over to an evening of intimacy with her girl.

* * *

It took Carl two days to feel like he was rested again. He’d resisted the urge to live inside the lab and caught up on his sleep before he got back to work.

Actually, that was a lie. Angela had insisted, and he’d been too tired to argue. The end result was the same, so it hardly mattered, right?

When he, Ralph, and Austin got back to the lab, they went over the scan data they had for Elise, looking for any clue about what the new nanites were designed to do, but they came up blank.

An incoming com call interrupted his thoughts, and he answered it absentmindedly.

“Owlet.”

“Carl, this is Zia. I was down in the lab the other day, getting an eye on what you’d collected. Those rails that you have attached to the bulkhead look similar to the Omega transport ring. I wanted to at least raise the possibility that they served a similar purpose, but I got involved in something intense after I had the thought, and it slipped my mind until just now. Sorry about that.”

“That’s no problem at all, Commodore. I’d actually been having similar thoughts. How long until we get back to the inner system?”

“Roughly two days. They’re going to want me to give a briefing about what we found, so I need you to have something together for me today. It’s also possible that they’ll demand that you hand over all the equipment, so if you’re going to finish looking at anything, now is the time.”

He almost argued with her about that last part, but he knew that he didn’t have any control over what happened to the salvaged equipment and materials. This wasn’t their system, so while these might be his monkeys, it definitely wasn’t his circus.

“Understood. I’ll do what I can and have a report for you this afternoon.”

Once Zia ended the call, he walked over to the transport ring they’d gotten from Omega. It was similar in design to what the aliens had at the back of the ship, but only because it was a freestanding ring. None of the materials or equipment was at all alike.

Was it possible that the two devices performed the same function? Sure. Was he going to figure out how the aliens did it in two days? Absolutely not.

He had the data behind how the Omega ring worked, and he was still in the dark about how to make sense of the science except in the broadest of senses. The rings opened a wormhole and allowed traveling up to five thousand kilometers in a single step.

The alien’s technology could completely disassemble a person and beam them via FTL across the universe before reassembling them. He didn’t think he was ever going to get used to that level of technological achievement.

He retrieved one of his scanners and walked over to the oval ring they’d recovered from the crashed ship. That reminded him that he needed to go over the scanner that had failed and see exactly what the alien devices had done to it. Being able to remotely drain a power cell might have its uses.

Once again, the materials used by the aliens were almost incomprehensible to him. He would retain samples of everything, including a lot of the debris they’d recovered inside the crashed ship. The resistance could just deal with it. Materials science might grow by leaps and bounds if he cracked how any of this stuff worked.

As soon as he started scanning the ring, he detected an anomaly that he hadn’t expected. There was energy running through it.

“Ralph, Austin, come over here and take a look at this,” he called out.

The other two came over and checked out the readings before staring at the ring. Ralph was the first to speak.

“As the hardware expert, I want to know where that power is coming from. It’s not just pulling it out of the air.”

Austin nodded his agreement. “While we have some power transmission through the air aboard ship, it seems like this is more than that. Without being tapped directly into the power grid, where can it be getting that amount of energy?”

“Are we sure it’s not tapped into the power grid?” Carl asked.

The three of them looked at one another, and Carl brought up a schematic of the power lines through this section of the carrier. There was a major power junction behind that bulkhead.

He went to where the ring was mounted and began examining the connectors very closely. It only took a few seconds to find that one of them was noticeably thicker than the rest.

That had not been the case when he’d mounted it to the bulkhead. A quick check also revealed that there was power flowing through it.

“One mystery solved, and another presents itself. What exactly is this thing doing, why is it doing it, and how is it doing it?”

“It has to be somehow connected to the nanites that melded with Princess Elise,” Austin said. “Otherwise, this makes no sense. Everything was dead until they came to life. What if not all of them went into the princess?”

The three of them rushed back to the equipment and dragged a large scanner over to take a closer look at the alien device. It only took a couple of minutes for Carl to decide that they were right. Just like Elise, this device had its own nanite swarm. That probably also meant that it had picotech and femtotech as well.

The situation had just become significantly more complex, and he needed to figure out exactly what this ring did. If it was drawing power, that could have dire consequences. On the other hand, if he cut that power and the nanites decided to do something else, that might be even more problematic.

Perhaps Elise would be able to help them figure it out. He doubted the ring itself was dangerous, but it was always best to be cautious when messing with alien technology.

He sent out a brief report to Zia, Kelsey, and Elise, and then he waited for the chaos to begin.

13

“So, let me get this straight,” Kelsey said slowly. “The nanites that Elise reactivated not only went into her, but they’re in that alien ring too? Why? What are they doing?”

Carl, who was seated at the small table in front of her, shrugged slightly. “I have no idea. They were on the same ship, so they might have already been there, and the same event that brought the rest back to life could’ve done the same for them. Or the ones that reactivated went into Elise and the ring both. Your guess is as good as mine right now.”

Kelsey turned in her seat and stared at the alien ring attached to the bulkhead. Other than the fact that it was shaped like an oval laid on its side, it bore a striking resemblance to the transport rings that Omega had gifted them.

In fact, Carl had moved their single surviving transport ring over beside it so that there was an easy visual comparison. He’d obviously been thinking along the same lines.

“Is the alien ring more dangerous now that it’s attached to our power supply?”

“That’s impossible to say, since I have absolutely no idea exactly what it does or how much power it’s going to require to make anything happen. Worst case, it tries to draw too much and shorts out that particular power run.

“I’ve spoken to Tony Hastert, and his staff put in a couple of circuit breakers to make absolutely sure that they can cut power if need be. That includes a manual cutoff that can physically sever the line. That won’t be easy for the nanites to work their way around without us noticing.”

“What about the device itself?” Elise asked from where she sat, her hands clenched in front of her on the table. “Could activating it be dangerous? If it’s like the transport rings, we have no idea where it’s supposed to connect to.”

“Wherever it is, it’s not going to be in range,” Carl said confidently. “There was nothing else like that ring aboard the crashed ship, and unlike the teleportation devices inside the facilities, there’s no way this thing can draw the amount of power needed to disassemble someone and beam them across the universe, even if it had the capability, which I doubt.

“I’m virtually certain it’s meant to act like our transport rings and connect with a similar device. Perhaps the small ship was part of a task force, and this was how they got back and forth while performing operations. Honestly, we’ll probably never know.”

“If I try to interface my controls with it, it’s possible that I could get more definitive answers to these questions.”

Kelsey considered the potential dangers. With the power supply restricted the way it was, this kind of test should be relatively safe.

“Give it a try,” she said. “Try to interface with it just to the point to where you get some information back about what it would like to do. If it seems like it’s going to activate, back off.”

“That might not be possible,” Elise warned.

“Do the best you can. Carl, stay in contact with Commander Hastert’s people and have them ready to kill the power if things look like they’re going sideways.”

It took them roughly fifteen minutes to get everything set up. She took that time to call Don Sommerville. Technically, this was his people’s salvage. She read him in on what they suspected and what they were trying to accomplish.

Once everything was ready, Elise approached the alien ring and brought up her control interface. Whatever she did made it visible to all of them because Kelsey could see the strange alien runes and the golden bar that spiraled around her torso as she turned it.

She must not have seen anything that looked important because she dismissed it again shortly and touched the alien ring itself.

Without prompting, the controls that Elise had just dismissed reappeared and spun so that one of the runes was directly in front of her friend’s face, glowing with a purple halo of light.

Kelsey checked her implant record and verified that that rune had not been present earlier. It was a new addition and had to be somehow related to the alien ring. Elise touching the device had added the ability to control it to her repertoire.

She was about to call a halt to the proceedings when Elise reached up and touched the rune. The oval space inside the alien ring was promptly flooded by stygian darkness so thick that she couldn’t see the bulkhead even with her enhanced senses.

Maybe that was an artifact of the alien device being unable to connect with its destination. She wasn’t sure how that theory could be safely tested.

Carl apparently had an idea because he grabbed a pole from the side of his lab and approached the oval cautiously, extending the pole until it touched the darkness. When nothing immediately disastrous happened, he pushed the pole’s tip into the darkness and slowly advanced.

It quickly became apparent that the pole wasn’t hitting the bulkhead. Carl advanced until he was just a couple of meters away from the darkness. At that point, he reversed course and pulled back.

The pole reappeared from the darkness, proving that it had not been destroyed. It seemed that the oval was connected to… somewhere.

“How is that even possible?” Kelsey asked as she stepped over to Carl, not taking her eyes off the device. “There shouldn’t be anything in range to connect to. Do you have combat remotes or something similar?”

“I have some drones. We’ll send one through and see what’s on the other side.”

The small drones he had on hand weren’t the combat variety, so they weren’t shielded, but they’d be more than sufficient to transmit a visual of what was on the other side back to them.

Carl had one up and running quickly, and they sent it floating through the darkness. The visual that they’d been looking at through their implants cut off immediately.

“Well, that was useless,” Kelsey grumbled. “Get another one set up to go through, take a quick look around, and have it come right back.”

Her young friend nodded and did as instructed. The second drone floated through the darkness and was gone for roughly fifteen seconds before it came back into the compartment and hovered in front of them.

It only took Kelsey a moment to gather the data it had captured while it was out of sight. The drone had flown through the wall of darkness and came out in a chamber that was only slightly brighter than absolute night. The other drone was hovering just on the other side of an identical oval mounted to a bulkhead.

The center of that one was also black as night, so that must be a feature rather than a bug.

It was difficult to make out any of the compartment’s features because there was so little light. The little illumination they had was coming through what appeared to be a row of windows set into the bulkhead on the far side of the compartment.

“Don’t even think about it,” Carl said firmly. “Nobody is going through that thing until we send in some people prepared for hostile conditions to make sure that it’s safe.”

Kelsey grinned at her friend. “I can still fit into powered armor. I’ll tag up with Major Collins, and we’ll get a group of marines ready to go. Whatever is on the other side of this looks interesting, and I want to have an idea of what this connects to before we hand it over.”

“I’m going too,” Don said quietly. “This find belongs to the resistance, so just accept that.”

She didn’t argue. He’d undoubtedly inform Coordinator Gatewood of exactly what they’d found, so there wasn’t any use arguing.

“You’d best send off a report to your boss and get ready, then. We’re going on a road trip. I call shotgun.”

* * *

Elise couldn’t take her eyes off the black oval. The idea that it led somewhere else wasn’t all that disturbing, since she’d used the transport rings that Omega had created, but this still sent a chill down her spine.

She’d scoured the map of the Home system, and there was nothing here of alien origin, only the crashed ship. So, if that was all there was, how could this transport ring be connecting to anything?

That, of course, ignored the fact that the aliens had devices that could disassemble a person and send them across the galaxy. Carl was confident this wasn’t anything like that, but she wasn’t so sure. He’d scanned the field, and it seemed to be some type of stable wormhole, though he admitted that the readings were strange.

Personally, she was willing to accept that she’d never understand the technicalities of exactly what the alien technology could do. All that mattered to her were the results. This particular device seemed to directly connect to some dark compartment that the drones were exploring to make sure it was safe.

Major Collins had arrived with a couple of marines in powered armor. They’d explore the area beyond the ring before any of the civilians were allowed through.

Elise was amused that that annoyed Kelsey. Her friend felt that she should be allowed to go through with the lead team, but the major had put his foot down.

It was good to see Kelsey have to accept some limitations. She was going to be a mother, and her friends were looking out for her safety, whether it irritated her or not.

When they were ready, the major and his marines hefted lights and weapons and went through the portal. Because of its low height, they were almost on their hands and knees.

While the marines explored, the rest of them got into armored vacuum suits. These were made to protect them from any hostile environment, even though the drones indicated adequate atmospheric pressure and moderate temperatures on the other side.

The air itself was somewhat different in composition than what they were breathing now, but it would do in a pinch. Not that they’d be taking any chances. There might be dangerous microorganisms in the air after all.

After a few minutes of worry, one of the marines came back through and indicated that it was safe enough to proceed. Kelsey immediately dropped down and scuttled through the opening like a crab. The sight made Elise laugh.

“She is so predictable,” she said to Carl.

He nodded and grinned. “That’s the truth. Not that she’ll be able to do that for very much longer.

“Come on. We’d better get over there and see what there is to find before she discovers everything. Or she gets into some kind of trouble that she can’t get herself out of without shooting something.”

When it came time for her to go through, Elise held her breath, closed her eyes, and crawled forward into what seemed to be a void. She felt nothing as she moved forward, but there was a slight change in gravity on the other side that told her she’d arrived.

Her eyes popped open, and she found herself in the strange alien compartment. She kept going forward because the crab robot was right behind her, and she knew it would stop if she did. Once it was through, she led it over to one side by the simple expedient of walking there herself. In just a few seconds, the last of their party—Don Sommerville—had joined them.

Even though she’d seen images of what the compartment looked like, it was different in person. There was a feeling of strangeness about the place.

First, the gravity was slightly less than it had been on Audacious. Second, there was no artificial lighting. The only illumination was a dim glow coming through a set of windows in the far bulkhead. The third thing she noticed was that the room itself had the strange proportions that the aliens favored. The ceiling was low enough to touch.

Other than that, there wasn’t much to see. Unlike the facility deep underneath the obelisk on Dinosaur Planet, this one didn’t have any strange controls or runes marked along the walls.

Or did it?

She brought up her controls with a gesture and spun them slowly around her, looking at the runes. One of them glowed a pale violet, and she reached out and touched it.

The black oval in the ring beside her winked out of existence immediately, and she could see the bulkhead behind it. Oops. She’d turned off the way home, but she knew the appropriate rune for that particular transport ring destination now and could reactivate it later.

Would it have other potential destinations like the FTL transport system? Or was this more like the Omega rings in that it was part of a linked pair? No telling.

Carl stepped over and nodded his helmet toward the now-inactive ring. “Did you do that?”

She nodded. “I was looking to see if there were any other controls in the room, and that was the only one active. I’ve got the rune memorized so I can turn it back on when we’re ready to leave.”

“You probably shouldn’t have turned it off. Still, just leave it off until we’re ready to go.

“Back under the obelisk, there were runes that you couldn’t see unless you got right on top of them. Walk around the circumference of the chamber and see if there are any hidden runes. I suspect there are doors, but you’re not going to be able to see them until you find the runes and activate them.”

Elise did as he’d asked, walking the chamber’s circumference and finding two runes on the same bulkhead. She didn’t touch them because she was already going to get yelled at for what she’d done. She made a mental note to use a marker to circle them later. Anyone could use the runes, but only she could see them, so that only made sense.

She only stopped when she arrived in front of the large windows that were letting in the little light that wasn’t provided by the handhelds carried by the marines and the rest. What she saw outside took her breath away.

Elise had expected a view of space, and perhaps that was what she was looking at. Only she saw colored dots floating in the void, but they didn’t look like stars. Honestly, though they glowed with light, it was dim and strangely multicolored. There were reds and greens and blues all mixed together in patterns that made no sense to her.

She was still considering what she might be seeing when some movement to her left caught her attention. Floating not very distant from the window was something else that was red, green, and blue, though the colors were swirled all over its surface.

It was almost like she was looking at an iceberg, though whatever it was wasn’t shaped in any manner that made sense. It looked chaotic and somewhat random, unlike what she’d have expected an iceberg to look like, with chaotic swirls of red, green, and blue all across its surface. It was passing almost directly in front of the window though it was some distance away.

“Kelsey, Carl, I think you’d better come take a look at this,” she said over the com channel quietly.

The two of them quickly joined her at the window and stared in silence as the thing drifted past them. They watched it spin and tumble in the blackness of what might have been space until it vanished off to the right.

She turned to face them and knew that her face looked as stunned as theirs. “What the hell was that? Where the hell are we?”

14

An incoming priority call woke Justine from a restless sleep. It was both endearing and annoying that she had difficulty sleeping when Don was away. It felt as if she’d just barely gone to sleep when the chime dragged her out of a dream that she couldn’t quite remember.

She reached over and activated the com unit on voice only as she sat up. “Bandar.”

“Ambassador Bandar, this is Coordinator Gatewood. I apologize for waking you at such an uncivilized hour, but a matter has come up that requires your participation. Can you meet me at the briefing room beside my office in half an hour?”

Justine pushed the fogginess out of her brain and did a quick mental calculation of how long it would take to get ready. She could make it. Barely.

“I’ll be there.”

She rose, dressed quickly, and made herself minimally presentable. Then she set off for the coordinator’s office and arrived just at the half-hour mark. The door to the briefing room was open, so she went directly in.

The small table was already occupied by members of the senior leadership of the resistance as well as a couple of men and women she didn’t recognize. There was an open seat that she assumed was for her, so she took it and gave her full attention to Gatewood.

“Again, I apologize for the hour of the meeting, but one of our teams has just returned from a scouting mission to the Devon system,” Gatewood said. “What they found affects us all, and I felt it appropriate to make sure that you heard the report in detail as soon as possible. Captain James?”

One of the women at the table’s far side rose to her feet and inclined her head toward the coordinator and then toward Justine. “Coordinator, Ambassador, I have a complete data packet of everything that we found, but the gist of it is that the AI handed over control of the warships present in the system to the civilian government.

“If that was all that had happened, this wouldn’t be such a problem, but it seems that the humans in charge of the planet have split into two factions, each attempting to outmaneuver the other and seize total control. Several civilian stations have been damaged or destroyed in the fighting. There’s no indication that Clan warships have come to the system, but it’s a war zone.”

With that, the woman sat again, and Justine turned her attention to Gatewood. It was more difficult than she’d expected, but she kept an “I told you so” expression off of her face.

“That’s disheartening to hear,” she said, “but not completely unexpected. The human beings in control of the various planets are the ones that the AIs selected for the purpose, and they likely don’t have the best interests of their citizens in mind.”

“That’s very diplomatic of you to say,” Gatewood said with a sigh. “The resistance in the system doesn’t have the manpower or influence to dispute control of the warships. It’s conceivable that they could eliminate some of the leadership on the planet under the right circumstances, but it doesn’t seem like that would be very helpful at this point.

“Once you get an opportunity to examine the data packet that Captain James brought back, you’ll discover that the two factions have based themselves in space aboard their warships.

“As you so kindly pointed out earlier, we don’t have the military force to directly confront even a small group of warships. The Q-ship that Don had built would be capable of eliminating a destroyer or two, but our understanding is that there are six destroyers in that system, and that’s beyond our ability to deal with.”

Justine nodded, not really surprised. “And that’s just one system. If you have a run of good luck, you might be able to somehow gain control there, but this scenario is almost certainly playing out over multiple systems. I’m sure that the situation isn’t so dire in most systems, but it might be worse for you if a single person is in control of a system’s warships.

“What do you intend to do?”

“I’m going to allow you to prove how good you are in exchange for ceding something in our negotiation. If you and your people can gain control of the Devon system and a number of other systems that we agree to, the resistance will acknowledge the leadership of the New Terran Empire, with the understanding that each individual system will have the same level of self-rule that the individual systems inside your Empire currently enjoy. Also, the resistance will form the core of the leadership in each system.”

Justine shook her head. “Perhaps in a transitory role, but each system is going to have to choose their own leadership in a general election. Also, planetary rule will be assigned by the emperor to the nobles that are most qualified to lead.

“I’d be willing to commit to giving preference to those roles to individuals inside the resistance, but we’re not going to hand over control of the Empire to the resistance over the will of the people.”

Gatewood shared a look with each of the senior members of the resistance present, and there was undoubtedly some type of communication happening that she couldn’t hear through their implants. Finally, after about thirty seconds, Gatewood nodded.

“I’m willing to provisionally accept that, though we’re going to have to work out the exact details of how it would work. All of that is still contingent on you and your people seizing a base of operations and securing some of the ships for us to continue the work of securing additional systems. The Empire is huge, and with the invasion taking place, it’s going to greatly complicate matters.”

Justine checked her implants and saw that Audacious and Persephone were less than forty-eight hours away. That was plenty of time to iron out the details of an agreement to present to her daughter and Commodore Anderson. This was likely to be the best chance they had of securing a deal with the resistance, and it wasn’t one she was willing to pass up.

“I also agree, in principle. We’ll work out the details over the next couple of days, and once I’ve had an opportunity to sit down with my daughter and Commodore Anderson, I’ll present the finalized form of what the New Terran Empire is willing to commit to.”

Gatewood leaned forward slightly in her chair with a look of curiosity. “Do you really believe that you’re going to be able to take control of that system? I understand that Audacious is a very powerful ship, but this won’t be a matter of exterminating the people in control. We need the destroyers, so you can’t just destroy them.”

Justine smiled. “I don’t have any idea how they’re going to manage it, but I trust that Commodore Anderson and my daughter will figure something out. They can be subtle when required.”

The other woman raised an eyebrow. “I’ve heard stories of your daughter. Unfortunately, subtlety is not exactly one of her strong suits.”

That almost made Justine laugh, but it was so true. Her daughter was going to have to figure out something other than direct force to make this work. She didn’t quite know how that would play out, but that wasn’t her problem. Kelsey wanted to be a leader, and this was her chance to prove her mettle.

Besides, after the nasty trick that she’d pulled on her, Justine didn’t have much sympathy for her daughter.

“Agreed.”

* * *

Carl went over the recordings he’d made of the object that had floated past them in the darkness. With his improved ocular implants, he’d gotten some very detailed visual impressions of what he was seeing, and it still made no sense to him.

While it looked like some random lumping of material colored in strange swirls, it didn’t look like any material he was familiar with. Ice would form in specific ways, so that wasn’t ice. It didn’t look like metal, stone, or dust either. Without taking a sample, he wasn’t sure they’d be able to identify the material just from the visual recordings.

So, he turned his attention back to the room they were in and started working with the scanner. It wasn’t one of the handheld models, so it had quite a bit more resolution than he might otherwise have.

The material was similar to what they’d found aboard the crashed ship, so it was still a mystery to him, but it confirmed that this definitely was a facility built by the same aliens.

What he didn’t understand was where it was located. Unless the alien rings had significantly greater range than those they had, they wouldn’t be able to go outside a planetary system. The max range for the Omega rings was five thousand kilometers. There hadn’t been anything that close to Audacious.

Worse, the area they were in seemed like space but wasn’t. That suggested certain unsettling possibilities to him. The first of which was that they weren’t in their own universe any longer.

They already knew that multiple realities could be accessed through the Omega station, but that took almost unimaginable power. This seemed wholly different. If this was another dimension, it was unlike anything he’d ever imagined.

And differently than what one might expect, the aliens had somehow gotten here and created rings that they could match between one side and the other. It made no sense to him, but this was more impressive than their FTL transport from one side of the galaxy to the other.

Well, maybe not more impressive, but certainly impressive in a different way.

It was going to sadden him to have to turn this all over to the resistance because there was no way he was going to plumb its secrets in anything less than years of work. Yet, there was nothing he could do about that, so he might as well gather what information he could.

The marines finally came back through the bulkhead’s openings that Elise had marked and indicated that it seemed safe enough for them to go through. He followed Kelsey and found himself in a corridor that seemingly sloped up to both the left and right.

While he certainly couldn’t see anything to either side, he had no doubt there were other chambers. He turned to Kelsey.

“Honestly, we should probably head back and take stock of what we’ve already discovered. I’ve got a lot of scanner readings that I can go over. It’s going to take time to explore this place using the care it demands. Every room we look into introduces the potential for some new threat, and I’d rather take it slow.”

Don Sommerville, who hadn’t spoken to this point, only looking around at all of the wonders that they’d discovered, nodded slowly. “If any of this technology is dangerous, we certainly wouldn’t want to set it off. A slow and thorough exploration is what’s called for.

“Let’s go back to Audacious and take stock of the situation. Then, after I confer with Coordinator Gatewood, it’s possible that we can come back. After all, we’re not going to turn down your expertise.”

He looked meaningfully at Elise. “And it’s not like we can open the way here without Princess Elise. So why don’t we take the time to get something to eat and discuss what we’ve already found?”

Kelsey sighed but nodded. “Tell me you’ve got everything you can get, Carl.”

“I’ve got it. There’s quite a bit to look at, and I’ve got some theories that I can certainly trot out for you.”

She gestured back toward the chamber they’d come from. “Elise, if you’d be so kind as to open our way home, we’ll do the cautious thing for once.”

That made Carl smile. She wasn’t well known for doing the cautious thing, so this was a big step forward for her.

They followed Elise back into the chamber, and she stopped in front of the ring, spinning her controls around and tapping the icon that would open the way back home. Only, nothing happened.

Elise frowned and tapped the rune again. It didn’t change colors. Frankly, it looked dead.

Her face pale through the faceplate, Elise turned to face them.

“It’s not working.”

15

Zia sat at the head of the conference table just off her flag bridge with her senior staff, going over the information that the resistance scouts had gathered at the Devon system.

The situation there was complicated—which the political leaders understood—but it was more convoluted than they’d recognized. The problem was they just didn’t have the military experience necessary to see what was coming.

She’d gone over this information privately and figured out what the most likely series of events was going to be, and she wanted to get her staff’s opinion before she committed to what Justine Bandar was going to push them to do.

To her right was her flag captain, Brandon Levy. To her left was her wing commander, Annette Vitter. Seated at the far end of the table was her flag lieutenant, Esther Frasier.

Also present in the room were Audacious’s tactical officer, Elizabeth Givens; her chief engineer, Tony Hastert; her senior medical officer, Zac Zoboroski; the flight operations officer, Leo Thomas; the marine officer tasked with commanding the security detachment aboard the carrier, Lieutenant Yvonne Gutierrez; Black Jack Squadron’s commanding officer, Commander Jake Fiennes; and Scimitar Squadron’s commanding officer, Commander Larry Connors.

Major Collins should’ve been there, but Yvonne was sitting in for him while he oversaw something Kelsey and Carl were looking at. She’d tag up with him later today and get his thoughts on their situation.

There was one empty chair at the table, set aside for Gus Grappin, Eagle Squadron’s commanding officer. He’d never join them again, but his fellow pilots had insisted he needed a seat at the table. She wasn’t going to argue with fighter pilot traditions, no matter how superstitious they seemed.

“I’m going to assume that each of you has already reviewed the information that the resistance sent us, and I’d like to solicit your opinions on how we can best carry out the operation in front of us,” she started out. “For my own part, I have misgivings about exactly how simple this task is going to be.”

“It’s going to be a goat rope,” Jake Fiennes said grimly. “There’s a lot of circumstances that they’re not taking into account that will make this mission significantly more difficult or even impossible. They’re only focused on the people in control of the Devon system now. What happens when the Clans finally get there?”

Jake had been Annette’s wingman for as long as Zia had been in command of the carrier. Annette had moved him into full-time command of Black Jack Squadron when she’d been promoted to wing commander. He was blunt and never pulled his punches.

She approved of his attitude.

“I’m not sure I agree with that assessment,” Givens said. “If the Clans attack the system, they’ll eliminate the dueling warlords and leave again. So whatever force they keep in place to hold it, we should be able to take it out easily enough. That might even be the simplest solution.”

“While that’s technically true, they’re going to eliminate a lot of orbital infrastructure that we’d want to keep,” Connors argued. “That’s not going to be something that we can build back in the middle of an invasion. So it would be better if we could keep as much of the system intact as we can. They’ve already trashed a couple of orbitals, and I’d like to avoid making the situation worse.”

“But can we?” Givens argued. “No matter what we do, the Clans are going to invade. We’re only one ship. If we stand up and fight, they’re just going to send more ships until they take us out. The only way we can do this is to clean up after they’ve already passed through. That’ll give us a window where they won’t be coming back to check for at least a little while.”

“How likely is it that the Clans are going to send anyone here in the short term?” Zoboroski asked. “From what I can see, the Devon system isn’t exactly a military strong point. Don’t they have more pressing locations to attack? How exactly do we determine where they’re even pushing toward?”

“That is a challenge,” Zia admitted. “We can stare at the map of the Rebel Empire like it was a crystal ball and try to predict the future, but all we’re going to be able to do is guess. We won’t be able to hold the Devon system against a determined attack, but we’re not without some advantages.

“The Clans don’t know about Audacious. They expect that the Rebel Empire will be fighting with human-manned destroyers and computer-controlled battlecruisers, nothing more significant. Oh, there’s going to be a scattering of light and heavy cruisers run by humans, but there won’t be very many.

“Even so, we’re going to have to treat this operation as having multiple aspects, some of which are beyond our control. As for holding the systems that we bring to our side, I’ve arranged for the resistance to send a ship to Alpha Centauri and request backup.

“I have no idea how many ships will have arrived there by the time they get there, but I’d imagine the admiral can spare us some ships to hold what we take, particularly given the fact that the resistance will endorse the New Terran Empire’s primacy if we can.

“What we need to focus on now is the human angle. And I’m not just talking about the Devon system. As our sphere of control expands, we’re going to run into people who want to run things themselves. Sometimes we can fight them, but we’d be much better off if we can come to a diplomatic solution.”

Brandon Levy shook his head with a scowl. “It’s going to be like herding cats. Once people seize control for themselves, they’re not going to willingly give it up. And I’m not even talking about the ones that don’t have good intentions.

“These people have been ruled by the AIs for so long that they won’t want to give up their self-control. So how exactly do we convince them that supporting the resistance and the New Terran Empire is in their best interests, especially in the middle of an invasion?”

“Thankfully, diplomacy is someone else’s problem,” Zia said with feeling. “We’re going to be responsible for handling the military aspects of this operation, and Ambassador Bandar will deal with the political fallout. As those efforts will be working hand-in-hand, we’ll be engaging in something historically known as gunboat diplomacy.

“Basically, that means that the use of military force or the threat thereof will be part of the negotiation. In other words, do what we say, or there will be consequences. Exactly how you balance out threatening to punch someone in the face while convincing them to work with you, I’m not sure. As a former tactical officer, I’m much more used to just punching them in the face, not kissing and making up later.”

That brought a rumble of low-key laughter from everyone in the room.

“If we’re the stick, what’s the carrot?” Ester Frasier asked. “There has to be some type of enticement, otherwise it’s just threats. So how do we convince potential warlords that they’re better off being part of this new system than trying to rule on their own?”

That was a good question. Ester was smart. She had to be, or Zia would’ve found someone else to keep her life moving smoothly along.

“And there’s the rub,” Zia said, inclining her head in acknowledgment. “The carrot has to come from the political side of the equation. We’re the stick, and we need to focus on beating whatever our political masters tell us to in the most economical method possible.

“We’ve got a good idea of what we’ll face in the Devon system, but it’s only the first stop. Ambassador Bandar finally settled on us needing to bring five systems into the fold to prove our mettle. That’s the point where the resistance acknowledges the New Terran Empire as its sovereign.

“Let’s start looking over the map of the area around us and trying to figure out what would make the best sense tactically. Whatever we seize, we’re going to need to hold when the Clans get to them if they haven’t already seized them.”

The task wouldn’t be easy, and a lot would depend on what Admiral Mertz could send them for backup, but she had to plan for success, not failure. Even if success seemed difficult to obtain at the moment.

They’d find a way. They always did.

* * *

“Well, that’s not good,” Kelsey said as she stared at the dead alien ring. “What’s wrong with it?”

Her question was directed at Carl and Elise, and the two glanced at one another before shrugging.

“All I can say is that the control for it isn’t functional,” Elise said. “I don’t really know anything more than that. Everything about these alien devices is a mystery to me.”

Carl, for his part, dragged the scanner’s cart over and gave the ring a closer look. “It doesn’t seem to have power. If it’s like the Omega transport rings, it might not need power on this end. I’m not sure if it had any before Elise shut it off because I didn’t take a scan of it. That’s my fault.

“I’ll have to trace the power back to its source and see if I can determine anything. I think that the fact this compartment has no lights is telling. Still, this facility isn’t totally without power, or Elise wouldn’t have been able to open the doors into the corridor. Maybe we’re on emergency power or something similar.”

Kelsey considered that. Putting things into the same frame of reference that she was used to made sense. Being able to get in and out of rooms was fairly important. Lighting and other things were less so. And life support was still online, so that was something.

Only there was a problem in trying to equate what seemed right to them with aliens. These beings had already proven themselves to be incomprehensible to humanity in so many ways. They still didn’t understand why the aliens had created Dinosaur Planet and transported the dinosaurs there.

Why had they taken steps to keep them in the same form that they were without evolution? But, honestly, those were questions that would likely never be answered, so she shouldn’t expect this situation to slot neatly into her preconceptions either.

No matter. She had to deal with the problem confronting them, whether she understood the aliens’ reasoning or not. If they didn’t get the ring operational, they only had a certain amount of air that they could breathe before they had to take their helmets off and trust the life support in this potentially damaged alien facility.

And even if they had breathable air, they were going to be short on water and food very quickly, though Talbot had found the aliens could create food. If, of course, those systems had power.

“Get to work on that, Carl. While you do that, Elise and I are going to take a look around. Perhaps we can find whatever they use for power generation and can figure out how to bring it back online.”

Elise gave her a look that indicated that she had no confidence they’d be able to do that, but what other choice did they have? They had to fix this problem, or they’d be trapped here, which meant death in the long run.

Kelsey resolutely turned and left Carl to his work. She gestured for Major Collins to come out into the corridor with Elise and herself.

“Leave one of the marines here to guard Carl and the rest. We’ll see what else we can find in this facility. We’re not going to try to do anything more than look for the moment. We need to build a map and try to find wherever they’re using to generate power.”

The marine officer nodded and sent one of his people back into the compartment to stay with the rest while he, the remaining marine, and the two princesses proceeded up the corridor.

They went slowly because only Elise could see the runes used to open the doors. However, that didn’t stop Kelsey from using the scanners built into her suit to determine if she could locate these hidden runes independently.

Sadly, that proved ineffective. Whatever method the aliens had used simply wasn’t detectable by the means they had available. Fortunately, Elise had a marker that she used to circle every rune she found.

They opened the doors as they passed and looked in without entering, using their lights to examine the interiors. Some of the areas seemed dedicated to control, while others were incomprehensible. A few were seemingly empty.

They then came across an area of the corridor as it went upward where there were no doors. Ahead, Kelsey could see that the corridor ended, so either there would be one hatch there, or it would be a dead end.

A dead end seemed unlikely, so she expected there would be something there. From what she’d seen in the alien facility underneath the obelisk, that had been the case there.

When they arrived at the blank wall at the end of the corridor, Elise found a rune, and she activated it. Rather than opening a small hatch to the side of the corridor, the entire end vanished, and Kelsey found herself looking out on a surreal landscape that she just didn’t understand.

Spread all around the opening and going out until it curved out of sight was a mass of red, green, and blue colored material that looked almost like whipped cream.

Kelsey started to reach out and see what it felt like when Major Collins slapped her hand.

“We don’t know what that is,” he said sternly. “What if it’s acid? It might damage your suit, and then you’d be in real trouble. Let me use something to take a sample. Carl can look it over to make sure that it’s not dangerous.”

Kelsey had to admit that he was right. It’d been an impulsive move and probably the wrong one.

While he was gathering a sample, she stood at the edge of the corridor and stared out at the surface around them. This looked very similar to that ball that had floated past the window in the original compartment. That told her that this facility was built into something just like that.

That meant that they were on some kind of ball of unknown material, spinning in what might or might not be space. Though the end of the corridor looked nothing like an airlock.

She once again used her suit scanner and was stunned to see there was still an atmosphere. If that was space outside, opening the door had risked decompressing the entire facility.

Risking Collins’s wrath, she extended her arm out of the corridor and took another reading. It still showed an atmosphere that was breathable, though not ideal for humans. It matched what was in the facility.

Did the protective field extend out onto the surface? Again, she scanned and couldn’t detect any energy at all.

This made no sense at all. What was going on? Surely this place didn’t have an atmosphere. Where would it have come from? What would have generated it?

It seemed that they’d stumbled onto yet another incomprehensible mystery. One they might take to the grave if they didn’t find a way home.

16

Justine saw Commodore Anderson waiting as she exited the cutter. The uniformed woman was scowling and gestured for her to walk down the corridor toward the lift.

“Is something wrong?” Justine asked.

“You could say that. I just found out that Kelsey, Don, Carl, and a number of other people are missing. It looks like they found a way to activate that alien ring and used it to go somewhere.

“The damned thing isn’t active now, and we have no way of knowing whether they’re in trouble or not. Major Collins and a couple of marines in powered armor went with them, so maybe it isn’t as bad as I fear, but this is a complication we could’ve done without.

“I have some of the scientists from the Dresden Research Center looking the ring over, but I’m not going to hold my breath. Elise is the key to using that equipment, and she’s on the other side. Wherever in the galaxy that is.”

Justine sighed and rubbed her face as soon as they boarded the lift. Part of her was worried about her daughter and granddaughter, but an unexpected pang of worry for Don was twined in between the others. That was new and more than a bit unsettling.

As worried as this news made her, there wasn’t anything she could do to save them. This sounded precisely like the kind of thing her daughter would do, and she’d have to hope she could get back out on her own.

Putting her worries aside, she focused on the things she could do. “As worrying as that is, I don’t think we can afford to panic over things we can’t change. It annoys me that my daughter was so reckless, but it doesn’t surprise me.

“She’s been in worse situations before and gotten out. Whatever’s gone wrong on the other side, she’s got your marines and her pet scientist with her. They’ll figure it out. Don is a capable man, and he’ll do his part to get them back to us too.

“Unfortunately, we have a clock running on our portion of this operation, and we’re just going to have to count on them to successfully self-rescue, since we have no way of opening this portal without a miraculous scientific breakthrough that I’m not anticipating.

“We’ve got to follow up on the information that the resistance has provided and secure five systems in a relatively short period of time if we intend to establish a base of operations with real civilian cooperation inside the Rebel Empire.”

“I’ve had my staff going over various operational possibilities since we heard that we’d be moving out, and we’ve got a couple of options,” the commodore said. “It honestly depends on what we find when we get to Devon.

“If the Clans have moved in, that’s going to complicate matters significantly. If they haven’t, it may just be a matter of negotiating with the feuding human leaders to settle whatever they’ve got going.”

Justine resisted the urge to laugh. “You make it sound so easy. I discovered early in life that it doesn’t matter how rational your plans are because someone with a different set of experiences will see things entirely differently than you. And, for them, their view might even make sense.

“That’s particularly true in politics. We’re not going to be able to convince anyone to do anything unless it’s in their best interests. Sadly, we have little to offer these people, so we’re going to have to wave the stick around instead of the carrot.

“That doesn’t mean we have to get into an all-out war. Judicious use of force, or even the threat of using that force, may be enough to get some concessions from at least one of the sides in this fight.

“The resistance has people inside both organizations, so it’s going to be a matter of finding out the lay of the land and executing whatever plan makes the most sense. I’m not even going to guess what that’ll be, but you can rest assured that it’s going to require some level of force or the threat of force.”

The lift opened and let them out into a corridor that fed directly into the flag bridge. Several marines in unpowered combat armor saluted as the commodore strode past them with Justine at her side.

The commodore’s staff filled the wide control area, doing the unknowable tasks required to get their commander the information that she needed to manipulate any potential battlespace into something that she could influence with her carrier.

Anderson sat down at the command console and gestured for Justine to take one nearby. The officer there hastily stood and moved to a different console, allowing Justine to sit.

“I’ve looked over the expected forces in this first system,” Justine said. “Honestly, if all we have to fight are six destroyers, you might be able to cow them with your presence. Even without escorts, the firepower that you have available on this ship is more than sufficient to fight them all.”

Anderson shook her head. “I’d win that fight, but we’d take damage. One lucky hit could leave us in the lurch. You need to remember that we have no shipyard that can repair major battle damage or ships to take our place while we get fixed.

“We also don’t have anywhere to restock missiles. Military force is a viable option, but it needs to be used judiciously. Don’t assume that we can just beat up on everyone that we come into contact with. That will work a couple of times, and then we’re done. We need to build alliances rather than overcome enemies.

“I hope we find someone in this first system with valuable intelligence on other systems we’d like to coopt. We’ll capture Devon, one way or the other, and it’s not even going to be that difficult, I’d imagine.

“Audacious is built on a superdreadnought hull and has about two-thirds of the weaponry that a real superdreadnought has. A fully operational superdreadnought can fight and win against half a dozen battlecruisers.

“Six destroyers are not a threat to us, though I’m still going to be wary of the level of damage they could inflict because of the reasons I’ve already put forward. We’ve got to treat this as a long game, Ambassador.

“This first system is where we build our initial allies. One of these leaders is going to be worse than the other. If we can make an alliance with the better option, we can probably leverage that into military support.

“I’d be a lot happier if we had a couple of destroyers along running escort for us. That would make our lives significantly easier. If we take both sides out by force, that ruins the opportunity for cooperation.”

Justine shook her head. “The situation doesn’t have to be that complex. These destroyers were controlled by the AIs until just a little bit ago. Since you’re taking Persephone with you, you’d have Fiona assume control of them.

“If these people haven’t done a thorough job of disconnecting everything inside those destroyers, you can use your override codes to seize control of them. Even if they have, it won’t be tough to reconnect the controls.

“I don’t want to make this seem like human allies don’t matter because they do. Yet we’re going to have to be as efficient as possible. Like you said, we’re not here to fight a war with every system we come across.”

The commodore shook her head firmly. “And that’s where you’re wrong, Ambassador. If we do that, they’re not going to see us as any better than the AIs. If all we do is generate resentment, we’ll never get the level of cooperation that we need to rebuild the Empire and fight the Clans. We have to find willing allies, and sometimes that means doing things less efficiently.”

It only took a few moments for Justine to realize that the commodore was right. Sometimes the easy way wasn’t the best. Building alliances was hard work, but the foundations laid allowed for much stronger structures than forced compliance.

In any case, that really wasn’t the way that the New Terran Empire did business. No matter the difficulty, they had to be true to their own beliefs, which meant finding a way to build those alliances.

Somehow.

“I’ll concede the point,” she said. “How long until we get to the flip point leading toward the Devon system? Is it a direct shot, or are we going to have to transit other systems in between?”

“There are a couple of systems that we’ll have to cross, but they’re uninhabited and not known to the Rebel Empire. We can be there in a couple of days and start scouting what’s happening for ourselves. The first flip could happen as early as three hours from now when we get to the multiflip point.

“But we’re potentially putting Kelsey and the rest in danger. We don’t know what the range of these alien transport rings is, and if we leave this system, it’s entirely possible that they won’t be able to establish a connection to come back. I have no idea what’s going on, but we might be about to make their situation significantly worse.”

“Then let’s hope they figure out what the problem is and get back to us in the next three hours,” Justine said. “Kelsey’s a fan of old sayings, and here’s one for you. ‘The tide waits on no one.’ If we hope to influence events here in the Rebel Empire, we can’t sit around waiting for what might happen. We have to act, and we have to do it soon.

“Sadly, that means we need to leave Kelsey’s rescue to Kelsey. As hard as it is for me to believe sometimes, she’s a very competent person with skilled friends. If anyone can solve whatever their problem is and get back to us in the next three hours, it’s her.”

That wasn’t going to stop her from worrying about her daughter and her lover, but she had to believe that they were safe and would find a way back.

* * *

Elise sat on the floor, watching Carl examine the material they’d recovered from the surface of… whatever they were on. She took in what he was doing, but she couldn’t say that she was really paying that much attention. Her mind was busy trying to comprehend the strange environment they’d found themselves in.

It was one thing to find an alien facility buried under a strange obelisk on a planet filled with dinosaurs, but to find one that seemingly existed in an impossible universe made absolutely no sense to her.

How could the aliens have even located a place like this, much less built a facility here? And why was this facility connected to that crashed ship? Or, potentially, to more than one of the small ships.

Thus far, she hadn’t seen any other rings, so it might have only been connected to the one. If so, what was its purpose? What had that ship been doing, and who had been on it?

She was so lost inside her head that she missed when Carl called for her the first time.

“Princess?” he repeated. “Can you hear me?”

Elise blinked, focused her attention on him, and saw that he was looking toward her from the makeshift worktable that he’d created out of some of the equipment that they’d brought with them. She rose to her feet and hurried over to him.

“Sorry. I was thinking. What’s up?”

He gestured toward the sample container that the major had used to collect the material from the surface. It was primarily red, but there were particles of green and blue in it. Even having been dug up, it still somewhat resembled whipped cream.

“I just wanted to give you a heads-up on what I’ve discovered. Kelsey is off with Major Collins and Commander Sommerville seeing how far the corridor goes in the opposite direction from where you explored, so it’s just the two of us and our guard. Do you want to hear what I found, or should I wait until she gets back?”

“Go ahead and tell me. Though if you say it’s green cheese, I won’t be certain whether to doubt you or not.”

He chuckled a little. “It’s not green cheese, though the full explanation is just as strange. It’s not any kind of matter that I’m familiar with, which sort of makes sense for a place like this. It’s a lot denser than it looks, too. It’s got the appearance of being fluffy, but it’s roughly twice the density of standard dirt.

“Even so, that doesn’t explain the gravity that we’re experiencing. This facility has almost normal gravity, but based on the size of the ball that we saw outside and your descriptions of the horizon on this one, we should be in microgravity. This ball isn’t large enough to have an atmosphere either, though it seems to have one.”

She turned and faced the windows looking out into the void… or whatever. “Are we really sure that it has an atmosphere? Maybe the atmosphere inside this facility just carries on a little bit out onto the surface.”

“I’m not sure at all,” he said, grinning slightly. “Want to play hooky? We can take the drone back to the exit you found, send it out onto the surface, and see what it finds. I suppose it’s not really hooky, since we’re going to have the marine with us, but you get the idea.”

Elise thought about it for a second and nodded. “I’d really like to know. We need to have a better idea of what we’re dealing with here.”

He grabbed the drone and headed for where one of the doors leading out into the corridor. The marine must’ve been listening closely because he just turned to follow them without saying anything.

Going to the hatch, she wondered why there were two ways out of this compartment into the same corridor. That didn’t really make any sense. Then again, almost nothing about the aliens did.

They made their way to the end of the corridor, and she again opened the door leading out to the surface of the strange planetoid. Once again, there was no indication that there was a vacuum on the other side.

The marine positioned himself so that he was between them and the outside in a pointed message that they weren’t to go anywhere. It seemed that nannies were the same everywhere.

Carl didn’t seem bothered by that and simply launched the drone. It headed directly up. She could’ve tapped into the feeds, she was sure, but she wasn’t trained in reading that kind of information, and so it would be gibberish to her.

“That should tell us a lot about the environment that we’re in. Once I bring it back, I’ll have it circle around and give us a good idea of what the outside of this facility looks like. I wish we hadn’t left the other drone back on Audacious. Having only one is a pain.”

“Do you really think this is another reality? How can we be in a different universe? It took a star to power Omega’s station, creating a gateway to another universe. How could that little ring take us across the same kind of boundary with just what it pulled from Audacious’s fusion plants?”

Carl shrugged. “I have no idea.”

They waited in silence as the drone made its way up, but she could tell that Carl was getting more disturbed the more time passed. He wasn’t one to fidget, but he couldn’t seem to stay still.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

“The atmospheric pressure should be going down, but it’s not. It’s not going up either, but that’s just utterly strange.”

She frowned and tried to think through what was bothering him. That was strange, but they’d had a lot of strange things in conjunction with these aliens. Or with other universes in general.

Carl had found the bodies of several of his alternate selves from other universes. It didn’t get much stranger than that.

“I suppose I’m just not getting it,” she admitted. “Why exactly is that a problem?”

“It means that physics works differently here than it does in our universe. Different to the point where I’m wondering how we’re still alive. When you start changing constants like that, you start running into conditions that would make our bodies stop working.

“What if we traveled to a universe where brain impulses couldn’t be transmitted from neuron to neuron? We’d instantly drop dead. Having things behave this way terrifies me.”

The information probably should’ve frightened her, too, but lacking the scientific grounding that her friend had, it was just one more piece of data to add to the strangeness of this place. She’d just have to take his word that they were dealing with something profoundly different.

It made her wonder how the aliens had even located a universe that was suitable for them without running into one that was inimical to life like the one Carl had just described. Once again, it was a mystery that they’d probably never solve.

The mystery only became deeper when Carl had the drone going upward away from the planetoid and heading toward one just like it. The atmospheric pressure never wavered. It seemed the void that they were in had a breathable atmosphere.

She suspected that the odds of something like that happening in nature were vanishingly small, but if one could explore an infinite number of universes, perhaps it wasn’t impossible.

At least they weren’t going to asphyxiate when they ran out of canned air. It still didn’t solve their lack of food, but it was one thing off their plates.

Now all they had to do was solve the power problem and get home. If they could.

Apparently satisfied that he’d gotten all the information he could, Carl instructed the drone to return and got a look at the facility from overhead, which he shared with her. It was significantly larger than she’d expected, spreading across several hills. They hadn’t explored nearly as much of the interior as she’d thought.

The landscape all around the facility was chaotic. With the soil seeming to swirl and change colors, it was difficult to make out the landscape’s features at a distance. To know what they were looking at, Carl would need to bring the drone down so they could get good pictures.

He seemingly agreed with that assessment because he brought the drone down directly in front of them before sending it forward at ground level until it crested the hill in front of them and vanished on the other side.

That was where the feed cut off.

“Dammit,” he muttered. “The com just cut out. There may be something in the soil that prevents communication from passing straight through it. I’ll have to examine the samples more thoroughly.”

He turned toward her. “Without instructions to return, we’re not going to be able to retrieve it or see what’s on the other side of the hill. Since I don’t think our escort will let us go out there, it’s probably best that we head back inside. Maybe we’ll have an opportunity to retrieve it before we leave.”

She nodded in agreement, hoping that they actually had the opportunity to go out onto the surface. It looked like it might be interesting.

Of course, all of that was predicated on them being able to leave at some point. They might be trapped here for the rest of their lives, no matter how short that ended up being.

17

Carl sat at his makeshift worktable and stared at the samples from the surface of the strange planetoid. The material was unknown and very dense. Its physical properties were something of a mystery to him, and it was probably going to take a significant amount of research to even really understand how the stuff existed.

The one thing he now knew for sure was that it was an excellent inhibitor of com signals.

Kelsey and the rest had returned from their exploratory mission and confirmed everything that he’d already discovered by sending the drone outside. The corridor going the other direction split off into several different directions and even went underground. They’d apparently arrived near the main exit, but most of the facility remained unexplored.

Sadly for Elise, that meant that she would have to go with them and find every single door that they could open, and then they’d have to peer into each room and see what the contents were. Fortunately, once she’d marked the runes that opened the doors, anyone could do it.

With them off exploring, it left him and his marine guard alone. Since he was working, the marine had the opportunity to stare out the window because Carl wasn’t much of a conversationalist when he was focused on a task.

This material had a number of strange properties that he just couldn’t wrap his head around. It wasn’t metal, but it was dense. It looked like whipped cream, but it had some real heft to it. With an average density of twice that of everyday dirt, it didn’t really fit into any category that he was familiar with back in their universe.

It also didn’t explain why they had gravity. Yes, it was dense, but this little ball shouldn’t have enough mass to keep them at relatively normal gravity. The material would need to be significantly denser for that to be the cause.

It was always possible that the aliens were using some kind of artificial gravity, but he’d found nothing like that in any of his explorations of the alien technology. It was a mystery that galled him.

Either there was something significantly denser underneath the surface layer, or gravity didn’t work the way it did back home. Of course, the atmosphere that seemed to permeate the void was impossible as well, so he wasn’t going to rule anything out.

Once he’d done every bit of scanning that he could of the material, he packed it away for transport back home once they left. He didn’t know if it would have the same properties in his universe as it did here, but it was certainly worth exploring.

He checked his implants to see what the status of the others was. Luckily, nothing in the alien facility impeded their communications like it had done under the obelisk on Dinosaur Planet.

The map that Kelsey and the rest were building by going through the corridors showed that this facility was probably significantly larger than the one underneath the obelisk. That implied that the aliens had a serious purpose for being here.

That purpose didn’t seem to be linking together a bunch of small ships, so far as he could see, because they hadn’t found any other transport rings thus far. Of course, that raised an even greater series of questions when one imagined that there had likely been innumerable vessels that had once existed.

If they hadn’t had connections to this facility, did that mean they were connected to other facilities with even stranger purposes? These aliens seemed to have been spread widely across the galaxy, and now it had been proven that they had extended their reach into other realities.

Why had they done all of this? And perhaps the most important question, what had happened to cause their extinction?

All great questions that he would almost certainly never know the answers to.

He was still pondering them when Elise opened the door leading into the corridor and stepped in with her marine escort. “We think we might have found their power-generating center. I’m not sure that you’re going to make any more sense of it than we did, but Austin thinks you need to take a look.”

It only took him a few moments to gather the equipment that he thought he’d need, and the four of them set out deeper into the facility. The path took them deep under the ground—if ground was the right word—but she eventually led him to a large compartment that was filled with huge machinery.

It was difficult to see any of it with almost no lighting, but the rest had their hand lamps out, exploring the large room. He could see why they’d guessed this was the power-generating facility because massive cables led from the machinery in virtually every direction.

The problem was that he had literally no idea how the aliens generated power. Fusion plants were one thing, but the ancient beings could have been using anything from antimatter to pulling energy from a vacuum. Or, for that matter, they could be doing something that no human being had ever considered.

The cables all seemed to come together in one particular set of large machinery, so he focused his attention there and brought the large scanner to bear on the machine. It took him almost ten minutes to get a full scan of every part of it.

Sadly, that left him pretty much as in the dark as he had been before. This wasn’t a fusion plant, and there was no energy flowing through those cables. If this was meant to generate power, it was definitely offline.

“I think you’ve found the right place, but I’m not sure if we’re going to be able to do anything to fix it,” he admitted as he turned to face Kelsey and the rest. “I’ll give it my best shot, but this is completely alien in the most literal of senses.”

“Do what you can,” Kelsey said, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “I have confidence in the three musketeers. If anyone can figure this out, it’s you guys.”

He wasn’t sure that he felt that kind of confidence was warranted, but they’d do what they could. He’d been in worse positions before, like aboard the Omega station. But at least here, they could breathe.

“Well, I suppose we’d best get busy.”

* * *

Zia eyed the data flowing through the FTL probes that they’d managed to sneak through the flip point to the Devon system. Unfortunately for them, the only method of getting in was through a regular flip point, so they couldn’t just sneak in. The two destroyers in the general area made that impossible.

At least not with a ship as big as Audacious. The two warships were eyeing one another almost as much as they did the flip point, so there was enough distance that Persephone could likely get through without being detected.

The fact that those destroyers were still operational meant that the Clans had not yet passed through. Still, it was only a matter of time before those ravening beasts in human flesh made an appearance.

From everything they’d been able to determine, the Clans had struck before they were ready to win outright, and that meant that the Rebel Empire had a chance of grinding them to a halt at some point.

As a military officer, she’d made a habit of studying historical military accounts and had been fascinated by many of the books written on prespaceflight Terra. There was a lot that could be gleaned from the insights and mistakes made by those ancient warriors.

The very worst thing to try to fight was an enemy that was already behind you and cutting off your supplies and avenues of reinforcement. Once that happened, they could crush you.

Which would serve the New Terran Empire well if they managed to begin turning systems to their flag. The Clans had no way of communicating with their disparate war bands, and that lack of coordination could be used against them.

The admiral’s workaround for sending data via Morse code to a much greater distance would be handy coordinating actions when attacking from multiple directions. They’d be able to use that to their advantage. A feint from one direction to draw the defenders away from another flip point and their forces could invade with local dominance.

In time, that would give them victory.

The hatch at the back of the flag bridge opened, and Justine Bandar walked in. The ex-empress stopped beside Zia’s chair and stared at the plot at the front of the compartment.

“Are you starting to get an idea of what we’re facing?” the other woman asked.

Zia nodded. “We’ve managed to locate two of the destroyers near the flip point, but not too close. We have one of the FTL probes heading toward the main world, and we’ll try to contact the resistance via the regular communications network.

“They should’ve been able to keep track of what’s going on locally much better than we can figure out from here. Once we have a better idea of where all six of the destroyers are, we can begin making plans to react militarily if that becomes necessary.”

“I’m hopeful that won’t be necessary,” Justine said. “It would be preferable to make a deal to achieve our goals rather than being forced to beat someone into submission. If they can give me information to work with, I may be able to negotiate a settlement that we can all live with.”

“Do you really think that’s going to work?” Zia asked, raising an eyebrow. “Whoever is in control, they’re not going to want to give up without a fight. Admittedly, they won’t have much of a choice if I bring Audacious into the system, but I’d much rather have cooperation than subjugation.”

“As would I. I think the first step is to speak face-to-face with representatives of the resistance. I brought a message from Coordinator Gatewood with the appropriate codes, so they should be willing to cooperate once they have their orders.

“Once I have a better idea of the kind of people I’m dealing with, I’ll use the contacts that the resistance has in both groups to arrange a meeting with the most likely prospect. It may be necessary to make a show of force at that point, but so long as we’ve got one of the local leaders willing to work with us, we can cow the other group.”

Zia wasn’t so sure that things would be that easy, but negotiations weren’t her strong suit. She was a tactical officer by training and was used to others doing the work that came before throwing punches. If it came to a fight, she and her carrier would end the conflict decisively.

“Does that mean you’re going to be going into the system aboard Persephone?”

The other woman nodded. “This type of diplomacy requires face-to-face meetings so that all of the players can gauge one another. Doing it via com simply won’t work. I’ll be careful, and I won’t be alone.”

Justine turned toward her and lowered her voice. “Has there been any change?”

“No. The scientists have verified that it’s getting power, but it’s not working. So whatever the problem is, it has to be on the other end. I suppose it’s possible that they could reopen the gate from this side, but they lack knowledge of how to trigger it. Or how to aim it at the appropriate target if that’s required.

“The scientists are working to understand what’s going on, and they’ve got a lot of information that Carl and the rest had already collected. They’re not going to give up. It’s only been four days. Kelsey, Don, and the rest have enough supplies for a week, so it’s not quite time to panic yet.”

“That’s easy to say,” Justine said with a sigh. “It’s harder to do when your daughter and your lover are on the other side. I suppose it’s a good thing that I have to focus my attention on this problem because I’m worried.”

Zia laid her hand on the other woman’s arm. “So am I. We’re going to keep working on this problem, and we’ll find an answer. We just have to focus on Devon so that we can let the experts do their work. When the time comes that we solve this problem, I’ll let you know immediately.”

“Thank you. Well, I suppose I’d best be going. I’m sure that Angela will keep you informed of exactly what we’re up to, but if you have any specific questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me.”

“Good luck, Ambassador.”

Without another word, the other woman left the flag bridge, and Zia focused her attention back on the plot. Things wouldn’t end up being easy, she was sure. Nothing that they’d tried thus far had gone as planned, and this situation probably wouldn’t either.

They’d just have to hope that they were cleverer than their enemies and even their potential allies. The clock was ticking, and they needed to get a few wins on the board before everything went to hell. The Clans were coming, after all.

18

Kelsey was tired of living inside her spacesuit. It had been four days, and she was vile. So vile, in fact, that she was growing numb to her own stench.

Not that she was getting a shower anytime soon in this strange place. They’d found a kitchen-style area like the one Talbot had discovered on the alien planet, but without power, it had no water or food.

They had three days of air, and then they were going to have to rely on the stuff around them. Carl had done the best he could to scan the atmosphere and found no trace of anything threatening, even though the oxygen levels were low, and the inert elements were somewhat different in composition than what they were used to.

The only way they could eat inside the suits was by utilizing what amounted to sipping straws built into the helmet that gave them water and a paste that acted as food. It was very nutritious and had a lot of energy but tasted vile, at least to her.

While their food and water supply was limited, it would still outlast their canned air by a few days. Their water would run out around the same time as the food. That was their upper limit—roughly ten days.

Talbot had taught her what the human body could handle: three minutes without air, three days without water, and three weeks without food. In her case, she wouldn’t be able to tolerate even that. Her body went through calories at almost twice the rate of anyone else.

And that was before she took into account the child growing inside her. If she allowed herself to starve, it would do irreparable damage to her little girl. The thought of something like that happening terrified her.

They had to find a way out of this place, and they had to do it soon. The only problem was that she was beginning to doubt that they were going to. They were well and truly trapped.

Carl barely slept and had to be reminded to eat because he spent all his time trying to understand the alien power system. He was the most intelligent person she knew, but this was like an ancient primitive trying to understand how a radio functioned.

Being unable to do anything made her jumpy, so she’d taken Elise to map out the base while they waited for Carl to make a breakthrough. Her friend blamed herself for trapping them. She thought that if she hadn’t turned off the ring that they might already be back home.

Sadly, there was some truth to that. She wasn’t going to blame Elise, but as impetuous as she was, Kelsey could recognize it in others, and turning off the transport ring hadn’t been the smartest thing to do.

Her friend offered to use the nanites inside her to try to repair the power system, but Carl had been leery. Still, they were running out of time, and that was going to seem like a good idea really soon.

Exploring the alien facility quickly revealed that it was huge. She had no idea how large any of the other alien facilities had been, but in the last four days, they’d only managed to scratch this one’s surface. It had levels spiraling deep under the surface of whatever this place was and was probably filled with amazing technical marvels that they would never be able to unravel in her lifetime.

Or even share with anyone if their lives were only measured in days.

Everyone was sleeping on a slightly different schedule, which gave her a little bit of an edge when she decided to do something that was against the rules.

One of the marines was with Carl, Ralph, and Austin down in the power generation area. The group basically lived there.

Major Collins and Commander Sommerville were asleep at the moment. That left her, Elise, and the remaining marine awake. The man was performing some kind of maintenance on his weapon, and his attention was flagging because he’d been awake for a while.

That gave her an opportunity to get away from everything for a little bit. Of course, she’d need to convince Elise to go with her, but she didn’t think that would be too much of a challenge. Everybody was feeling itchy at being locked up for so long.

She leaned over and pressed her helmet to her friend’s. “Let’s get out of here.”

“And do what?”

“I want to do something that they won’t approve of, but it really needs to be done. That means we need to ditch our guard.”

“You do realize that we’re going to get in trouble for that, right?”

“What are they going to do? Spank us?”

“Knowing Major Collins, maybe.”

The guard’s back was to them, so they might be able to sneak out without him noticing. If he spotted them, he’d insist on going along, and he’d raise hell at her plan.

“Move as quietly as you can. Once we’re out of the room, kill your suit’s transponder and don’t answer the general com. We don’t want them tracking us, so we’ll use a private com channel.”

Elise gestured to the alien robot. “It’s going to follow us. It’s parked by the door, so he might not see it, but we can’t stop it.”

“Try to have it be quiet. Let’s go.”

Elise rose to her feet and headed toward the hatch, and Kelsey followed her. They made it without alerting the marine, and even the robot seemed to cooperate by moving slowly and quietly.

That was creepy. How had it known their intent?

Once they were safely in the corridor, Elise turned to her. “So, what are we going to be doing?”

“We’re going to go look outside the facility. Major Collins isn’t allowing anyone outside, but I want to see for myself. I’m also going to test the atmosphere without my helmet.”

Her friend stopped moving and stared at her. “Have you lost your mind? There might be any number of things out there that could hurt us. Hell, there could be something in the air that hurts you. This isn’t safe, Kelsey.”

“Safe isn’t going to get us home. I’m not saying that we can find anything that helps us, but the drone couldn’t even pass the horizon before it went dead. We got a little video from when he sent it high, but I need to see it with my own eyes.”

Her friend shook her head but started walking toward the exit. “You’re crazy, but I have to admit that I kind of like the idea myself. Let’s go see if we can find anything else out there. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find another way home.”

* * *

The voyage into the system didn’t seem any different to Justine than any other journey she’d taken in a spaceship because she didn’t have any insight into what the crew was doing to hide their passage. However, she was sure the process was much more complex than she was giving them credit for.

Thankfully, she wasn’t going to have to navigate this trip entirely on her own. Veronica Giguere sat beside her, ready to guide her through the intricacies of the Rebel Empire society.

On her other side sat Olivia West. She was the designated representative of the resistance, though technically, she was no longer a member of that organization. She supposed it was like a secret society. When one knew all the appropriate handshakes, you were a member for life.

The three of them sat aboard the stealthed pinnace that had departed Persephone close to the planet and was now making its way unseen in the local traffic pattern.

The goal was to sneak onto the planet without tripping any alarms, though if push came to shove, they had codes that they could use to identify themselves.

She’d rather remain undetected. The codes had been acquired by the local resistance, and they might be compromised.

In any case, all of that was outside of her control. Her job started once they got onto the planet. They’d already exchanged com messages with the local resistance and had a rendezvous location that was away from areas with heavy traffic.

The local resistance leaders would take the three of them under their wings and brief them on the two individuals that had seized control of the system when the AIs had withdrawn their rule.

The approach was nerve-wracking, but the pinnace settled to the ground and lowered its ramp without issue. The three of them undid their restraints and made their way out under the watchful eyes of a pair of Marine Raiders from Persephone.

If anything went wrong now, it was their responsibility to pull them out. Not that Justine expected there to be any trouble. After all, why would these warlords be worried about the resistance when they had much bigger problems?

Rather than trouble waiting for them, they found a man and woman standing near the edge of the field that they landed in. Justine had been told that this was an extremely rural area, and the likelihood of other people chancing across them was low.

Nevertheless, it behooved them to make the introductions quickly and be on their way.

Olivia walked forward and smiled at the people waiting for them. “Ensign sends his regards.”

The man smiled. “And he receives them as well. Greetings, my name is David Ensign. This is my associate, Rebecca Tranick. If the three of you will come with us, we can let your associates take off so that no one notices anything they shouldn’t.”

Olivia turned and waved toward the pinnace, sending the two Raiders back inside. Moments later, the ramp lifted, and then the pinnace took off.

They were alone on the planet now, at the mercy of the people hosting them.

Their hosts gestured them towards a small air car situated nearby. It only took a few moments to secure themselves, and they were on their way.

While the man drove, the woman turned to look at them over the front seat. “I’m afraid we weren’t given any names. How shall we refer to you?”

Justine smiled at her. “My name is Justine Bandar. My associates are Olivia West and Veronica Giguere. Will we be going far?”

The woman smiled. “Farther than you’d imagine.”

With that cryptic statement, the woman raised a stunner and fired. The world went dark.

19

Elise stared out at the surface of the strange planetoid. The odd nature of the soil still made her uncomfortable. Even though Carl had determined that the material imposed no direct risk to them, it just didn’t look natural.

How could something that looked like whipped cream be significantly denser than regular dirt? Better yet, how could it maintain its swirling shape?

Well, she supposed the answer didn’t matter. It was what it was.

Kelsey stepped outside the hatch and planted her boots firmly in the strange alien soil. There was a slight crunch, and it gave just a little bit.

Somewhat reassured that she wouldn’t sink into the strange ground, Elise stepped out and joined her friend.

“What are we going to do now?” she asked.

“We’re going to go see if we can find the drone that Carl lost. It stopped responding right after it went over the horizon, so it may be close. At the very least, I want to see what’s over the horizon for ourselves. If we’re on a planetoid like he suspects, then it’s not going to be a long trip.

“It’s a pity that he was focused on the facility when he had the drone up above. I’d like to know what we’re walking into.”

“Why are you doing this now?”

Kelsey looked at her and raised an eyebrow. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

Without waiting for a response, her friend started forward, so Elise hurried to catch up. Once she was back beside Kelsey, she continued her line of questioning.

“We’ve been here for four days. Why wait all this time to come out here and do your exploring? Why are we taking this kind of risk anyway? Carl’s going to figure out how to get us out of here.”

“I certainly hope so, but we’re getting to the point where we can’t count on it. We’re in a bad way, and I need a little bit of a distraction because my brain just won’t stop running around in circles.

“I’m worried about all of us, but I’m also thinking about the little girl inside me and about Talbot. All of those things are making me crazy. I just need to get out and do something.”

Elise could certainly understand that. She’d been thinking a lot about the twins over the last few days, about Jared and about her father. She might never see any of them ever again, and they might never even find her body. It was maddening and terrifying all at the same time.

Yet it was one of the risks that they took every day. Even her. They were explorers and warriors, whether they wanted to be or not. A few years ago, this situation would’ve terrified her. Now she simply strengthened her resolve and focused on getting out of the situation rather than worrying about what it might mean for the future.

“You’re just a big sissy,” Elise said.

Kelsey stopped and turned to face her, one eyebrow raising precipitously behind her faceplate. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me,” she said sharply. “We don’t need to focus on how we might fail. We just keep looking for how we can succeed. Stop whining and start doing.”

Kelsey stared at her for a few seconds and then laughed. “Of all the people I’d have expected to give me that kind of pep talk, you weren’t even on the list, but you’re absolutely right. Until we get so desperate that success no longer seems like it’s going to be possible, I need to focus on what we can do to get out of this mess. Thank you.”

The two of them continued walking in silence, and Elise focused her attention on the terrain. The ground was strange in the way it was laid out. The weird swirls made the landscape seem like it had been shaped by the wind, which was possible, though unlikely because of the swirling patterns. The rise that they were on was gentle but high enough to keep them from seeing where they were going.

The only problem was that there was no wind, just still air. It was another mystery that she might not ever understand.

Focusing on walking was a lot easier than thinking about what might be. Even though she hadn’t intended her advice for herself, it was still good. Focus on solving the problems in front of them and let the big picture take care of itself. Carl was going to find an answer.

The moment that she settled on that, the robot that had been placidly following along behind her decided to do something on its own. It was easy to forget the damned thing was there when it just followed along. It was when it did something unexpected that you had to stare at it and wonder what it was thinking.

In this case, it wanted to see what was over the rise more than they did because it sped up and went around them, its legs easily maneuvering over the strange dirt until it topped the rise and vanished from sight.

“Did you do that?” Kelsey asked.

She shook her head. “Nope. The thing sometimes gets a bug up its butt and runs off to look at something. Maybe it’s like a dog.”

“Your kids need a dog,” Kelsey responded. “You’ve got a robot.”

“I’d rather have a dog.”

The two of them kept walking until they finally topped the rise. What they saw on the other side stopped them in their tracks.

Elise had expected to see more of the strange landscape, and there was certainly some of that, but there was something even more striking in the slight depression below them.

A strange craft was partly embedded in the ground less than a hundred meters from them. It looked like it was a sailing ship with gossamer wings that spread out around it. They were broken in places, and the strange soil of this world covered at least half of the vessel.

What the hell had they stumbled onto?

* * *

Carl was exhausted. He’d been working for days trying to understand the alien technology of what he suspected was the power source so that he could attempt to repair it, but he was about ready to give up. He just lacked a frame of reference to understand so much of what he was seeing.

Were those power conduits? Were those generation circuits? Was he completely wrong?

He and his friends were beat. Ralph was sleeping on a makeshift bed in the corner while the marine sat by the wall, keeping an eye on everything.

Austin was helping him go over the piece of equipment that he was attempting to manipulate. He could see that the other man’s eyes were red, and he looked like he could use a full night’s sleep too. He sagged a little bit as he moved, but he still managed to focus on the task.

“Do you think this is geothermal?” his friend asked.

“I’m not sure what it could be drawing heat from. This planetoid doesn’t seem large enough to have a molten core. Then again, it doesn’t seem large enough to provide the amount of gravity that we’re experiencing either.”

Personally, he doubted that theory. It was probably something so esoteric that he’d never even considered the possibility. Then again, this was an alternate universe, so it might have been something inconceivable.

What if it was pulling energy from matter conversion? What if it was somehow reaching across the barriers of space into an alternate dimension with a higher base energy potential?

It definitely wasn’t fusion because there was no radiation. Yet a base this size required a vast amount of power to run. He just couldn’t seem to figure out what it was.

Ultimately, he didn’t need to know how it produced the energy. He just needed to figure out why the machine itself wasn’t functioning and how to jolt it into action. If it was a mechanical failure, it was possible that they could repair it.

It wasn’t likely, but they’d done unlikely things in the past. He wasn’t going to rule out success until he dropped dead. He was going to get back to Angela.

The thought of his wife intruded on him again, and he took a moment to calm himself and push the memory of her away. He wasn’t going to let himself lose control of the moment and start panicking. That wouldn’t do him any good. It was far better to solve the problem rather than give up.

Even if it seemed that wasn’t very likely at the moment.

“Hmmm. That’s strange.”

Carl glanced over at his friend because he knew that far too many important discoveries were heralded by phrases just like that rather than the classic “Eureka.”

He stepped over next to his friend. “What have you found?”

“This conduit goes down to a level underneath ours, and I can’t determine a purpose for it. It’s open on the inside but empty. The scanners show traces of something coating the inside, but I’m not sure what I’m looking at.”

As a hardware guy, Austin was pretty good at determining physical things. If he didn’t recognize something, that meant that it was so unusual that it probably necessitated a good look.

Carl stared over the man’s shoulder at the scanner. The readings bore little resemblance to anything he was familiar with, validating his friend’s curiosity.

Whatever the material was, it must be either gaseous or liquid to move up the pipe. What purpose could it have served? It wasn’t as if the alien machinery needed some kind of cooling, so was this meant to get the fuel?

The scanner was powerful, but it couldn’t see all the way to the end of the conduit. It seemingly went straight down into the planetoid. It was actually big enough to allow a person through its length. That implied that whatever came up from the depths was needed in bulk.

Where did it go? The conduit emptied into a chamber just behind one of the walls of the machine they were examining. He wasn’t sure what happened there, but it didn’t go anywhere else. Whatever reaction took place was contained within that chamber.

“I think you might’ve found the fuel source,” he said. “The only problem is that I have no idea what it is or how it might be used.”

Austin put his hands on his hips and sighed. “It’s never easy, is it?”

“Not for us. I suppose it’s possible that the fuel source has dried up, and that’s why the power shut down. There’s no real way to know without checking, and to do that, we’re going to have to find a way down there.”

“Well, we do have a way to get down there. All we have to do is get into that chamber, and we can go down the conduit itself and see what we find. Too bad you lost the drone. It might’ve come in useful right about now.”

Carl nodded and took the scanner around the machine that the conduit terminated inside and discovered a manual access on the far side. It looked like the aliens didn’t feel comfortable dissolving the sides of whatever this device was, so they had the means to get into it.

“Grab some tools, and we’ll get this open and see what we find. If we’re lucky, we’ll be able to figure out what the power source is and turn it back on.”

Personally, he didn’t think it would be nearly that easy, but it was at least a step in the right direction. Now he just had to make it work.

20

Zia was busy working on some reports when Angela called from Persephone. She answered the com and saw immediately that her friend was worried. She set aside the report and leaned in.

“What’s wrong?”

“They’ve missed their check-in,” the Marine Raider said. “The drop-off went fine, but they were supposed to check in within the hour to verify that everything was going well. Nothing.”

“Do you think it’s just a security measure that the resistance took to make sure that they weren’t followed? Maybe we’ll get word from them shortly.”

Angela looked skeptical. “I’ve tried contacting the resistance through the channels we were given, and I’m not getting any response. That’s a big sign to me that something is seriously wrong.”

Zia had to admit that that wasn’t good. “What do you think we should do?”

“I’m not sure,” Angela almost growled. “We have some information about the resistance, but if it’s been compromised, we might be sending our people into a trap. It’s not as if we have a lot of people to do that with either.

“We do have some advantages in that our people have coms that can reach out to ten kilometers rather than just the short-range stuff that everyone else expects them to have. As long as they aren’t shielded, it’s possible that we could get somebody within range to reopen contact with them, but that means that we have to send people down. We’re very short on people who can blend in on a Rebel Empire planet.”

“We don’t have many, but we do have a few people from Harrison’s World,” Zia countered. “I think they’d be suitable to send down with an escort.”

“I’ll come back and pick them up.”

“No,” Zia said firmly. “We’ll come to you. If things have progressed this far, then it’s time to make sure that we position the stick in case we need to hit someone with it. Your ship is very good at sneaking around and punching someone’s lights out when they’re not looking for you, but if they have any idea that we’re in the system—which if the resistance is compromised, they do—then we need to have everything positioned to get that fight underway as rapidly as possible.

“No matter what they do, so long as they only have the destroyers that they’re supposed to have, they’re not a threat to Audacious. Between the fighters and the weapon systems on board this carrier, we’ll be able to hold our own.

“Things certainly went downhill fast. Do you really think the resistance in this system is compromised?”

“We have to assume that it is?” Angela asked. “I doubt very seriously that whoever picked them up went anywhere but straight back to a secure facility. So this either means that they were being watched closely and somebody official saw what was going on, or they decided to take our people prisoner themselves.”

“Either one of those things is going to end up being a very bad decision on someone’s part, and it’s going to be my job to make that excessively clear very soon,” Zia said in a low voice. “To do that, I’m going to have to get into position to execute one of our attack plans if called on.”

“Are we going to lead with that? Shouldn’t we at least ask them to return our people first?”

“You said they’re not answering our calls. That seems to imply that they don’t want to talk to us. If that’s the case, we need to change their minds. I’m not going to lead with an attack, but I’m not going to sit on my hands either.

“You and your people keep monitoring everything until we get into position. We’re going to time coming across through the multiflip point so that we’re not detected. With the destroyers keeping watch being more interested in one another, that makes it possible.

“We might need you to create a diversion to pull them a little bit more off station, but I think we can make this work.”

Angela nodded. “We can come close enough to give them some scanner ghosts, and that might be enough to pull them away from the flip point a little. I hope we can work this out diplomatically because I’d hate to have to go to war without knowing where the ambassador and the rest are.”

Angela hesitated a few moments and then spoke again. “Any word on Carl and the rest?”

“No,” Zia said with a grimace. “The scientists have figured out that the power is flowing to the ring the way that it’s supposed to, but they have no way to trigger it. There doesn’t seem to be anything they recognize as circuitry that they can directly control.

“Everything inside that blasted thing looks like it’s controlled by nanites or smaller stuff. It’s hard to figure out how you’re going to control something when the mechanisms don’t respond to you. They only respond to Princess Elise, or so it seems.”

“Do you think they’re going to get back in time? They’ve got less than three days of air left. I’m starting to get really worried.”

“So am I,” Zia admitted. “So am I.”

Angela nodded and ended the call.

She knew the other woman was anxious about her husband. She felt the exact same way about Veronica. It had been a long time since she’d had someone that she cared so much about.

Zia hadn’t thought sending them to meet the resistance had been that dangerous. Well, whoever had betrayed them was certainly going to learn what an angry woman in command of a carrier could do to entice them to give her lover back.

If she had to burn this system to the ground to find Veronica, she was more than halfway willing to do it. Oh, she’d obey the laws of war, but she’d use the stick that she had to beat them to within an inch of their lives, and then she’d take them out with her bare hands if need be.

She didn’t have any Marine Raiders, but she had plenty of marines. If she found wherever the resistance was hiding them or identified whoever had captured them, she’d send the marines down and pry them out of their holes.

She rose from her desk and headed out onto the flag bridge. Once she’d sat in her console, she activated a com link directly to the main bridge, and Brandon Levy appeared moments later.

“Yes, Commodore?”

“Prepare the ship to flip and run as silently as we can. We’re headed into the Devon system as soon as we have an opening in the flight pattern that will allow us to get through, and Persephone distracts the guard destroyers. We’re not going to reveal our presence, but it seems that the ambassador and the rest have been taken.”

“It’s time for the stick, isn’t it?”

“Not quite, but I’ll be calling Annette soon as we’re done, and you can rest assured that we’re going to be limbered up.”

“We’ll be ready when you are, Commodore.”

Zia ended the call and instructed her staff to begin looking for an opening to get them into the Devon system. She had no doubt that they’d be in the Devon system and closing in on the people who had her lover in very short order.

And when she caught them, they were going to deeply, if briefly, regret it.

* * *

Kelsey stared at the wrecked ship in awe. Even though it was half buried in the alien soil, it was beautiful. Its lines were long and sleek, and the sails or wings were so gossamer thin that they looked like they’d tear in a breeze, but they’d obviously survived whatever had embedded this ship where it was.

She started to step forward but stopped. Was it still dangerous? How long had it been here?

“Could you send the robot in and see if it reacts?” she asked.

Her friend nodded and focused her attention on the robot, ordering it in a firm tone to examine the outside of the wreck. The robot, for its part, didn’t move.

Elise sighed. “I’m not sure it can hear me. It will usually react to my verbal instructions, but with a helmet on, I’m not sure what it understands.”

“Carl did say that the atmosphere was breathable,” Kelsey said slowly. “Maybe it’s time to give that a test. We’ve only got a few days of air left, and someone’s going to have to do it. It might as well be me.”

Elise shook her head. “Don’t be an idiot. You’re pregnant. While I’ve got kids to look after as well, me taking off my helmet doesn’t put them at risk. I only have to take it off for a couple of minutes to make sure that it gets the instructions that it needs. I’ll probably be fine.”

Now it was Kelsey’s turn to shake her head. “I should go first.”

The two of them stared at one another for a few seconds, and then both removed their helmets.

Kelsey was surprised at the smell when she took off the helmet. A scent in the air reminded her of curry, a spice that made her hungry.

Then again, just about everything made her hungry.

Other than that, things seemed surrealistically normal. The air pressure felt a little bit low, and she knew from what Carl had told her that the oxygen level was somewhat less than what they were used to. They’d have to be careful what they did because they’d tire more quickly and run out of breath.

“This isn’t too bad,” Elise said. “As long as there aren’t any biologicals in the air that are dangerous to us, I think we’re going to be okay. Well, we’ll be okay until Major Collins tears a strip off of us.”

Kelsey laughed. “Isn’t that the truth? See if your robot will obey you now.”

Elise pointed toward the crashed ship and ordered the robot to go explore it. The device did exactly as she instructed and began moving forward. It climbed over the low mound of alien soil ahead of them adroitly and arrived at the side of the ship before climbing up its hull and beginning to move across its deck.

It really did look almost like an old-fashioned sailing ship. Though the sails weren’t necessarily just above it. There were also spars sticking out to the sides and even the rear. If it was symmetrical, there would be another pair of large masts somewhere under the crashed hull.

Kelsey wondered who could have built it. It didn’t look anything like what the crab aliens had constructed. For one thing, they’d have been unable to work the rigging on a ship like this.

No, this had to be a completely different race, and that implied that either other groups had access to this strange alien universe, or these people were natives. They might not be alone here.

The robot puttered around on the deck for a couple of minutes, forced its way through the hatch toward the rear of the top deck, and disappeared.

“Uh oh,” Elise said. “We should go after it. There’s no telling what it’ll do unsupervised.”

“I’m pretty sure that there’s nothing left alive on this ship,” Kelsey said as she started looking for the best way up. “It looks like it’s been here for a very long time, and without things like water, I’m not sure any of the survivors of the crash would’ve survived for this long. But you’re still right. Let’s go see what mischief your machine has gotten itself into.”

The two of them followed in the tracks of the alien robot and arrived at the side of the ship. The hull curved up to a deck with a railing around it, very much like a sailing ship. The rail was too far up for easy reach, or would’ve been if the ship were upright.

Tilted slightly on its side, it gave them a slope that they could use. That was how the robot had managed.

Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Kelsey climbed the steep bank leading up to the deck of the ship. The material underneath her hands looked something like wood. They hadn’t seen anything like trees in this new landscape, so she doubted it was anything so prosaic.

Still, it was organic, and that gave them an even shorter time frame for this vessel to have been buried here. The aliens they were familiar with had built to last, but the materials they’d used had not been subject to decay over time. Biologic material like wood or whatever this was would eventually rot away.

The feel of the ship underneath her gloved hands indicated that it was still solid. Even though the buildup of the alien dirt across its hull suggested that the ship had been here for quite some time, maybe that assessment was wrong. They’d best be cautious because her initial assumption that the vessel was unoccupied might not prove true.

She reached the deck before Elise did and reached back to help her friend up. The climb was nothing for someone with her strength and agility, but she didn’t want Elise to slide back down into the dirt. The chances of her being hurt were small, but why take chances?

Once the two of them were securely on the deck, they headed for the hatch at the rear of the deck that the robot had vanished through. She could hear the device moving around inside, so it didn’t sound as if it had encountered anything too terrible.

She drew the flechette pistol at her hip just in case. She’d have used the stunner, but who knew how stunners worked on alien beings? If need be, she could draw it in short order.

The inside of the chamber was larger than she’d expected, stretching from one side of the ship to the other and seemingly going all the way to the back of the ship. There were windows of some kind at the rear that provided light enough to see the chamber’s broad outlines.

The robot was slowly picking its way through some debris and furniture scattered across the deck. It looked like the ship had crashed hard because much of the furniture had been torn loose from where it had been mounted and now lay scattered and broken on the floor itself.

She found proof that not all of the crew had survived the crash because among the wreckage was what amounted to a mummified body. As she’d guessed, it wasn’t human.

The body was humanoid, tall, and slender. Its legs and arms were elongated and ended in hands that had what amounted to two thumbs on opposite sides and four fingers. These hands were on the lower appendages as well, so this creature had likely been very adroit at climbing and doing things.

She had no means of determining how long the being had been here, but based solely on her uneducated guess, it had been quite some time.

“Who do you think this is?” Elise asked, looking down at the body.

“Probably the captain,” Kelsey said with a gesture at the room around them. “On a sailing ship, this kind of cabin would’ve belonged to the vessel’s master. Of course, you can’t judge aliens by what humans did, but there’s only one guy in this big room, and that implies a leadership position to me.”

“What do you think we should do?”

“Let’s give this cabin a decent look and maybe peek into the other parts of the ship to see what we see. The drone lost its feed as soon as it came over that hill, so we may want to look around for it.

“It wouldn’t have run out of power immediately, but it’s dead now. Odds are pretty good that it just hovered around the ship until it lost power and set down. Once we’ve done that, we’ll head back for that ass chewing.”

Elise nodded, and the two of them got to work.

21

Justine woke up feeling terrible but managed to keep her eyes closed and not move. The world’s worst headache was digging into her skull. Her temples were throbbing, and she could barely think, but she had to.

Something had obviously gone wrong, and she needed to get a handle on it if they were to salvage the situation. She needed to understand who the people holding them were and what they wanted.

It was entirely possible that they hadn’t been met by the resistance at all. The people who had captured them might’ve used the correct phrases for recognition, but they could’ve gotten them from prisoners. These people might be Rebel Empire loyalists, and if that was the case, the three of them were in a lot of trouble.

She was lying on a narrow cot in a room that felt like a closet. It was stuffy that way.

Taking a chance, she opened her eyes and instantly regretted it. The light was bright and burned into her skull.

Her daughter risked this and worse every day? She was obviously insane.

When she could finally see, she noted that her assessment of the room had been accurate. It was small and low. The cot she was on looked to be made for camping. Neither of her companions was in the room.

She was still dressed in the same clothes that she’d worn when they’d arrived, though all of her possessions were gone. Someone had searched her very thoroughly. She hadn’t had any weapons, so there’d been nothing like that for them to find.

Justine was certain that hadn’t been true of the others. They’d have been armed, but her job wasn’t to shoot people. It was to talk.

Well, it was about time that she got busy doing so.

She rose unsteadily to her feet and spotted a small table in the corner of the room with a pitcher of water and one glass. She briefly wondered if they would’ve put something in it and then rejected the idea. They could’ve dosed her with anything they liked while she was unconscious.

She staggered over to the pitcher and poured some water with trembling hands. She then drank it and closed her eyes.

It wasn’t helping.

Then she noticed that sitting next to the pitcher was a packet of pain pills. Those might be more effective. They went down next, and after a couple of minutes, her headache started retreating slightly. It was still going to be ugly but perhaps not apocalyptic.

Once she had a grip on herself, she turned to the door and tried the latch. It was locked, of course.

She knocked on it and waited for a response. A few moments later, a man wearing tactical gear opened the door and looked in at her. He didn’t say a single word, only closing the door in her face when she tried to speak and locking it again.

Either he was telling someone that she was awake or ignoring her. In either case, there was nothing she could do but wait.

She sat back on the edge of the bed and waited for whoever would come and talk to her to arrive. Odds were good that it would be the same people who had captured them. After all, why introduce the complication of others when you didn’t have to?

It took about five minutes for the door to open again, and she was somewhat pleased to see that her guess had been correct. The woman who had shot her stood in the doorway with the large man who had opened it earlier behind her.

“I’d imagine you have quite a few questions,” the woman said. “Why don’t we go somewhere just a little bit more comfortable and discuss the situation we find ourselves in.”

Justine’s snarky side wanted to say something that would get her in trouble, but she decided it didn’t make any sense. She might as well just go with the flow for the moment and see what happened.

Whatever assumptions these people had about her and the rest, the situation on the ground was going to be far different than they’d have imagined. This woman believed that Justine represented the resistance and was looking for information on local conditions.

That being the case, she wouldn’t be expecting that they’d come with a significant amount of force to back them up. The fact that Audacious and her fighters could take out both sides in this standoff was not something that they could’ve planned for.

She suspected that either the resistance had been co-opted by the Rebel Empire government or that there was some kind of power play going on inside the resistance itself. She needed to figure the exact situation out before formulating a response.

She hoped not to need any of the trump cards that she’d been authorized to use. She didn’t want to be the one that started a war in this system. She’d much rather negotiate a settlement.

Yet life had taught her that one rarely got what they wanted, particularly in high-stress situations. She’d settle for the best she could manage.

The two of them arrived at a relatively bare room with a table and two chairs. The guard planted himself against the wall and watched her as the woman sat and smiled.

“Why don’t you have a seat, Ambassador? I understand that you’re here to negotiate with the various factions, but I’m afraid the situation isn’t quite what you’ve been led to expect. You’ll be negotiating with me.”

Justine considered asking what the woman’s name really was but decided that it didn’t matter. Whoever she was, she was the one doing the talking.

“So, who do you represent?” she asked. “I don’t want to make the assumption that you really are part of the resistance.”

The woman’s smile widened. “I really do represent the resistance. You see, now that the computers have released control over this system, we’ve decided that we don’t want to turn this system over to the leadership of the resistance. After all, we’ve been doing all the hard work, and we believe we deserve to reap the rewards.”

Justine considered what the woman had said. It might even be true. She wasn’t going to count on it because this could all still be some kind of trick.

“So why attack me? You could’ve just gone along with your original story and dealt with us in a friendlier fashion before sending us home. Why announce your intentions so blatantly?”

“That’s not really relevant to the discussion,” the other woman said. “I want to know how the leadership intends to deal with the destroyers and local security services.

“The resistance has never had a large number of trained military personnel, so I don’t think that you have any kind of chance at directly seizing control. You’ve got another plan, and I want to know what it is.”

“And if I keep that to myself?”

The woman’s smile turned cold. “That would be unfortunate. We have ways of extracting the information, but they aren’t pleasant.”

“Then it seems we’re at an impasse. I’m just the negotiator, so I’m not versed in the exact military options. Our military advisor is one of the other women, and I assure you she’s a lot tougher than I am.”

“My associate is dealing with her, so focus on me. If I’m not satisfied with this conversation, you’re going to suffer a lot of pain, and I’d prefer to avoid that. There’s no need for us to be savages.

“Once I have the information you brought and take control of the system, we can use it as a base to expand control under our own terms. Then we will rule the Empire. If you stand in the way of us achieving our goals, I will make you suffer.”

Justine sighed. Not only was this going to be difficult, it was probably going to be very painful.

“You’ve made a terrible mistake in thinking that the forces at our disposal are subject to my orders. I’m not in command, and they’re not going to listen to me.”

“It’s a pity that you want to go the hard way,” the woman said as she rose smoothly to her feet. “Bring her to the interrogation room. I think she needs a taste of what’s awaiting her if she doesn’t start cooperating.”

* * *

Elise marveled at some of the things she’d found on the crashed ship. Each was strange and mostly obscure, but each of the tools—she thought they were tools—seemed to be well-crafted. She had no idea what purpose they served, but she loved the look of them.

They had been in a large box with what looked like a relatively primitive sort of lock. One where one slid a key in one side and turned to unlock it. Definitely not very high-tech at all.

She’d found herself stumped by it until she’d called the robot over and ordered him to open it. Sadly, his idea of being helpful meant that he’d used two of his legs to break the lock. At least he was delicate enough that he didn’t damage the box itself.

When she’d set it on what remained of a table and flipped it open, the interior had been padded and had held cutouts for various instruments. Maybe that was a better word than tools.

It looked like they were designed to figure something out. She cast her mind back over some of the movies that she’d watched with Kelsey since they’d become friends, and they bore at least a passing resemblance to the tools or instruments used by seafarers to figure out where they were, using the stars on old Terra.

That wouldn’t work very well in this kind of place, but if one was going to navigate a ship, one had to be able to tell one’s location, didn’t they?

She closed the box of instruments and turned to dig into some of the cabinets along the wall. A few of them had come open during the crash, spilling their contents all over the compartment, but most of them remained latched.

It made her wonder if the ship was built for rough seas. That was a phrase that she remembered from some of those movies where a storm had lashed the ship and thrown everything about. Did this strange, altered space have storms?

If it did, how well set were they if one came along? It probably wouldn’t be a good idea to be outside during a storm of unknown potential.

One of the cabinets was significantly stouter than the rest. Even though it had torn free of the bulkhead and crashed to the deck during whatever calamity had befallen the ship, it had remained intact and locked.

She took one look at it and decided that she’d never be able to get it open on her own and summoned the robot for assistance. To her amusement, it couldn’t break the lock and had to rip the cabinet apart to get at the contents.

Once she saw what was inside the cabinet, she understood.

It seemed that she’d discovered the ship’s safe. There were coins made of strange metals and even what looked like stone, gemstones both familiar and bizarre, and small cases of varying sizes with unknown contents. In all, it was quite the haul.

She felt like a pirate as she gathered everything up and secured it in a canvas satchel that she found in the debris. The only thing that didn’t go in the bag was a metal armband.

It had been in a case that had popped open when she accidentally dropped it. The metal of the armband itself seemed to be platinum or something very similar. Set into the metal was an oval of stone about three centimeters across that was filled with bright colors that seemed to move as she watched.

It was almost like watching a galaxy rotate, though it wasn’t stars that she saw. The strands of color reminded her of the flip point map, though it wasn’t anything like that. It sparkled and shone in the low light in a way that mesmerized her.

It was an impulsive decision, but she decided that she was going to keep this for herself. At least for now.

Elise pulled the suit glove off her right hand and slid the sleeve up until her forearm was exposed. Then she slid the armband on. It was cold at first but quickly warmed.

She was momentarily worried that it wouldn’t be secure, since there was no way to latch it, and it hadn’t been made for a human, but she shook her arm, and it settled into place better than she’d suspected it would.

In the end, she was sure she’d end up turning it over to Carl for examination, but if things worked out, this could be a memento of her trip here.

If, of course, they survived.

Elise slid her suit back over the armband and put her glove back on. Then she finished packing up the things that she’d found and looked over to see what her friend was doing.

Kelsey was examining the body and going through the dead being’s pockets. Elise was more than happy to leave her friend to that task because she had no desire to touch a dead person.

She wondered if there were others on board the ship. Had this being been part of a larger crew? Probably. It would take a lot of people to work all those beautiful sails.

Yet where had they gone? Were they still below? Had they gotten off the ship and been rescued, or had they died elsewhere on this planetoid?

They wouldn’t know unless they searched the ship thoroughly, and that was something that she wasn’t sure she was ready for.

Elise found other things that she thought would be interesting to look at, including what looked to be a bolt of the same material used in the gossamer sails. She scavenged enough rope to wrap around the robot and make a pack out of it. That would be strong enough to carry all of this back.

She hoped Kelsey wasn’t going to bring the body back but knew that she probably would. That was gross.

Once Kelsey had finished examining the body, she also started going around the room and found a few other things that she was interested in. That quickly filled up the makeshift rucksack that they were using as a pack.

Which Kelsey then strapped the dead body across. Ugh.

With that done, they went back out onto the deck. Kelsey looked toward the bow of the ship and started walking that way.

“I don’t think we need to do too much searching around below, but I want to get a picture of what it looks like in the hold. We’re going to get into trouble for coming out here, so we might as well satisfy our curiosity, don’t you think?”

Elise shrugged. There was only a certain amount of trouble that she could get in. It wasn’t like she worked for Fleet or the marines. She was just an ally and a friend. The major could yell at her, but that was about it.

Kelsey, well, she was something of a special case and seemed immune to being yelled at.

They did find a rather large set of doors that looked like they opened up into the deck. That was probably for lowering down cargo to be stored inside. When they forced them open and looked down, there was nothing but chaos below.

Whatever had been securing the cargo had broken free, scattering crates back and forth, smashing many of them. Some things were in bags, but others were just scattered loosely across the floor.

Rather than going into the mess, Kelsey insisted they just take pictures from there and leave it alone. They closed the hatch back up and went the rest of the way forward on the ship. There they found another hatch that led to where the crew might have lived.

The compartment beyond it was destroyed, but Elise could see bones mixed with the debris. Anyone in there would’ve been crushed when the hull gave way. Other than the crewmen on duty, they must’ve perished.

With their exploration done, they made their way off the ship and walked around it several times, looking for the drone. Kelsey finally spotted it sitting on top of one of the dunes and retrieved it.

“It doesn’t seem damaged, so it probably just shut down once it ran out of power. Carl probably should’ve given it an order to return if it lost communication. We can charge it back up when we get back inside the base.”

With that accomplished, they made their way back toward the base.

When they came over the rise and could see the massive structure set in the sand, Elise wondered what it was built on top of. It couldn’t be built on sand because that wouldn’t have been a very good foundation.

Was there something more solid—like bedrock—below, or had the aliens created an artificially hard foundation to build on? Sadly, they really didn’t know anything about the geology of this new world. Whatever was below the sands was a complete mystery to them.

It was easy enough to follow their tracks back to the large hatch that they’d exited from. Just leaving the facility were Major Collins, Commander Sommerville, and the marine who’d kept an eye on them.

Based on his stride, the marine officer was super pissed.

She was amazed that he didn’t just tear them up over the com, but he held his tongue until they were face to face. Then he was in Kelsey’s face. He was polite, but he was angry. The fact that neither of the women was wearing their helmets only made him madder.

Kelsey just let him go on until he ran down.

“I understand,” she said, “yet it’s done. The air is breathable, and it’s a commodity that we can’t afford to waste. What if we need it later?

“Just understand that this is the way I am, and you’ll have to let my husband or the admiral yell at me when they get here. Or maybe Zia will do that for you. Until then, I still outrank you, so let’s not get too carried away, shall we?”

Elise was somewhat nonplussed at how casually she took the ass chewing. He looked like he’d like to say more but somehow restrained himself.

Together, they headed down to the power room to find out what Carl and the others had found. Only when they got there, the compartment was completely empty. There was no sign of Carl, Austin, Ralph, or the marine guarding them.

22

When they finally got the access plate off the back of the machine, Carl was pleased to note that the shaft leading down into the ground had protrusions that could be used for climbing. The marine tried to convince them not to go exploring, but Carl knew how little time they had to solve this problem.

If they couldn’t get the transport ring on this end working, they’d die here, and that was something that he wouldn’t allow to happen.

Failing to stop them from exploring, the marine had tried to call the others to get the major involved, but no one responded. They were probably deep enough below the surface for the com-limiting soil to be interfering with the transmission.

The man begged them to let him go get the major, but Carl insisted they were going now. Having failed to stop the scientists, the marine insisted that he go down first.

Carl didn’t have a problem with that, so they watched the man enter the shaft and begin climbing downward. Fortunately, the small spars that allowed climbing were sturdy and didn’t seem to be in danger of breaking off and sending the marine tumbling down below. Unfortunately, they had no idea how far down the shaft went, and a fall from any significant height would be fatal.

As soon as the marine was a few meters down, Carl entered the shaft and started after him. Austin and Ralph quickly followed suit.

The implants were fairly good at calculating distances, and so he knew they descended several hundred meters before the conduit opened up into a wider area. Well, it wasn’t that the conduit opened up so much as the shaft around it widened into a larger chamber while the framework inside the shaft continued down unperturbed.

On any other world, he’d probably call this a cave. Of course, that wasn’t what it was, but it was obviously a bubble of some kind that had formed in the distant past.

The framework that supported the spikes continued down into the darkness until the bubble ended, and they once again entered the shaft. This process repeated itself several times before they had to take a break. Finally, they stopped in one of the bubbles to sit at the bottom, catch their breath, and let their muscles relax.

“What do you think formed these?” Ralph asked as he used a fitting in his helmet to eat some of the goop keeping them alive. “And how far down do you think this goes?”

“This planetoid can’t be that big, so the most it can probably go down is probably a couple of kilometers. As for what formed the bubbles, that’s really hard to say. They don’t look volcanic. It’s almost as if when the planetoids were formed, the material mixed together, and the air was trapped under the surface as it jelled.”

Actually, jelling might be a very apt analogy. They had no idea how these blasted little balls of strange material formed. They were almost undoubtedly natural for this place, but that didn’t explain where they’d come from or the material itself.

The more he experimented with the alien soil, the stranger the properties became. The swirling of colors had seemed cosmetic at first, but then he’d noted that the density and structure inside the grains that made up the material differed based on their color.

He really didn’t have anything to examine those properties in detail, so he’d just have to leave it. If they ever got out of here, he’d be able to bring some of the material to his lab and suss out its secrets.

Of course, to do that, he’d need to figure out what powered the blasted machines here.

If this tube was supposed to transmit material up to the power-generating equipment above, how did it do so with these air bubbles?

He brought out his handheld scanner and ran it over the material that they were sitting on. Interesting. It wasn’t quite made of the same material that existed on the surface.

Rather, something had coated it in the distant past. There were still traces on the material, but it was hard to get a decent understanding of what he was looking at. Whatever it was, it had probably been liquid and had a chemical structure that made absolutely no sense to him.

Honestly, he wasn’t sure how the material could be converted to energy, but the aliens had obviously cracked the problem. He didn’t need to solve how it worked so much as why it wasn’t working now.

He put away the scanner and climbed back to his feet. “We need to keep going. Whatever came up the shaft was probably liquid, and we need to figure out why it’s not coming up any longer. It may be that the equipment above will come back to life as soon as we can figure out how to restore the flow.”

They continued climbing down, traversing many more bubbles before reaching an obviously different area that marked the terminus of their descent. Basically, the framework came out into a larger space where he couldn’t see their surroundings because of the darkness. The walls of the chamber were too distant for their lights to reach.

Luckily, the climbing spikes ended in a floor that they could stand on, and there was a railing all around them, preventing them from falling into whatever was below. He estimated that they’d come down almost two kilometers from the surface.

That meant that they were almost at the core of the planetoid. Strangely, the gravity hadn’t changed all that much. In a normal planetoid, the gravity would have dropped as they neared the center. Here, he had almost suspected that it would increase. Neither had happened, so something strange was going on, which was par for the course in this place.

“Where are we?” Austin asked. “This doesn’t seem right. If there is supposed to be machinery that pushes the liquid up to the surface, shouldn’t there be pumps or something? It looks like we’re in a big cave, but there’s nothing but air around us.”

“That’s what it looks like,” Carl agreed. “I’ll admit that this isn’t quite what I expected. We need to figure out what’s below us.”

“I can drop a combat remote,” the marine said. “It will give us some information to work off of.”

Carl nodded and gestured for the man to do so. The scanners in a combat remote wouldn’t give him any detailed scientific information about what was below them, but visuals and basic structural details might help.

The marine took a combat remote off of his belt, activated, and dropped it. The data feed went straight to the marine, but he immediately forwarded it to Carl and the rest.

The remote fell into the dark for about fifteen seconds before it struck something. According to the scanner feed, it was liquid, and the remote began sinking inside rapidly. The feed cut off a few seconds later, but that at least told them something about the area they were in.

That was when Carl noted some dim light coming from below them.

He grabbed hold of the railing and leaned out just enough to look down, and saw the most amazing thing. The light was too dim to make out any details, but it slowly brightened until he realized he was looking at a gigantic ball of liquid that seemed to just be floating in the air.

It was huge. He had no frame of reference other than how long it had taken the remote to strike it, but if that was the case, the liquid had to be a hundred meters across. A globe that size just floating in a cavern was impossible because the gravity of the place should’ve pulled it down.

Unless they were at the center of the planetoid, and this was what was forming the gravity. If so, this strange universe was even harder to understand than he’d ever imagined.

“What do we do now?” Austin asked. “Exactly how are we supposed to get any of that liquid up here?”

It was a great question. One that he didn’t know the answer to, but he’d have to figure it out if they ever hoped to escape this place.

* * *

Zia had to admit that she was impressed at how adroitly Persephone lured the destroyers out of position around the flip point so that Audacious could slip into the system. The Marine Raider strike ship had pulsed their drives in a way that wasn’t covered by their stealth from deeper into the system.

It had taken several tries before one of the destroyers decided to go in for a closer look, which drew the other destroyer along. It seemed that neither one of them wanted to cede control of the situation to the other.

As a tactical officer, she’d have suspected smugglers, so that was what these two probably thought they were dealing with.

Only there was nothing there when they arrived, and then that same drive pulse came from deeper in the system, luring them a little bit more. And so on.

The distraction was plenty for Audacious to slip through the flip point and turn to quietly boost until they were outside of easy scanner range. That was a ticklish operation because even though the destroyers weren’t all that close to the flip point anymore, all it would take was an observant scanner operator to potentially pick them up.

Zia was willing to take luck when she could get it, and this time they got lucky.

If they hadn’t, she’d have had that confrontation with the destroyers and tried to keep it from turning into an outright fight. One way or the other, she’d have gotten into the system, and that was all that really mattered.

As soon as they were safe from detection, Persephone made a stealthy approach and joined up with them. Angela made her way over by pinnace so that they could have a private meeting to discuss exactly what they’d found out so far.

Sadly, it wasn’t very much at all.

Once the two of them had settled into a small corner of the conference room, they’d gotten down to business. There wasn’t any need to pull her entire staff into a meeting for something where they didn’t know anything at all.

“I don’t suppose you made any kind of amazing breakthrough in locating our missing sheep, have you?” Zia asked almost rhetorically.

Angela shook her head. “No, although we might be able to get some information off the local net about the people that picked them up. My Raiders got decent visuals off the pair of them, and that’s probably going to be the only way we’ll know exactly who we’re dealing with.

“Maybe you can explain to me why the resistance didn’t give us visuals of the people we were meeting. It seems like that would be something rather important to know. While this business of code phrases and secret handshakes is fun, couldn’t we just know who the hell we’re meeting?”

The irritation in the other woman’s voice made Zia smiled a little. “Spies will be spies. If you start poking around in just about any kind of intelligence operation, you’ll find out that they like their secrets. Why have something as mundane as recognizing your contact by sight when you can exchange a code phrase?”

“It would also be nice to know where the local resistance is working,” Angela continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “Having an address to go find where they’d taken our people would be handy about now.

“Though I suppose it would be too much to hope for that they’d actually take them to a known resistance stronghold. They might expect that we already know where to look for them.”

It would be nice to have that kind of information, but they could work around it. It would take some hard work and a little bit of luck, but with the extended range on their people’s implant coms, they could find them. They’d just have to get some people onto the planet to begin the search.

“I’ve already talked to the people we have from Harrison’s World, and they’re more than willing to head down and set up shop to look for our people. They can rent some vehicles and do a lot of driving around to see if they can pick up their com signals.

“And while they do that, we’re just going to have to start gathering information about the people in charge of the official forces the old-fashioned way. Gossip.”

Angela chuckled slightly at that. “And who exactly are we going to gossip with?”

“We’ll start out with the official news channels. They’ve got to have some kind of information going on about the conflict. Then, depending on who’s in charge of the transmission station, they’ll label one side or the other as the good or bad guys. Once we have names, we can start putting together dossiers on these people.

“I’d much rather have Ambassador Bandar negotiating with them, but if need be, we’ll manage without her. This is the first system that we need to bring under our control, and I’d like to have these destroyers in one piece, but that’s not required. If I have to, I’ll show them my fist.

“What about your Raiders? I know you lost most of your people taking out the Master AI, but is there any way some of you could form a strike team that we could use if need be? My first impulse is going to be using them to rescue our people when we find them, but there are other uses for Marine Raiders in powered armor.”

Angela nodded. “All I have left is my command staff, but you’ll have whoever you need. Whenever the time comes to break our people loose, you can rest assured that we’ll be there to make some people hurt.”

Zia reached across the corner of the table and took the other woman’s hand in hers. “I still don’t have any word on Carl and the rest. Doctor Parker thinks that she’s got an avenue that she might use to trick the ring into turning on.

“She’d rather not try it unless she has to, but I’m going to give them twenty-four more hours, and then we’re going to force the ring to activate if we can.”

Angela swallowed before nodding. “I’d like to be here for that, but I’m not sure that’s going to be possible. I have to count on your folks being able to rescue them because I’m going to need to be at the sharp end of the stick.”

“We’ll do our very best. And you’re right that you’re going to have to be at the sharp end. Be ready to poke someone very soon.”

23

“Do you think they could’ve gone somewhere else?” Kelsey asked as she looked around the large room without seeing any sign of the missing men. “Maybe they’re tracing some of the power relays or something.”

“Wherever they are, they’re not answering their coms,” Collins said. “I want to make it very clear that I’m not happy with people just wandering off without telling me where they’re going. This is how people get themselves killed.”

She felt like snapping back at him, but she restrained herself. He was worried about the missing men, and so was she. For that matter, he’d been worried about her while she was missing. She could understand that even if she didn’t have much regret about doing what she’d done.

Even though she did feel bad about what she’d put the man through, that wouldn’t stop her from doing it again if she thought it was warranted. For the moment, they needed to focus on finding the missing scientists and their marine guard.

“We’ve already established that the lowest levels of this facility are com blocked from the upper layers. It’s one of the side effects of the strange soil this place has. That’s why they probably didn’t call you before they did whatever they did.

“If we’re not receiving them down here, that means they’ve either gone up to one of the upper levels or down underneath this one. Maybe they left some notes or another clue that we can use to determine where they went.”

They all spread around the tables that Carl and the rest had been using, but none of the materials seemed to point in a particular direction. Almost all of the raw data was undoubtedly inside the scientists’ implants.

Where had they gone? Why?

“I found something,” Elise said. “Rather, the robot found something.”

Kelsey turned in a circle but didn’t spot her friend. “Where are you?”

“Behind the big machine. There’s some kind of open panel here.”

Everyone moved around to the back of the machine, and sure enough, there was an open access panel that led into what looked like a conduit going down.

“So they probably went down,” she said as she turned to face the others. “We’ve obviously got to go after them.”

Collins put his hands on his hips and shook his head as he glared at her. “Did we not just have a conversation about you going off and putting yourself into danger? There are only a few of us here, and we can’t risk the entire group on something that might’ve killed the first group.”

“I can go down,” Sommerville said. “Out of all of us, I’m probably the most expendable. Besides, I’m really curious what’s down there.”

“I’m not letting any of you go down there without me,” Kelsey said firmly. “That’s not happening. If we’re going to go see what happened to half our group, the rest of us are going to go. Understand?”

As if it had been listening, the robot chose that moment to enter the tube and begin climbing downward, adroitly using its legs to grab any protrusion to support itself. In moments, it had gone beyond the range of their sight.

The marine officer sighed, used his suit light to look through the opening at the conduit’s interior, and then climbed inside and began following the robot down.

Kelsey quickly followed him, as did the rest.

Now they really were going to have all their eggs in one basket. If they dropped it, this would be the end. Still, if their friends needed rescue, it might take all of them.

They climbed downward for what felt like forever, coming out into several large areas that looked like gigantic air pockets. In each, the alien robot was waiting for them. Kelsey was glad that it wasn’t getting too far ahead of them.

Maybe they were caused by volcanic action or some other process that she didn’t understand, but she found the wide-open spaces spooky.

“I hear somebody coming up from below us,” Collins said. “Maybe it’s the others. I’m sending a signal.”

Moments later, Kelsey heard the sound as well when she turned up her hearing. It certainly sounded like people climbing a ladder, which was similar enough to what they were doing.

“It’s them,” Collins said. “They said that they’re safe and that they found something amazing. They’ve been down there examining it, and they want us to take a look, since we’re so close.”

That, of course, meant climbing down more of the strange spikes until it eventually let them out onto a metal walkway in a vast dark space. Well, it wasn’t completely dark. There was enough light to see the walls and ceiling of the place, and it was huge.

Standing there waiting for them were Carl and the other three. None of them was injured, and they all seemed none the worse for wear.

She pulled her young friend into a hug. “I’m glad to see that you’re okay. You scared the major.”

Collins snorted but didn’t respond to the bait.

“I think we found the power source,” Carl said with a grin. “Watch your step and hold onto the rail, but take a look over the side.”

She did as instructed and didn’t understand what she was looking at. It almost looked like a sphere of water being held up above the ground in some strange manner. No, not above the ground, just in the center of whatever this gigantic cavity was.

“What am I looking at?” she asked slowly.

“We’re at the center of this planetoid. Whatever that liquid is, I believe that it’s generating most of the gravity we’re feeling. That means it’s incredibly dense, and if the aliens were siphoning it up to their machinery to create power, then all we have to do is figure out how to get it flowing again, and we might be able to reactivate the transport ring.”

Kelsey looked around the platform but didn’t see anything that would siphon liquid up to the surface. “How is that supposed to work? We didn’t pass any pipes on the way down.”

“I found traces of strange material is still on the rocks in several of the cavities that we passed through. The aliens had a way of drawing the liquid up into the tube we descended through.”

“I don’t see anything down here. Do you know something that I don’t?”

“No,” Carl said, deflating a little. “I have to say that it’s still something of a mystery to me.”

“I see something,” Elise said, pointing out into the darkness. “Something is glowing on the ceiling over there. Do you see it?”

Kelsey faced that way and cranked up the optics in her ocular implants. She didn’t see anything, and she said so.

“Then it’s something specific to the alien technology,” her friend said. “It’s the same color as the runes that only I can see. I wonder how we’re supposed to get over there?”

She turned and looked at the robot.

“We haven’t got any idea how well that thing can hold to the ceiling,” Kelsey said firmly. “I’m not going to see you risk your life over something like this.”

She dug into her pack and pulled out the dead drone. “All we have to do is swap out the power pack on this thing, and we can send it to take a look. That’ll be a lot safer. Tell me we don’t have to climb up to get one.”

Austin shook his head and pulled a powerpack out of his satchel. “Never leave home without a spare.”

She watched him get to work on the drone and hoped that Carl was really onto something. If they didn’t solve this problem soon, this alien place would eat their bones.

* * *

Tranick had her burly guard drag Justine down the hall to another room, where they strapped her into a kind of chair that leaned back. It looked like something from a doctor’s office, but she didn’t feel very reassured under the circumstances.

“What exactly are you hoping to prove?” she asked her captor. “Even if I had the information you want, exactly how is it going to help you? Our people aren’t going to work with you now that we’ve missed our check-in. You do realize that we were supposed to have called to let them know that we were safe, right?”

“We have plans in motion that I believe will be more than sufficient for us to gain control of the system and perhaps even more,” the woman said with a sharklike smile. “I don’t intend to utilize any of the information or forces that you’re bringing to bear, only allow them to be factored into our planning. You see, you’re a distraction, and I need to make sure that you don’t interfere in things that you don’t understand.”

The woman turned to a small cart that she pulled close to the table as the guard strapped Justine’s arms down. As soon as she was secure, he moved to work on her legs, and she took the opportunity to kick him in the face.

As such things went, it was a pretty pathetic attempt at violence, but he didn’t seem to have expected it, and he really should have.

Sadly for her, all she did was cause him a minor amount of pain. She didn’t even manage to break his nose. She really needed to get a little bit of extra self-defense training in case this kind of thing ever came up again.

The woman assisted the man in holding her legs while he strapped them down. Then he glared at her and punched her in the stomach. The blow drove the air out of her, and she felt her entire midsection cramp with pain.

“Tsk, tsk,” the woman said. “That kind of resistance is going to get you hurt. Now my big friend is certainly going to enjoy what comes next. I hope you learn a lesson from it.”

“If you’re the kind of people that the resistance recruited, they didn’t do a very good job of screening you,” Justine said, laboring to catch her breath. “Not only are you a backstabbing bitch, you’re a bully and a sadist.”

Her words just made the woman laugh. “You are so precious. I don’t know what kind of situation you thought you were getting into, but this is a game played by professionals. That means we all have to do things that we might not enjoy. On the other hand, some of us do enjoy them. That’s why we’re better suited to lead.”

The woman reached over to the tray and picked up some kind of paddle with a metal insert in its center. It was connected to a machine by a coiled cable. The woman used one hand to pull Justine’s shirt up and placed cold metal against her aching stomach. Then she pressed something on the paddle, and Justine’s universe dissolved into agony.

She screamed and writhed on the table, trying to get away from the source of her pain. That wasn’t possible, but it didn’t stop her from trying. The pain seemed to go on for an eternity, but it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds before the woman pulled the paddle away from her.

“Perhaps now you see how irrelevant your brave words are,” Tranick said. “I can keep doing this all day long. It’s not going to hurt me one little bit. You, on the other hand, are going to eventually pass out from the pain, and I’ll have to bring in one of our medics to wake you up so that we can have another go at it.

“Are you looking forward to hours of this? Why don’t you just do the smart thing and tell me what I want to know? You’re going to give in at some point, so why not save yourself the trouble?

“No one’s coming to rescue you. We’ve hidden you in a place that no one even knows to connect to the resistance. We’ll keep torturing you until I get the information that I want. Then, if you haven’t been too much of a problem, I’ll even let you live.”

Justine really seriously considered telling her something. Not the truth, but a believable lie.

Then she reconsidered. The woman would have some way of verifying what she said. She wouldn’t just take her word for it.

“And what’s to keep me from just lying to you?”

The woman smiled a little bit more brightly. “Whatever information I get from you, I’m going to run past your friends. If they don’t have the same story, then there’s more torture to go around for everyone. One way or another, you’ll eventually tell me what I want to know, and they’ll confirm it.

“And if you’re stronger than you look, then I suppose I’ll have to pick one of them to kill as an example. Can you imagine what it’s like to be in such pain that you simply die from it? Having witnessed it happen more than once, I can tell you that there are very few worse ways to go.

“If you care about your friends at all, you’ll tell me what I want to know. Don’t make me pick one to kill as an example. Neither of us really wants that, do we?”

“You’re a monster,” Justine assured the woman. “When the shoe is on the other foot, you’re going to regret every moment of this.”

The woman laughed brightly. “Your optimism amazes me. Let’s see if you can keep it up when we hit the one-hour mark.”

Tranick put the paddle back against Justine’s stomach, the agony rolled over her again, and she screamed.

24

Elise watched as Carl moved the drone toward the slight blue gleam she could see in the distance on the ceiling of the giant cavern. Based on past experience, she didn’t expect this particular exercise to bear fruit. The drone wouldn’t be able to see if anything glowed when it got there. Only the nanites and other things inside her seemed to be able to do that.

The young scientist adroitly maneuvered the drone until it circled the area where Elise had seen the color. Since she was tapped into the drone’s feed, it wasn’t hard to see what he was looking at.

A portion of the clumpy, swirling, colorful ceiling had been dug out and replaced with dark stone that had once been polished smooth. Its surface was now pitted and cracked, hinting at the amount of the time it had been here.

Embedded into the stone was a device of some kind. She didn't know why it needed to be set in ordinary stone rather than the material all around them, yet the stone they saw through the drone’s feed was obviously imported from their universe, or perhaps one very much like it.

The device itself was just as incomprehensible as one might expect of alien technology. The one thing she could determine was that it had a control panel of some kind, which would be where the runes were located.

Sadly, she couldn’t see anything through the drone’s feed. It looked like a flat surface to her. She’d have to see it with her own eyes to know what she was looking at.

As with any of these alien devices, she had no idea what activating the machine would do or how to control it if she did, yet she felt confident that they’d end up making the decision to activate it when the time came. They were running out of choices.

“Why would the aliens put something to control their power system way over there?” Carl grumbled. “This is the area they could climb down to, so how do they expect to reach it? It’s not as if they couldn’t just put it right here by this platform.”

“They’re giant space crabs,” Kelsey said with a laugh. “With the ceiling like this, I’d imagine that all they’d had to do was climb over to it like we’d walk across a floor. We’re the only ones that are going to have trouble making it work.”

Carl grumbled something inaudible but didn’t respond directly to her comment. Instead, he sent the drone circling around to examine the rest of the cavern. If there were more machines, he’d find them. At the very least, he might solve the mystery of what the globe of liquid was.

The search took about twenty-five minutes but revealed that the cavern was almost five hundred meters across, and the globe of liquid was just over a hundred meters in diameter.

There were a total of twenty machines embedded into the rock of the cavern ceiling, all equidistant from one another and spread around the liquid sphere. None of them appeared to be doing anything.

Maybe they were out of power, in which case she and her friends were screwed.

Carl brought the drone back over and began rigging it with a sample arm. Based on his conversation with Ralph and Austin, he wanted some of the liquid. That seemed dangerous to her, but he was the expert, and she’d concede the call to him.

Without being able to see what the runes on these devices looked like or if all of them were still active, she wasn’t sure how realistic her hope to restore the system was. To know anything for sure, she’d have to actually go out to one of the machines and take a closer look.

No one else was thinking about that yet, so she decided to keep her opinion to herself as she started examining the robot. She walked around it, looking at its legs. It could probably maintain a firm grip on the ceiling without falling, she decided. That was important because she had no desire to die.

Keeping a grip on the robot was going to be challenging because she’d be riding upside down and hanging toward the source of gravity below them. Not exactly the safest of endeavors. Rope saddles, maybe?

Or did she have to ride on top of the machine? After all, riding on animals was more a factor of putting the animal between one and gravity. With gravity being the equivalent of over the ground, maybe she should be between the robot and the ceiling. That would certainly protect her from falling more effectively.

That still didn’t mean that this would be safe. If the robot lost its grip, they’d both be doomed. If it lost part of its grip, it could dump her, and she’d be the one falling to her death.

No matter how she cut it, this wasn’t going to be a safe exercise, but it was a necessary one. They had to know what these machines were and how to bring them back to life.

It was more than a little difficult to see underneath the robot, since it usually sat so close to the ground. That was probably going to be an issue as well. She didn’t want to be crushed between the robot and the ceiling.

At this point, she had no doubt that the robot would do what was necessary to protect her because it had proven itself to be concerned about her safety on multiple occasions. It wouldn’t harm her out of carelessness.

Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

She tapped the bottom of the robot with her hand and then began crawling underneath it. It raised itself slightly to give her some access and then raised itself even more as she crawled directly under it.

The bottom of the robot was reasonably smooth, so they could take some rope and tie it around its shell to secure her. Then, if she positioned her back against the robot’s undershell, she’d be protected when the robot was hanging onto the ceiling.

What kind of tools would she need? If it came to repairing something, it might be better to send Carl on a second trip. There wasn’t enough room for the two of them. If it only came to testing what the controls did, then it would have to be her because the others couldn’t see the runes.

Well, it wasn’t going to be easy to get out there, but she might as well start securing herself to the robot so that it could take her where she wanted to go.

If, of course, Kelsey allowed her to go. Or maybe Major Collins would be the one to nix the entire idea. They might have a fight about who got to tell her no.

She was about to crawl out from under the robot and start that argument when it reached inward with several of its legs and pressed her gently against its undershell with their length. The points and manipulators at the ends of the legs weren’t touching her. It was more like the creature was holding her with its forearms. Its grip was secure.

With no instruction from her, it proceeded to climb up the railing directly next to them and onto the ceiling. Once it was reoriented with her between the rock and itself, it began scurrying out over the open air and toward the first machine with terrifying speed.

It took every bit of her willpower not to scream.

She hadn’t given it any orders. It had somehow figured out what she wanted and was executing the plan she’d only been thinking about. Carl was right. These nanites could read her mind, and that scared her.

Well, maybe falling scared her a little bit more right now.

Everybody was shouting at her to come back, and she had no idea what she would tell them. She supposed that it really didn’t matter at this point how much they complained. It wasn’t as if they could come after her. She was committed now.

She’d just tell them what she was doing when she got to the first machine and act as if she’d told the robot to take her there. There wasn’t any need to get them worried about mind-reading nanites and free-willed robots. One problem at a time.

Right now, she needed to figure out how these machines controlled the potential fuel source below them. Then she needed to reactivate the system without killing everyone.

Piece of cake.

* * *

Zia got her staff monitoring the news and entertainment programs being transmitted throughout the system, gathering data on the current conditions. It quickly became apparent that the various stations were controlled by one side of the conflict or the other.

Each of the opinion shows—and even the news programs—were cheerleaders for one of the perspective rulers vying for dominance. There was no middle ground in the coverage of the struggle for political supremacy.

If she’d come into this situation blind, hearing only one side of the propaganda, she’d have believed that the conflict was a very one-sided affair and victory was imminent. Taken together, it was evident that the two sides were very closely matched and that this situation wasn’t going to be resolved anytime soon.

Unless someone meddled in it, which she intended to do.

Listening to the heavily censored propaganda gave them an idea of what each public relations department wanted to put out. Both sides wanted to be seen as the ones who’d wrested control of the system away from the AIs and the ones who had overthrown the system’s original coordinator, who they all labeled as being in the computer’s pocket.

Personally, since Zia knew that the ordinary people living in the Rebel Empire were skeptical of their own governments to begin with, she didn’t expect anyone actually bought what was being sold.

They rightly understood that the government would shape what was allowed to be heard to fit their narrative while simultaneously denigrating anything that the other side put out.

Sadly, when one didn’t have a genuinely independent fourth estate, that was always a very real possibility. Even back in the New Terran Empire, certain news organizations were more than happy to provide political cover for their favored groups.

Those groups would cheerfully obscure facts that didn’t fit their narratives and shade public opinion through manipulation or outright lies. Fortunately, that sort of thing wasn’t as common as it had once been because Imperial law allowed for the most egregious examples of this kind of behavior to be punished in the courts.

Kelsey had inspired her to study events back on prespaceflight Terra. While she hadn’t fallen into the trap of watching the never-ending list of vids that Kelsey had recommended for her to watch, many history books talked about governments and societies of the time.

It was interesting to read about how the most repressive regimes had such total control over communication and disseminating information. Those types of governments couldn’t allow dissent in any form. Even mild criticism would be heavily punished.

She hoped with all her heart that they could avoid some of the mistakes of the past, but she knew that history had a way of repeating itself because people were often willing accomplices to creating that very same kind of environment.

It didn’t take them long to gather enough information for her staff to build dossiers on the leading politicians running the show inside the Devon system. She’d been given a lot of details from the leadership of the resistance, but she preferred gathering her own intelligence.

Getting data on the people working underneath the two potential rulers—who were once lieutenants to the original coordinator—would take longer and would be more challenging, but her people were already working on making that a reality.

It wasn’t too difficult to locate the military assets inside the system. They’d already found two of the destroyers at the flip point and knew through intelligence that there would be a total of four additional destroyers in the system.

Their stealthed probes had found two more near the main world, which wasn’t a surprise. Neither side of this conflict would cede control of their homeworld to the other. They didn’t want to be seen fighting over it in the truest sense, but neither would allow the other to be seen as in control.

The last pair of destroyers hadn’t turned up on any of their passive scans, and it had taken Fiona parsing all the scanner data to locate them. They were out near one of the gas giants.

That almost certainly meant that there’d been an AI facility in the gas giant’s atmosphere, just as there had been in the Harrison’s World system. If it had been like that, the station had probably supported four battlecruisers at one time.

Those were almost certainly gone by now, on their way to join the growing fleet commanded by Admiral Mertz at Alpha Centauri. They would’ve been called there by the same ship that had delivered the order to the AI to submit to the civilian rulers.

The people here would’ve seen them depart, and those destroyers were probably overseeing the exploration of the station that had been left behind. Of course, neither side could afford to leave something like that entirely under the control of the other, and Zia was somewhat surprised there hadn’t been shots fired over it yet.

Honestly, the military situation in this system was relatively straightforward. If she wanted to seize control, she’d be able to do so at any point she wanted. The most she’d have to fight at one time would be two destroyers. It would take the other four an extended period of time to get to the fight, which would serve her well.

After a brief discussion with her people, she decided that the most fruitful place to make their initial move would be the gas giant. It was isolated from the other areas occupied by destroyers inside the system, and so they’d have military superiority from the moment that they revealed themselves.

One of the benefits of this plan was that no civilian infrastructure was put into danger if shots were fired. She wanted to minimize the possibility of harming anyone who wasn’t hostile to her. Their goal was to make the system an ally rather than become its oppressors.

If she revealed herself as planned, she had little doubt that there would be a fight. Her idea of diplomacy in this situation would be to use her carrier and its associated fighters as a hammer to wave around and ask who wanted to be next.

It wasn’t as subtle as what Justine Bandar had probably intended, but Zia thought it would be pretty effective. She hoped that she didn’t have to make an example of either of the destroyers, but she was almost sure that she’d have to damage them to some degree before they’d stand down or try to flee.

Not that she could allow them to escape. One way or the other, she’d subdue those ships and then call on the rest of the system to stand down or face the consequences.

Audacious was significantly larger than even the battlecruisers that had left the system, and she dwarfed the destroyers. Even with her reduced armament, this was not a fight that Zia worried about losing. The biggest risk was the loss of any of her fighters and their associated pilots.

Zia gave the order. It would take them an additional couple of days to sneak into position because they needed to slip around and make their approach from the far side of the gas giant to minimize the possibility of being detected before they were on top of the other ships.

If it had been her, she’d have placed probes on the far side of the gas giant so that nobody could sneak up on her, but these ships were confident that they knew where every military vessel in the system was located. They didn’t expect any surprises, and that was going to cost them dearly.

Zia opened a channel to the main bridge, and her flag captain answered at once.

“Yes, Commodore?”

“It’s time, Brandon. Set course for the gas giant. Make sure that Annette has her pilots well rested by the time we get there. I want this fight to be quick. We can’t give them time to do something we’ll all regret.

“If we can force them to surrender immediately because we’ve caught them with their pants down around their ankles, that would be the best outcome.”

“And if we can’t?” the burly man asked.

“Then we’ll just hope that we don’t have to kill too many people bringing them to heel.”

25

Carl watched anxiously as the robot holding Elise climbed out onto the roof of the cavern and scurried toward the first machine that she’d spotted. There’d been no discussion about doing anything like this, and he found his heart in his throat at the unexpected risk she was taking.

“What the hell are you doing?” Kelsey demanded from where she stood next to Carl. “Get back here, Elise.”

“Not exactly in control here,” Elise said tightly. “I was thinking about taking a look at the machine, and the robot decided that that was a great idea. It looks like I’m going to take a look whether I want to or not. I’ll be as careful as I can, but I’m kind of committed here.”

Carl used his implants to tap into the vid feed from Elise’s suit and see that the robot had her clutched tightly against its body. There wasn’t a lot of space between the robot and the stone, and it seemed to be moving quickly but carefully, so he hoped it wasn’t putting the Pentagaran princess in any danger.

A few moments later, the view from the suit changed, and Carl got a good look at the machine embedded in the stone. And that was what it really was. This wasn’t the colored sand that looked like whipped cream that existed on the exterior of this planetoid they were on. This was actual stone.

“Get a good scan of that rock,” he said. “Get samples if possible. If it was quarried somewhere else in this universe, that means there’s something like a real planet here. If not, they chose to bring that stone from our universe, and I’d like to know why.”

“I don’t have any sampling tools, so you’re out of luck on the samples,” she said. “I’ll get as good a look as I can and then get the robot to head to the next one. We’ll look at each of these devices and see if you can figure out what they do and how to activate them. I’ll describe what the runes look like, and maybe that will help make some sense of this.

“I suspect that activating these machines while we’re down here would be a really, really bad idea, so I’d like to avoid that. I’ve gotten us in more than enough trouble doing crap like that already.”

Carl, for his part, agreed. If they accidentally reactivated the pumping station, the shaft that they’d used to get here would flood, and they’d be in serious trouble or dead.

The best plan was to get everyone back up top and secure the panel on the machine before anyone tried to activate the system. That was going to be difficult. Not impossible but very, very challenging.

Kelsey and Major Collins stepped over beside Carl, looking extremely dissatisfied. Like himself, neither one of them was pleased to see the princess putting herself in danger again, yet it wasn’t exactly like they’d had a lot of choices.

She was the only one who could see the strange alien runes, and without having that detailed information, they wouldn’t know what they needed to do next. Even with the information that she could provide, the chances of figuring out how to get the power system back online were probably extremely low.

“Do you really think that she’s going to find something worthwhile?” Collins asked.

Carl shrugged. “There’s no telling. If she doesn’t look, we won’t find anything. I think we have to just accept that none of us will be particularly safe until we’re back in our own universe.

“We’ve got to explore each and every opportunity that can get us out of here, and that’s going to entail risk. We have a hard deadline with our air supply. We’re going to run out in less than forty-eight hours, and that’s going to be the end of us. We have to find a way home before then.”

“Not quite,” Kelsey said. “Elise and I took our helmets off outside earlier. There’s breathable air there, and we showed no ill effects from the experiment.

“Major Collins is, of course, supremely pissed that we did that, but it does take that one worry off the table. In fact, you might want to take your helmets off now and save the air that’s left inside your suits. We might need that canned air later.”

“I can probably rig up a pump to fill our reservoirs back up,” Carl said slowly. “Like you said, one never knows when we might need that air. Like if we have to jump down into some strange sphere of liquid.”

“I certainly hope that we don’t have to do that,” Kelsey said glumly, glancing over the rail at the odd liquid below.

“I’m not happy about any of this, but we’re out of time,” Collins admitted. “Our supply of food and water won’t last more than a week no matter how we try to stretch it out, and that’s something that we’re not going to be able to fix.

“We can recycle some of the water through our suits, but that’s not going to work for long. The filters will get clogged, and we’re just not going to be able to save every single drop. Every bit of perspiration that evaporates is moisture that we’re not going to be able to recover.

“As for food, we’ve got enough to last about a week. We can stretch that some by reducing the rations now, but since we’ll already be out of water, that’s not going to help us that much.”

“We can’t cut Princess Kelsey’s rations down,” Don Sommerville said as he stepped up to join them. “Not only is her metabolism jacked up to a higher rate, but malnutrition can also cause significant damage to a growing child. That means that she needs to have full rations, and the rest of us are just going to have to make do.”

Kelsey didn’t look happy at that, but based on everyone else’s expressions, she wasn’t going to have a choice in the matter.

Good.

“The runes on this one are different,” Elise said, distracting him from the conversation and derailing Kelsey’s misguided and inevitable counterargument that she shouldn’t be treated any differently than the rest of them.

Carl brought his attention back to the feed from Elise’s visual and saw that she’d moved on to a different machine. Since he couldn’t see the runes themselves, he had no idea what she was talking about.

“How are they different?”

Without touching the control surface, Elise drew the runes that she was looking at in the air, and he was able to use her motions to see that the runes were, in fact, very different than the ones she’d described on the first machine.

He should’ve had her use gestures like this to record what she’d looked at the first time and made a mental note to have her go back and do that before she returned to the platform, so they’d have a complete set to examine before they made any final decisions on what needed to be done here.

He looked out over the cavern to see where she’d gone, but the alien robot was lost in the gloom. The light being cast up by the liquid had begun dimming. The combat remote that they’d thrown down had stirred up something, but its activity was now decreasing.

He certainly hoped that they hadn’t disturbed anything living. The idea of a monster down there wasn’t something that he really wanted to contemplate, so he decided not to mention that possibility to any of the others. This place was already spooky enough.

“I think that if you get a decent look at each of these machines and draw out what the runes look like, we’ll at least be able to guess at what some of them might mean,” he told Elise. “Or if you find a machine that looks radically different from the rest, that might be a master controller. Just be careful and don’t touch anything that you don’t have to.”

“I am being careful,” she grumbled. “Now tell that to this damned robot. I keep worrying that it’s going to lose its grip and fall into the water below. If that’s water. Somehow, I’m guessing not.”

“Probably not,” he agreed, again thinking of the potential monster below. “Maybe you should think careful thoughts at the robot to make sure that it knows how concerned you are.”

“I’m doing that too. Just let me finish going to all of these blasted machines so that I can get back on the platform.”

“Make a pass back by the first one and sketch the runes so that we have a complete set before you come back.”

They all waited as patiently as they could for the robot to take Elise from machine to machine. Each of them was identical in how they were laid out, but it turned out that there were actually twenty-one interfaces even though there were only twenty machines.

As Elise was coming back toward the platform, she spotted a small panel with a couple of runes directly over their heads.

Well, that was convenient. It also made a great deal of sense because why would someone actually want to climb out into the strange cavern to turn the damned things on?

Once the robot had released her, Elise stood on the platform and stretched, making her back pop. She stared up at the runes above them and shook her head.

“I can’t believe that I missed those. They were sitting right in front of my face.

“I suppose putting them there makes sense. If you’re going to have controls where you need to get out of someplace in a hurry, then you probably want them to be easily accessible.”

Carl agreed with that sentiment, but it was always dangerous to assign human motives to aliens. Just because it looked like they’d done something for a particular reason was no guarantee that that would be true.

This particular set of controls didn’t contain four runes like they’d seen before, he saw as Elise started explaining what she was looking at. It only had two.

For the life of him, he couldn’t quite figure out what that might mean. Perhaps one of them turned the pumping station on, and the other turned it off, but if the liquid was required for the power to be functional, then how would someone be down here to turn it off?

Maybe the liquid only flowed cyclically so that the operators could determine in advance and had gaps in the flow where they could go up and down.

“There’s something different about these runes,” Elise said. “One is glowing brighter than any of the runes I’ve seen thus far, and the other is significantly dimmer. Not completely greyed out like something is nonfunctional but dimmer than normal.”

“Maybe that indicates an on-off condition,” Carl ventured, suspecting this confirmed his earlier guess. “If this is like the alien equivalent of a rocker switch, it can have only one position active at a time. If that’s true, I wonder whether brighter means on or off.”

“Considering that the ones that are broken don’t have any light at all, I suspect the brighter one is the on position,” Elise ventured. “And, if you press the off button by mistake and it’s already turned off, that’s not going to change anything.”

“True, but that assumes the same logic that we would use. We can’t be sure until we give it a try, and to do that, we need to get everyone out of here.

“Grab a marker and draw those runes so that someone else who is a lot faster at climbing than you can play with the buttons when we’re ready.”

He half expected her to argue, but she simply took the marker that one of the marines handed her and drew the runes on the stone. Once she was done, she wasted no time starting back up into the shaft overhead and beginning the long climb back to the power room.

In just a couple of minutes, he was alone on the platform with Kelsey and Major Collins.

“I think that I should be the one doing the climbing,” Kelsey suggested. “Even under conditions like these, I’m still faster than the two of you. My augmentation gives me an edge that you wouldn’t have, and that could cost you your lives.”

The major shook his head. “If this was meant to activate the machine, then the aliens had to be able to get out too. You should go up and leave this to me. It’s my job to put myself in danger, and if something goes wrong, you can afford to lose me a lot more than we can afford to lose you.”

When Kelsey opened her mouth to object, Carl simply pushed her toward the shaft. “This is one of those arguments that you’re not going to win, Kelsey. Just accept that it’s time for somebody else to take their chances. Let’s get upstairs, and we’ll call back down to let the major know when we’ve made it.

“Major, if you haven’t heard from us in an hour, assume that we’ve made it up and just can’t get a signal to you. We’ll leave the access panel open as long as we can, but if we start hearing liquid coming up, we’re slamming it closed.”

“I’ve got my vacuum suit, so I should be okay even if that happens,” Collins said. “I’m going to trust that the aliens took this all into account. We’ll just have to hope for the best and see if this solves our problem. If not, I suppose I won’t have to worry about it.”

“Now there’s a real marine sense of humor,” Kelsey said with a grumpy expression. “I expect you to do everything in your power to get up there safely and on time, Major. Understand?”

“Understood, Highness. I’ll do my best.”

Carl and Kelsey climbed up until they were just behind everyone else and then settled in for the long climb back to the power room. He’d given Major Collins an hour, and it took them almost every minute of that to actually get there.

In fact, his implant timer indicated that there were only three minutes left of the allotted time once everyone was in the power room.

“We’re ready for you, Major,” he said via his com, sticking his head back into the shaft to get the best signal he could.

For a few seconds, there was no response, and he was sure that they were out of range. Then a very faint voice came back over the com.

“Copy that. Hitting the rune that the princess said was dim now. I hear a rumbling sound from down below. Or maybe it’s coming from somewhere else in the cavern. I can’t really tell. Let me take a look.”

There were a few seconds of silence, and then the major spoke again.

“Oh yeah, that ball of liquid is roiling now. I have no idea what it’s going to do, but it looks like it’s ready to do something. I’m on my way back up. Don’t expect to hear from me until I get there.”

They held their breath as Major Collins raced back up the shaft. Where it had taken them an hour to get to the power room, it only took him thirty-five minutes. He must’ve been climbing really, really fast.

As soon as the marine officer threw himself out of the machine, Carl stuck his head into the shaft briefly and could hear the sound of liquid somewhere below them.

He withdrew himself from the machine and got Austin and Ralph to help him secure the panel again. He was afraid it would take too long, but it turned out that they had plenty of time.

After about fifteen minutes of wondering if anything was going to happen, the darkness around them began to lighten. It took a full minute before he was really sure that this wasn’t just a trick of his imagination, but the lights were coming back on.

It wasn’t happening all that quickly, but it was happening. They’d restored some power, and at least the lighting seemed to be functional.

He really hoped that they’d solved their power problem and could go back home. If not, they were at least one step closer to figuring out what they needed to do next.

“Let’s go back up to where we arrived and check the transport ring,” he suggested.

The group made a collective sound of agreement, and they headed back up to see if their unexpected exile was finally over.

26

Justine woke to a pounding head and partially numb body. It was almost like she was burning up with a fever, but there were patches of icy cold on various parts of her body.

The last several days had been filled with meaningless torture. Nothing permanent—at least not yet—but Tranick certainly wanted to make her feel the maximum amount of agony. It was obvious that the woman drew some kind of sick pleasure from inflicting pain.

Justine suspected that she now at least had a pale understanding of what her daughter must’ve gone through when the computer cut her open and implanted her augmentation without anesthesia. A very dim and incomplete understanding.

She hadn’t endured the same level of pain, she was sure, but close enough to understand how terrible that time had to have been for Kelsey. Somehow, she was sure her daughter would agree that this wasn’t appropriate mother-daughter bonding.

Whoever was watching her now undoubtedly knew that she was awake, but she kept her eyes closed and tried to determine where she was. If she could fool them for just a little while, perhaps she could save herself from a bit of torture.

She was lying in a bed, covered by a sheet and blanket, based on the weight of the covering across her. That was new. When they’d finished with her between sessions before, they’d tossed her into a bare room with nothing to cover herself.

It made her suspect that a new phase of the interrogation was about to commence. A more subtle, chess-like maneuvering game where the manipulation that took place could perhaps twist someone who was already weak into giving up information to save themselves from future pain.

She’d never been party to torture before, so she was making some guesses about what the most effective tactic to follow it with would be. If it were her and she was the kind of person who could inflict agony on another simply because she enjoyed it, the best way to break them might be to put them into the hands of someone who seemed sympathetic.

Someone that they could throw themselves onto for protection.

Justine guessed that a lot of people would give up everything to find protection from what she’d just gone through. She understood that, but she wasn’t going to play that game. It was a trick and a trap. The resistance here was her enemy, and she’d be damned if she’d tell them a damned thing.

Even if they killed her.

The sound of the door opening told her that her ruse hadn’t been as effective as she’d hoped. Her captors were coming to get her. The only question was, were they coming to drag her back to the torture room, or was this going to be something more psychological in nature?

“Ambassador Bandar,” a male voice said softly. “I know that you’re awake, and it’s time we had a talk.”

Justine opened her eyes and found that it was difficult to see. The light in the room was a bit bright.

Whoever had been speaking must’ve noted her reaction because the brightness in the room decreased significantly in the next few seconds. That allowed her to blink away the bright afterimages and take a look around.

She ignored the man for a second to determine what kind of room she was in. It was a small, relatively neat bedroom. There were no personal effects of any kind, only a small bed, a dresser, and a doorway that she suspected led to a bathroom.

Definitely not the same ice-cold plascrete floor that Rebecca Tranick and her goons had thrown her into after the earlier torture sessions. This one even had a relatively thin carpet spread across whatever lay beneath it.

Luxury.

Underneath the sheet and blanket, Justine was able to determine that she had her clothes back on. Someone had dressed her while she’d been unconscious, which made her skin crawl. Not that she intended to raise the issue.

She’d found that her tolerance for that kind of thing had increased far more than she’d ever have expected over the last few days. It was hard to get annoyed about someone messing with your naked body when other people were attaching cables to every area of you with the sole purpose of frying you in agony for hours on end.

Seeing her naked was a completely different kind of violation and one that she wasn’t going to waste the mental energy being upset about. She’d deal with it later.

For now, she needed to focus on the man standing beside the door: David Ensign. The bastard who’d been driving the car when Tranick stunned her and her companions.

Should she immediately defy him, or would it be better to play along for a while?

There were some pluses and minuses to either course of action. If she immediately confronted him, the niceness wouldn’t last very long. Tranick was undoubtedly waiting in the wings to sweep in if this ploy was unsuccessful.

The benefits of playing along were that she might get something decent to eat and perhaps other rewards to entice her to cooperate.

Those were traps, she realized. If she allowed herself to be swayed by this ploy once, she would be more inclined to do so again later. If she were in charge of convincing herself to cooperate, she’d start with something small. Something that no one would truly mind giving way on.

Yet it was a slippery slope. If she stepped onto it, she’d almost certainly end up sliding all the way to the bottom, likely hitting every single rock on the way down.

No. Even though it would be nice to have a hot meal and maybe even a bath, she couldn’t allow herself those luxuries. She couldn’t even dream about them. She wasn’t a warrior, but she wasn’t going to give the enemy anything.

“You’ve got a lot of nerve trying to act as if you care about my condition,” she said coldly as she sat up, wrapping the sheet around herself even though she was clothed. “What is it my daughter calls this kind of behavior? Are you the good cop?”

The man frowned slightly. “I’m afraid that I don’t get the reference. There’s no need for you to go through this. I’m here to convince you to stop this madness so that she doesn’t have an excuse to keep doing this to you.”

Justine laughed harshly. “I was right. Good cop, bad cop. Your torturous friend is obviously the bad cop, and now you’re trying to lull me into a false sense of thinking that you care about what happens to me. You’re her partner in crime. You don’t care about what happens to me as long as you get what you want.

“Well, you can go stuff yourself because I’m not going to tell you a single damned thing. You might as well call Tranick back in and get started with whatever round of torture this is going to be because I’m not going to play this game.”

He shook his head sadly. He really was good at pretending to care because his expression would’ve fooled just about anyone.

“I’m sad that you feel that way. It’s been almost three days now. Just bend a little, Justine.”

“You don’t get to use my first name, Ensign. If you think that this is all it takes to break me, then you don’t know what it means to be a Bandar. Go screw yourself and your friend too. Torture me as long as you like. Sometime very soon, my friends are going to find us, and you’re going to be very, very sorry.”

“Well, you can’t say that I didn’t try,” he said with an indifferent shrug. “Good luck with the next round, Ambassador. I understand that Rebecca is pretty upset that she hasn’t broken you yet and will bring out all the bells and whistles this time.

“By the time she’s finished with you, I don’t think there’s going to be much left for your friends to find when we eventually dump your body in some wilderness location. Your friends will never even find your corpse.”

With that, he opened the door and gestured for two hulking brutes to come in. They wasted no time grabbing her, tearing the sheet off of her, and dragging her out to what she was sure was going to be the most unpleasant experience of her life thus far.

Please, God, let her friends find them soon.

* * *

Kelsey had to restrain herself from running back up to the chamber where the transport ring waited. The lights in the corridor were coming on, giving her hope that they’d finally solved the problem that had trapped them here.

Realizing that it would be undignified for her to race to the exit, she restrained herself and walked calmly beside Don Sommerville. As an officer who’d once been the executive officer of a warship, he had the whole “look calm even though everything is going to hell” look about him.

She bet that he wanted to run up there too but was better at restraining himself.

“If we get out of here, what are your people going to do to keep from being trapped here?” she asked.

He shrugged slightly. “I’m not sure. Hell, without Princess Elise helping us, I don’t know that we can even activate either of these rings. I know that I’d sure as hell be worried about disassembling the one on this end. Whoever did that would guarantee that they’d be trapped if they did anything wrong. And they would do something wrong.

“Exploring an alien facility is certainly a very worthwhile thing to do, but I think that until there’s a better way of controlling these transport rings, we’ll have to be very cautious. Coordinator Gatewood would have to make the call, but if it were me, I’d say, ‘Thank you very much for allowing us to explore this strange alien facility with you, but it’s not something that we can pursue by ourselves.’

“Maybe she’d be willing to trade you this facility for something else. I’m sure there’s another secret you’ve got tucked up your sleeves that would more than make up for handing over what looks to be a functional alien facility to you. One that seemingly you can access from wherever you want.”

Kelsey wasn’t sure about that, and that terrified her. If Audacious had moved very far, would the transport ring no longer function? The ones they’d gotten from Omega had a limited range, but considering that they were dealing with something that went between universes, did that still apply?

She had no idea. She certainly hoped everything worked, or they’d be trapped here.

“If we get back to our universe, we’re going to have other things on our plate for a while, I suspect, but I’ll talk with her about doing something like that. I know that I wouldn’t want to be over here without Elise. She’s the key to everything.

“Until we can figure out a way that she can designate other people to see the kind of things that she sees, she’s our only key to understanding the alien technology.”

“You do realize that I’m standing right here, right?” Elise said dryly as she walked behind them. “I have to tell you that I’m not very comfortable having all of these machines inside me. They have their own agendas. Did you see the robot grab me down at the platform and carry me around? I never said a word about what I intended to do.

“Hell, I never actually made a decision to do anything. It read my mind and decided to help me execute my plans whether I wanted it to or not. That scares the hell out of me, and I’m not sure that anybody else should want these things in them.”

Kelsey found it hard to argue with logic like that. She’d already had to deal with the psychological trauma of having Marine Raider augmentation forcibly implanted inside her. At least she had control over the equipment these days.

What Elise had gone through was significantly worse. Not only did she have alien technology running rampant in her body, there was no way to get it out, and it was keeping her from being anywhere near her children. That was horrible and nothing Kelsey wanted any part of.

“That’s something we can talk about when we get back home,” Kelsey decided. “The first thing we need to do is to figure out how to reactivate the damned transport ring and get out of here.”

“It’s either going to work, or it’s not,” Elise said in a somewhat fatalistic tone. “If it was just a matter of power, the fact that it brought us here tells me that it should work. If there’s something physically wrong with the ring on this side, then we’re going to be relying on Carl, Austin, and Ralph to figure the problem out so that we can get out of here.”

That thought kept Kelsey silent all the way back to the large room with the transport ring. She knew that the Three Musketeers were more than capable of solving any kind of technological miracle, but she’d rather not have to bet her life on it.

Once they got into the room, Elise made a beeline straight to the transport ring, brought up her control interface, and touched the appropriate rune with her eyes closed.

For several long seconds, nothing seemed to happen, and Kelsey’s heart dropped. Then the ring filled with darkness once more, just like it had been before they’d come here.

“I was able to reactivate it,” Elise almost crowed. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Kelsey started to say something about letting one of the marines go first, but Elise dropped to all fours and scuttled through the transport ring too quickly for her to say a single word, the damned robot right on her heels.

Dammit.

She really hoped that things kept working and that it wasn’t taking them somewhere else because if it were to close now, there was absolutely no way that they were going to get the ring open again.

She was going to strangle her impulsive friend.

Not wanting to be trapped anywhere without Elise, Kelsey crawled through the darkness right behind her after glancing back to make sure everyone else was following.

They were. Everyone seemed to think staying on the alien world alone was a really bad idea.

To her utter relief, she crawled out into Carl’s lab aboard Audacious. They’d made it home.

She rose to her feet beside the ring and watched as everyone came through in sequence, double-checking that no one was missing. Relief flooded through her as soon as the last person came through.

Elise must’ve killed the connection as soon as the last person had made transit because the darkness vanished. Only once that was done did she turn to see what was going on around her.

A number of scientists from the Dresden orbital were in Carl’s lab, apparently trying to go through everything and reactivate the ring themselves. Fortunately, they hadn’t disassembled it.

Jacqueline Parker, the chief scientist from the Dresden orbital, stepped up next to her and shook her head. The older woman’s expression was severe.

“I can’t believe you kids went through that damned thing without a way back. It’s a miracle that you even got back.

“I’ve already sent a message to Commodore Anderson, and she said that she’s on her way and that no one is to go anywhere until she gets here. If anyone tries to leave, she swears she’ll lock them in the brig and leave them there until the ship gets back to the New Terran Empire.

“She sounds pretty upset, so I hope that you’re ready for a serious ass chewing.”

Kelsey felt like collapsing to the deck in simple relief, but she pulled herself together. “If that’s the worst that we have coming, we’re damned lucky. What’s been going on here while we were gone?”

“I think I’ll leave telling the majority of that story to the commodore, but we’ve moved along to the Devon system. Your mother made a deal with the resistance that if we can bring five systems under our control, they’d acknowledge the sovereignty of the New Terran Empire.

“Your mother went to speak to the resistance here, and she took Coordinator West and Commander Giguere with her. The system has a couple of competing factions that are trying to secure control, and it seems as if there’s something hinky going on with the resistance because right after they landed, we lost contact with your mother and the rest. Now no one is answering our calls.”

Kelsey pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. Of course something had gone terribly wrong while they were missing. Why wouldn’t it?

“Zia is going to have to make that ass chewing a quick one because it looks like we’ve got work to do. Do you think she’ll let us take a shower before she rips our heads off? Or maybe at least let us have some real food? I’m starving.”

27

Elise managed to duck out just after Zia arrived and started tearing into Kelsey about the recent debacle. She knew that she was the one responsible for them being trapped, but she wasn’t sure that she could take being raked over the coals at that particular moment.

Instead, she decided that she needed a shower. Desperately.

While Kelsey and Zia were talking in one of the corners of the lab with Major Collins, she and her robot slipped out the main door before anyone could tell them that they needed to stay. Not that she was under any obligation to do so if they did, but it was far better to simply not be seen.

Once she was clear of the lab, getting back to her quarters was significantly easier. She was still in her vacuum suit, and she knew that she stank after a week of living in it. There hadn’t been enough water to even consider the possibility of cleaning up, and she couldn’t bear the thought of being this filthy for one second longer.

When she arrived at her quarters, she was pleased to see that everything was just as she’d left it. She stripped off the vacuum suit with a wrinkled nose and dumped it in the corner of the room farthest from the bathroom. She’d deal with it once she’d burned her clothes.

Okay, she wasn’t actually going to burn her clothes, but the idea of doing so appealed to her.

She headed into the bathroom and turned the shower onto the hottest setting that she could tolerate. Then she stood under the stream of almost scalding water and let it begin the process of loosening everything that was stuck to her. Yes, her clothes would be soaked, but she could deal with that later.

Still under the hot water, she stripped off her clothes and dropped them on the far end of the shower. The water would help contain some of the stench.

That accomplished, she used shampoo and soap to thoroughly clean her body. There were spots where she’d been rubbed raw, but those would heal with the application of appropriate medicines. It was never recommended to wear the same clothes for an entire week, but they hadn’t exactly had a choice.

Once Elise was sure that she was completely clean, she lathered herself up again and went through the process a second time. This was purely a luxury but one that she would demand before she got something to eat. Something real, not that damned crap they called survival rations.

She made a vow right then to put the research people back on Pentagar to work making food that could last a long time and actually tasted good a reality. It had to be possible, and she was more than willing to give them the budget to make it happen. Someone had to do it.

When she finally shut off the water, she felt like a prune. She also felt somewhat guilty for having used so much water, yet she was feeling human again, and that was important. She wanted to look her best when Zia finally caught up with her and tore a strip off of her for being such an idiot.

As she was drying off, she noticed a dark spot on the back of her left forearm near the wrist. If she’d worn a chronometer, that was where it would’ve sat, only she didn’t. It wasn’t incredibly dark, more like a heavy tan, but there was no reason for it.

What the hell was this? Had something else happened to her while she been over there? She didn’t recall anything hitting her wrist or arm.

And then she remembered the bracelet that she’d found aboard that alien ship and slid onto her wrist underneath her vacuum suit. She’d been wearing it in about the same location. Had something about going from one universe to the other destroyed it and left some kind of marking on her skin? Or had something more ominous occurred?

This was just one more example of why she was an idiot.

Elise sighed and decided that she’d best make sure that there was nothing else she needed to worry about. She stepped over to the full-length mirror and began turning in a slow circle so that she could observe every centimeter of her skin.

Thankfully, there were no other marks that she couldn’t attribute to chafing or dirty clothes. Just the oval on the back of her left wrist.

Somewhat hesitantly, she touched the oval with the index finger of her right hand to see if the skin there felt any different. It felt perfectly normal, so that was a relief.

She slowly let out the breath that she’d been holding and froze when she realized that she no longer saw herself in the mirror. Instead, she was staring at what certainly looked like a disused room paved in stone, with stone walls and a shelf of what looked to be wood on the far side.

Elise’s heart began thudding in her chest, and she took a step back. The room seemed to follow her.

What was going on? How was this possible?

She turned to head out toward her bedroom, and the entrance to the strange room pivoted with her, causing her to step directly into it when she thought she was going to be going through the bathroom door. Moments later, the lights went out, and she was engulfed in darkness.

“What the ever-loving hell?” she almost screamed as she turned around and failed to find the exit to her room behind her.

Her voice bounced back at her from the walls, and it sounded much different than her bathroom. Somehow, she’d gotten trapped in some kind of weird space, and unlike before, she was naked and had absolutely no tools that she could use to do anything.

She had no food, water, or air if that was required. Nothing to make light and nothing to call for help.

Elise used her implants and attempted to connect with Audacious’s network. No dice. What a shock.

She stood there trembling, trying to allow her eyes to adjust to the darkness, but nothing seemed to change. The space around her was as dark as night or a deep cave.

She squatted down and ran her hand across the floor. It felt like actual rock, rather than the bizarre concoction they’d found in the other universe.

It was dusty and gritty and nasty. If she got out of here, she’d be taking another shower before she did anything else.

She needed to figure out if she could get out of this place. Since she’d gotten into this mess by touching the oval on her skin, perhaps that was the method of getting out.

Elise touched the place where the oval would be on the back of her wrist and was suddenly looking back out into her bathroom. She resisted the urge to race through the opening and tried to examine what she was seeing.

It was almost as if an oval-shaped opening in space had appeared in front of her. It was somewhat taller than she was and half again wider. The edges seemed somewhat fuzzy rather than sharp, but she was afraid to touch them. She had no idea whether not she’d lose fingers if she was that thoughtless, and she wasn’t going to count on that stupid regeneration experiment that Carl had conducted to think that she could regrow any lost fingers.

She tried to turn and see what the rest of the strange room looked like, but the doorway turned with her to surprising effect. It rotated around her, and she found herself looking into the bathroom of the stateroom next to hers.

Thank goodness there was no one was in there because that would’ve been awkward.

Elise took a deep breath and turned back toward her own room. The scene shifted again as she did so until she could see her own bathroom ahead of her. She resolutely took a step forward and back into reality.

She didn’t stop walking until she was at the far side of her room. Trembling, she turned around and stared at the bathroom only to see a completely normal compartment. Her quarters looked exactly as they always did, and the strange door had vanished.

What the hell just happened?

She stared at the oval of tanned skin on her forearm and tried to imagine what the hell was going on and failed. Somehow the bracelet that she’d been wearing had vanished, but it had left something that had done this.

Whatever this was.

Was this what the bracelet had done in the other world? Where was that room that she’d stepped into? Was it part of something larger, or was it something isolated, like it was buried underground? There was certainly no sign of light coming from any windows.

Knowing that she was being incredibly reckless but having already been stuck in the other place once, she had to at least see what was there.

She really was an idiot.

Sighing with exasperation, she finished drying off and brushed the strange dust off her feet. Then she dressed in clean clothes and put the foul vacuum suit back on. She’d need everything it could do in case there was trouble.

Then she turned toward the robot. With everything that had been going on, no one had removed the knapsack from its back with all of the things that they’d recovered from the strange, crashed ship with gossamer wings.

Not wanting to waste time, she just left it in place and gestured for the robot to follow her. It would be interesting to see whether or not it could get through the opening. She hoped it wasn’t damaged, but better a robot than a living person.

The last thing she did was find everything she could to eat and drink in her room and stuff it into the knapsack. If anything went wrong, she wanted to have something decent to tide her over.

With that accomplished, she took a deep breath, touched the oval on the back of her wrist, and watched the door open in front of her. Once again, it led into the same room that she’d seen before. She could even see her damp footprints in the dust on the floor.

Interestingly, the door seemed to open in the same spot even though she’d changed position aboard Audacious. She wondered what that meant.

Elise activated the light on her vacuum suit and stepped into the other room. Once she was there, she turned her head and watched the doorway behind her vanish. It literally faded into nothingness and revealed the wall on the other side of the room.

The robot hadn’t made any effort to follow her.

Well, that was inconvenient.

She touched the oval again and watched the doorway reappear. The robot still seemed disinclined to follow her.

“Are you just going to stand there, or are you coming?” she demanded.

The robot walked toward her, and as soon as it touched the doorway, the opening expanded to allow it through and flowed back along its body until the robot was standing in front of her in the new room. Then the opening vanished, and they were alone in the strange place.

“Tell me, do you think I’m stupid?” she asked the robot.

The robot didn’t respond, but she was sure that it thought she was an idiot too.

With the light from her helmet, she gave the room a much better look. The walls, floor, and ceiling were indeed made of cut stone.

Whoever had done the work had been very good. Her father had done things with stone as a young man, so she knew what good work looked like. No mortar was used between the stones because they were trimmed to fit precisely against one another.

The work of a master craftsman, in her opinion.

As she’d seen before, there was a wooden shelf on the far wall, its ends built into the stone, and the shelves recessed into a niche in the wall. Obviously, someone had used mortar there, and she could see signs of it when she looked closely. The wood wasn’t warped, which was interesting. If it’d been here long, shouldn’t it have absorbed moisture and warped?

Then she realized this really was wood that she was looking at. She didn’t recognize what kind of wood, but the grain was impossible to miss.

This had really come from a living thing. Someone had cut the trunk of a tree, planed these pieces of wood flat, and smoothed them by sanding. A sheen of polish indicated that it had also been sealed. This was also the work of a master craftsman.

After examining the bookshelf, she turned in a slow circle and played the light across the entire room. Was this all there was?

No. She’d missed a doorway around the corner in the back of the room. Recessed into that was a thick wooden door banded in brass with a handle that looked to be carved like some kind of animal—an animal that she was unfamiliar with but one that looked predatory.

She took a deep breath, walked over to the door, and tugged on the handle. It wasn’t locked and swung open. The creak of rusted hinges tore through her skull. They hadn’t been oiled in a very long time, it seemed.

On the other side of the door was a hallway made of the same material as the room. Again, there was no sign of anything used to light the area, though brackets were built into the wall that looked like they could hold torches or maybe oil lamps.

Or maybe something that she just couldn’t imagine.

She looked back into the room where she’d appeared and noted that there were several similar appliances mounted to the walls in the corners. She just hadn’t noticed them. She should probably record everything with her implants to be sure that no other details were missed.

She stepped back into the arrival room and turned in a slow circle, recording everything. Then she eyed the doorway. The robot could get through as long as it tilted itself up a little.

In for a penny, in for a pound. She might as well see what else she could find before she went and told someone this crazy story. She was going to get yelled at no matter what happened, so she might as well get her money’s worth.

28

As badly as Zia wanted to tear a strip off Kelsey with a blistering tirade, she couldn’t bring herself to get into it. There were too many other crises in progress, and she needed to get the princess up to speed on what was going on, particularly about her mother on the missing negotiating team.

She also couldn’t stand to be anywhere near the woman. She stank.

“This isn’t over,” she assured the heir to the throne of the New Terran Empire as she pointed toward the main hatch of Carl’s lab. “We’ve got a lot of things to talk about, and you make me want to throw myself out an airlock. Go clean up and meet me in the flag briefing room in half an hour.”

Kelsey nodded and headed for the hatch. When push came to shove, the woman knew how to react to a crisis and wasn’t going to give her trouble. Thank God for that.

She turned to Collins. “The same goes for you, Major. Persephone already has some people down on the planet, searching for our missing sheep, and if they find them, it’s going to be up to you and your people to pry them out of their hole safely.

“I don’t know what kind of games the local resistance is playing, but I’m going to expect you to sort things out on the fly. That means that I need to get you up to speed as well. Clean up and join us in the flag briefing room.”

Just like the princess, the marine officer took off at a jog.

“I’d like to be there,” Don Sommerville said, stepping up beside her and speaking in a low voice. “I understand that Justine and I don’t have anything official, but we’re a couple. I need to know what happened, and I need to be part of the solution. Those people on that planet are something that I understand and can help you formulate a plan to deal with.”

“Then go clean up yourself and join us,” Zia said, tilting her head toward the hatch. “If it’s any consolation, they have no reason to harm any of the prisoners.

“At this point, we’re pretty sure that neither of the official groups has possession of them. This is the local resistance playing some kind of game. If they were going to make threats, they’d already have contacted us.”

She looked over at the scientists who were now congregating around the alien transport ring. Carl and the rest were bringing their compatriots up to speed, and then they’d be dealing with the science involved here. She didn’t need them to deal with the resistance and was more than happy to let them focus on their strengths.

“Carl, take your friends into one of the other compartments and hose them down,” she shouted. “Each and every one of you stinks, and you need to clean up before you make your lab smell like a barnyard. Then get something to eat and call your wife. Don’t argue with me, and just make it happen.”

The scientists didn’t look like they wanted to tear themselves away from their current problem, but Jacqueline Parker shoved the young genius toward the hatch in obvious agreement.

Once that was done, Zia looked for the last of the people she needed to talk to and saw that Elise had already escaped the compartment. There was no sign of her or the robot that she had trailing along behind her these days. They must’ve already headed for her quarters to clean up.

That actually worked for Zia. There was no need to drag her into this particular problem. She’d send a message to Zac Zoboroski to do a medical checkup on her later and see how she was holding up. This had to have been hard on her. She wasn’t military and wasn’t trained for anything like this.

Whatever this had been.

That was the other aspect of what she needed to do in the upcoming briefing. Find out what the hell they’d found on the other side of this ring and what implications it had for them. She doubted anything they’d found would change her plans, but it never hurt to ask.

When she had everyone busy doing what they needed to do, Zia headed back to her office to prepare for the meeting. She went over everything that Angela had sent to her from Persephone over the last few days to review.

The Marine Raider strike ship was creeping along near the primary world in the system and keeping an eye on the teams they’d slipped onto the planet using her stealthed pinnaces.

It was always risky trying to slip something past an enemy, but in this case, the hostile forces in the system were keeping more of an eye on one another than looking for a third player.

Or, since there was already the resistance here, she supposed they were the fourth set of players.

The Marine Raider major had collected a fair amount of information from local sources about the two primary sides in the conflict taking place in the system. The woman and her team were gathering raw intelligence and then forwarding it on to Zia’s flag staff to sort and make sense of.

But that wasn’t the only way they were going over the intelligence. The AI aboard the Marine Raider strike ship—Fiona—was also perusing everything they were collecting.

Her point of view was far less human than Zia’s staff, but she was capable of going through everything that they were gathering in real time to look for inconsistencies and incongruities that would point toward something worthy of greater attention.

Audacious was less than a day away from making her debut appearance in the Devon system by ambushing the destroyers at the gas giant. The results of that fight were a foregone conclusion, and the battle would set the tone for everything else that happened here.

She’d do everything in her power to make certain that the damage and casualties were minimized and contained. Frankly, it would be best if they could do this without raising any suspicions at Devon at all, but she wasn’t going to count on that.

Even though they’d jam all communications in and out of the area around the gas giant, that would alert the other warships in the system that something was going on. There simply wasn’t any way to hide it. As soon as Audacious revealed herself, news of her presence would spread like wildfire throughout the system.

She suspected the news would cause panic because there would be no way that four destroyers left could deal with a ship like hers. The locals wouldn’t even know what Audacious was.

The largest ships they’d ever seen were battlecruisers under the control of the system AI, and that was only when they were leaving the system. They really didn’t have any idea of the capabilities of ships like that.

Or of what something larger could do.

Her fighters were going to be another unpleasant surprise for the locals. If she could, she hoped to keep that particular secret in her pocket for the second confrontation. Deployed correctly, they could decisively end a fight with four destroyers and bring the system fully under her control.

If she was able to do that, then her mission here would be complete. It wouldn’t be the diplomatic solution that they’d hoped to achieve, but her hands were tied. All that was left to her was force.

Zia didn’t think the victory would solve all her problems, though. Whatever the local resistance was up to, they couldn’t afford to give up. They were committed now.

If the New Terran Empire replaced the locals as the controlling force, the people who’d kidnapped Justine Bandar, Olivia West, and Veronica would try to use them as leverage to get what they wanted.

Whatever that was.

It wasn’t going to work for them, and Zia would make anyone who tried to hurt her girlfriend bleed.

* * *

Carl hated wasting the time it took to clean up, but he had to admit that he smelled a lot better now, and eating a quick meal had really refreshed his spirit. The conversation with his wife made him feel a lot better too. She’d been worried, and he was glad he could put her mind at ease.

He quickly made his way back to the lab and found that he’d beat Ralph and Austin. Jacqueline Parker was pacing near the table he used for a desk, and she made a beeline straight for him the moment he walked through the hatch.

“Explain to me exactly where you’ve been and what happened,” she demanded. “Did you really go to a different universe?”

“Undoubtedly,” he said as he continued walking over to his desk. Sitting on top of it were a couple of sample containers that he’d filled on the other side of the transport ring.

Or could he call it a transport ring?

That was what they were referring to the devices they’d gotten from Omega that they could utilize to get from one place to another but only inside the same reality. The larger rings the being had given could send someone about five thousand kilometers without crossing the intervening space.

They’d lost one of the large rings during a mission, so they couldn’t use that technology here and now, but they’d left a pair of the rings back on Avalon. He had no doubt that Professor Bedford and his team at Imperial University were hard at work verifying the technical specifications that Carl had gotten from Omega and working on recreating the technology.

The cantankerous old man wasn’t going to let this type of mystery remain unconquered. He’d keep working at it until he mastered the technology and had built his own working prototype.

That wasn’t going to be easy because he’d have to master the theories behind it and then build the tools that could make the tools that they’d need to construct something like that. It was doable, but it would take years.

Yet when they finally managed to recreate the technology, it would revolutionize transport on a planetary scale. While they wouldn’t be able to literally go from one side of the planet to the other in a single instant, they could get from one side of the planet to the other with only a single stopover.

What that meant was that they could walk through a transport ring into a completely different city in a matter of seconds, walk to another transport ring, and then arrive on the far side of the planet. Under ideal circumstances, it would only take a matter of minutes to get from one side of the planet to the other.

Or they could go from the planet’s surface to an orbital in space in a single step.

That would irrevocably change transport and commerce inside the New Terran Empire. He couldn’t begin to imagine the societal changes that would result from just that single breakthrough.

He’d have to spend some time thinking about what to call this new technology. It wasn’t as if they could recreate it at this point. Hell, it wasn’t as if they could even use it by themselves.

They needed to have Elise do all the heavy lifting, which wasn’t going to make for safe transport to this other universe and back anytime soon.

If ever.

Well, if it was easy, everyone could do it. Hard stuff they could do immediately; the impossible just took a little longer.

“While we were over there, I collected samples of what passed for soil and of a liquid material that the aliens used for power. How they figured out how to get from this universe to that one, I have no idea, but since they mastered transporting themselves across the galaxy, it shouldn’t surprise me.”

He started off with the soil that looked like whipped cream. He wasn’t even sure if it would have the same properties in their universe. All the physical constants would be different, so that told him that it was entirely possible the material had decayed into something unrecognizable.

Yet when he opened the container to look at the sample, it was just as he’d left it, at least in appearance. He picked up one of his handheld scanners and ran it over the sample, and was shocked to note that it still seemed to have the physical characteristics that it had displayed in the other universe.

He handed the scanner to Doctor Parker and grabbed another one as he dug into the samples to find the liquid. If it still had the same kind of properties that it had displayed on the other side, that opened up a whole host of other possibilities for its use in their universe.

His hand almost trembled as he took the readings, and it took every ounce of his willpower not to shout when he saw that it still seemed to have the same kind of energy density it had displayed in the other universe.

Frankly, he didn’t see how that was possible. It shouldn’t be possible. And yet, there it was.

With his larger scanner right at hand, he didn’t hesitate for an instant to put the sample of liquid in there to get a complete reading. He knew that the liquid was densely energetic, but it was hard to get any kind of precision with a handheld scanner.

Yes, he could’ve used the larger scanner that he’d had on the other side, but since they were on their way home, he hadn’t bothered to even grab it. This was going to be his first chance to really see what they’d found.

It took about ten minutes to get a complete reading from the liquid, and the numbers astonished him. The New Terran Empire used fusion plants to run their ships and power everything. Those could put out a prodigious amount of energy.

The small vial of liquid in his scanner could equal the output of an entire fusion plant if he could figure out how to release it safely. If it was released in an uncontrolled manner, it would vaporize the entire ship even more thoroughly than a failed fusion plant.

Maybe he shouldn’t be experimenting with it here. He didn’t know how it could be safely worked with, and something this dangerous needed to be handled with extreme care.

It only took him a minute to pass everything he had discovered about the liquid on to Parker, and she stared at the vial, her eyes wide.

“What in the name of heaven is in that stuff? How can it possibly exist?”

He shrugged. “We’ll have to figure that out once we have an opportunity to do so safely. Right now, we need to go over everything we can about how that interdimensional ring works—including figuring out a name worthy of the technology—and see if we can discover how to activate it without Elise.

“If we can do that, then we can safely explore that alternate universe. At least the alien facility. If not, it’ll be too dangerous to mess with.”

He frowned slightly. “Where is Elise? I’d have figured that she’d have come back by now to see what we’d discovered.”

Without waiting for Parker to respond, he sent Elise a message through the ship’s network. He was surprised when the response came back moments later that she wasn’t aboard.

Wasn’t aboard? Where the hell could she have gone?

29

Kelsey took a quick shower and ate on the run as she headed for the flag briefing room. Just the little bit that she’d heard about her mother had her filled with trepidation. She hadn’t expected that an ambassadorial posting would be so dangerous, or she’d never have put her mother into the position.

She arrived last to the briefing, even though she’d been hurrying as much as she could and took her seat. Zia already sat at the head of the table with her flag lieutenant, Esther Frasier, sitting to her right. Also at the table were Major Collins, Annette Vitter, Brandon Levy, and Don Sommerville.

“So, what do we know?” Kelsey started off. “How long have my mother and the rest been missing, and have their captors made any demands?”

Zia shook her head. “Six days and not a peep. We’ve tried contacting the local resistance through all of the methods that Coordinator Gatewood gave us, but they haven’t responded.

“I suppose that’s not very surprising. I guess we could still be looking at a situation where the local security forces have rolled up the resistance and arrested everybody, though I personally doubt it.

“The resistance is broken up into cells, so there’s not going to be a way to get everyone. I think the local resistance is playing their own game. We just don’t know what it is.”

“So how do we locate our people? You said you had teams on the planet? What are they doing, and what have they found?”

At that question, Annette Vitter leaned forward. “The one resource we do have with knowledge of how things work inside the Rebel Empire are the crew members we recruited from Harrison’s World. We decided to let them lead the search operation.

“Since all of our people have the extended range com units that Carl created, they’ll be detectable at about ten kilometers unless they’re shielded. Right now, we’ve got them searching the area around where our people vanished, expanding their search into the cities nearby and just trying to pick up a signal.

“Since it’s best to have as wide a net as possible, we’ve split them up, and they’ve all gone in different directions. If any of them find even a hint of a signal, they’ll contact Persephone, and Angela will arrange a rescue operation with her command crew.

“I don’t care how tough these people think they are. If they’ve got a squad of Marine Raiders dropping into their laps in powered armor, they’re going to crumble.”

Kelsey rubbed her face tiredly and sighed. “I understand that we didn’t really have a choice in taking this mission, but I think you’d better run it past me, so I at least know why we’re here and what we’re doing.”

“Justine negotiated an agreement with Coordinator Gatewood that if we could bring five systems under our control—willingly under our control—that they’d recognize the sovereignty of the New Terran Empire,” Sommerville said. “Personally, I think the coordinator realized that with everything going on, the Rebel Empire is going to come apart.

“The situation is just too fluid to allow for the resistance to assume control. They don’t have the resources, and each system is going to jump its own way. They’re not equipped to deal with sudden victory.

“There’s going to be people in every single system—just like here—who want to assume control, and the resistance isn’t strong enough to stop them. The New Terran Empire is.”

The man rubbed his eyes. “I didn’t expect this mission to be dangerous. Yes, there was always the chance that someone would intercept them and that the local security forces would get their hands on them, but I didn’t expect the local resistance to turn on them. This came out of the blue, and I’m not sure how to deal with it.”

“I’ll tell you how we deal with it,” Kelsey said firmly. “We make whoever did this regret the day they were born. We’ll get our people back safe and sound, never you worry. We’ve got a lot of experience at this kind of thing, and we’ll make the magic happen.”

Kelsey turned her attention back to Zia. “Without my mother to do the negotiating, what’s our current status?”

“I’m doing the negotiating myself,” Zia said. “We are moving Audacious out to where we found two of the Rebel Empire destroyers around one of the gas giants. Our suspicion is that there were battlecruisers in the system that want to join the admiral after the AIs turned over control to the locals. The destroyers are probably exploring the station they were docked to.

“We’re circling around so that they don’t see us coming, and we’re just going to pop up over the horizon of the gas giant and demand that they surrender. At that kind of range, the fight is going to be very brief and totally one-sided.”

“I’m not sure that’s going to generate support for the New Terran Empire,” Kelsey said dryly.

“Probably not, yet I don’t see that we have much choice. If we’re going to assume control of this system, we need to make sure that they pay attention to us. If I just pop up somewhere else in the system, all six destroyers are going to come looking for us, and then there’s really going to be a fight.”

Kelsey racked her brain, trying to think of any other potential solution, but didn’t come up with anything. Frankly, she wasn’t sure how her mother could’ve negotiated anything that would’ve changed the status quo.

Maybe if there’d only been one person in control of the system, she could’ve negotiated with them, but with a conflict underway, everybody was going to be poised to be suspicious and fight.

“What are the odds that they’ll actually give up?” Kelsey asked.

“Pretty close to zero,” Zia admitted. “But if we can disable them quickly, we can probably minimize the loss of life, and at that point, maybe the negotiations can start. We can’t be seen as weak. We have to come into this situation from a position of strength.”

“Sometimes the fist isn’t necessarily the best thing to show with the start of a conversation,” Kelsey said slowly. “I understand that we need to take control of this system, but it’s essential that we do so in a way that builds support for the New Terran Empire. Coming in shooting is not going to do that.”

“What would you suggest?”

Zia sounded doubtful but not dismissive. From her tone, she really hoped that Kelsey came up with some kind of alternative response.

“I wish I had something, but I can’t think of anything either. We’re coming into this situation at a disadvantage. With the AI turning over control to the locals, they’ll be trying to consolidate control. They’re not going to want to hear that they need to defer to anyone else.

“Worst-case scenario, they’ll think that we came from another system and are trying to do the same thing that they’re trying to do. Or that we somehow work for the AIs or the Clans.

“There’s far too great a chance for someone to make a mistake that we can’t walk back from, yet I don’t see that we have much choice. We need a base of operations, and that’s going to be this system, so that means we need to get control with as little collateral damage as possible.”

Zia opened her mouth to respond, but a chime from the overhead speakers interrupted her.

“Captain to the bridge, Commodore to the flag bridge,” a female voice said. “There’s been an emergence at the flip point.”

* * *

Justine could barely move after her latest session in the torture chamber, but that didn’t stop her captors from dragging her down the hall, opening a door seemingly at random, and throwing her through. She landed badly and bloodied her nose, which just added one more red stain to her filthy clothes.

To her surprise, the room was occupied. Veronica Giguere and Olivia West had been sitting at a table, and they leaped to their feet, raced over to her as she collapsed on the floor, and knelt by her side as the men who’d brought Justine here slammed the door and left them alone. They rolled her onto her back and stared down at her with shock and concern.

“What happened?” Veronica demanded. “What did they do to you?”

It looked as if her assumption that everyone else was being tortured had been wrong. They’d been saving the special stuff just for her. Well, that was probably for the best. No need for everyone to spend their days screaming.

From the way her head was spinning, she might not really be fully conscious.

“They’ve been trying to get information out of me,” she managed to get out in a low whisper. “I suppose they thought I’d be the easiest one to break. That hasn’t worked out so well for them. Or me, I suppose.”

The two women glanced at one another and then began going over Justine, thoroughly examining her from head to foot for injuries. They didn’t ask her if she minded having her clothes removed, but Justine didn’t fight them. She knew it wouldn’t have done her any good.

Besides, maybe they could make some of the pain go away. That would be worth a little embarrassment.

Veronica vanished for a few seconds and returned with some basic first aid supplies that she’d gotten from somewhere. Together, the women began treating the cuts and burns that covered so much of Justine’s body.

“What were they trying to get out of you?” Olivia asked as they worked.

“They knew that we had a plan once we’d arrived in the system. They wanted to know what that plan was so that they could utilize whatever aspects of it they liked. I told them nothing. And we don’t need to talk about it now because they’re undoubtedly monitoring us.

“I thought they were torturing you for the same information. I swore that I wasn’t going to break before you did, so I’ve been holding out as best I can. I’m happy that it was only me because I wouldn’t want anyone else to ever have to go through something like this.”

“If they’d tried, they wouldn’t have gotten anything from us either,” Veronica said. “They have to know this isn’t going to work out for them. Even if we told them everything we know, it’s not going to change how our friends treat them at this point. They’ve made some very, very bad enemies.”

It took the two women about twenty minutes to give her a complete exam and treat her as best they could. Once they were done, they moved her to one of the beds and put her under the covers without any clothes.

Apparently they had spare clothes, but they didn’t want to put anything on her that would worsen her injuries. Justine didn’t know anything about that, but she was astonished at how wonderful the soft bed felt. Sleeping on a concrete floor in just her filthy clothes had certainly changed her perspective on so many things.

Justine fell asleep listening to the others talk in low tones and rested for an unknown period of time before she abruptly woke when the door opened. The noise startled her, and she sat bolt upright, clutching the sheet around herself.

She knew that meant they’d come to start the torture all over again, and she wanted to wail but instead prepared to fight. Her compatriots stood from the table they’d been sitting at and also looked ready to fight.

Tranick stood in the door with Ensign behind her as well as a couple of goons.

“What a cozy little scene we have here,” Tranick said smugly as they all came in. “Do you really think that you’re in a position to resist us? You just need to accept the fact that I control everything about what happens now. The sooner you do, the less pain that your ambassador goes through.

“To that end, I’m going to give you an opportunity to convince her that she should cooperate. Thus far, she’s proven… resistant to my methods, so if she doesn’t begin cooperating, or one of you doesn’t give me the information that I want, then I’m going to have to move on to more strenuous measures. While that might be fun for me, it certainly isn’t going to be a pleasure for your friend.”

“Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?” Veronica said. “Do you think you have what it takes to break someone? I’m standing right here.”

The evil woman smirked. “What in the world makes you think this is supposed to be fair? I’ve already picked the person I think is the weakest in your group, and she will break.

“Perhaps you’ll surprise me by showing compassion for her and just telling me what I want to know before I have to permanently injure her. You do care about her, don’t you?”

“None of us are going to tell you anything,” Olivia said firmly. “All you’re doing now is making enemies of people that would’ve been your friends. The leadership of the resistance isn’t going to stand for this.

“In fact, they’re going to do everything in their power to help us root you out so that we can find every one of you that’s responsible for this atrocity and see that you’re punished.”

“The three of you are so precious,” Tranick said with a laugh. “Once we take control of this system, the resistance will do business with us. They’re a very pragmatic organization. So long as we give them something that they want, they’ll leave us alone.

“But to get that, we have to actually seize control of the system. I know that you came with a plan and have some means to bring those two morons that think they run things under your thumbs. You’re going to share that information with me, and when this is all over, I’ll let you go.

“If you keep resisting, maybe only two of you get to leave this place alive. Or only one. That’s up to you. Whoever tells me what I want to know first is going to reap the benefits of our relationship. Whoever continues to resist the most will undoubtedly end up dead after suffering an agonizing amount of pain.”

Justine knew what was coming, so she wasn’t surprised when Tranick sent her goons to get her. Her friends tried to interfere, but even though Veronica knew how to fight, Ensign was able to send her staggering back with a bloody nose.

Rather than risk her friends getting hurt on her account, Justine didn’t resist. When the goons grabbed her and stripped the covers away from her naked body, she just went with them.

There was a lot of shouting, and Veronica attacked Ensign again, but the end result of the fight was foreordained. They dragged Justine out of the room and toward the torture chamber. Not that she could recognize one room for another, she just knew what was coming.

She wished that these people would make just a single mistake. If they could get a signal out to their friends, she had no doubt that someone would come to rescue them.

Sadly, it didn’t look like that would happen anytime soon, which was really going to hurt. Literally.

Would this hell ever end?

30

Elise stopped to examine one of the brackets on the wall where it looked like some kind of lighting was supposed to sit and discovered that it was occupied by a simple-looking device that she didn’t recognize. The upper portion was utterly clear and seemed to be an empty cylinder, whereas the bottom was smooth metal with what looked like a slider switch.

Deciding that it was probably a safe bet this wasn’t going to be ultra-dangerous, she used the tip of her finger to slide the switch and was rewarded when golden-hued light bloomed in the empty cylinder.

Interesting. She wasn’t sure how long this place had been abandoned, but it still had power for the lights. Maybe the illumination didn’t take much power, and the batteries hadn’t gone dead. She’d have to have Carl take a look at one of them and see what he could determine about it later.

She returned to the room where she’d arrived and turned the lights up. All of them worked.

Good. She’d much rather work with the lights on than wander through a dark, creepy place using just the light on her helmet. All the strange shadows made her twitch.

Going back to the hallway, she found several rooms on either side. They were empty and made of the same stone and wood that the first room had been. Everything was very solid, and there were no windows.

She checked her suit indicators, and they said the atmosphere was breathable and the temperature moderate, but she wasn’t going to take unnecessary risks. Well, any more unnecessary risks.

It felt kind of odd. Were they deep underground?

There was plenty of dust on the floor and no sign that anyone had been here in a very long time. She had to move slowly, or her feet kicked up a cloud that obscured her vision a little. She was glad she was wearing the vacuum suit, or she’d have been sneezing like crazy.

It took about half an hour for her to thoroughly explore the area around where she’d arrived. There were several dozen rooms scattered around the central arrival point. None of them had any contents whatsoever.

There was also a broad stairway, proportioned for something similar to a human, that went both up and down. She mentally flipped a coin and decided to go down first.

The stairs led into a wide room that she suspected was about the same size as the entire area above her. Maybe this was supposed to be used for storage, because it reminded her of a basement.

Once again, everything was wood and stone—mostly stone—and the area was completely empty. The ceiling was even taller than it had been above. At this point, she was certain this strange place hadn’t been built by the crabs. Fortunately, the wide stairway meant that her companion could easily follow her where she went.

Satisfied that she’d explored the lower area as well as she could, she took her exploration up to the top of the stairs and found an area that was significantly different from anything that she’d seen thus far.

The top area was an octagonal-shaped room about the same size as the other two levels, but it had a steeply arched ceiling that went to a point far over her head. There were rafters made of natural wood crisscrossing the room. It felt very homey.

Rather than stone walls, it had transparent panels that looked out into the same dimension that she’d traveled to through the alien ring. She could see some of the small orbs that swirled with colors floating in the distance and had no doubt that she was back in that other universe.

How the hell had she gotten there? All she’d done was touch that thing on her wrist, and it opened a portal to another dimension? That was utterly impossible.

Using the crab aliens’ technology had taken a lot of energy to open one of these portals, and she certainly didn’t have anything like that in her body. The bracelet that she’d put on couldn’t have contained anything like that either.

She supposed there might’ve been a power source somewhere here in this strange facility that she found herself in, but how had she been able to access it from another dimension? None of this made any sense.

Elise turned in a slow circle and examined everything again. This entire setup was self-contained, and she hadn’t seen a single exit. Was this not supposed to be accessed from the outside? Or had she just missed something?

Moving carefully, she went from panel to panel, looking to see if there were any kind of latches that would allow her to open them to gain access to the outside. She couldn’t see the ground from here because of the building’s angles below her, so maybe this was like a second story. The ground had to be somewhere underneath that.

She returned to the middle level and went through each of the rooms again. The walls were made of stone, so she pressed on various bricks, trying to access anything like a hidden passage. She had no luck.

That only left the lowest level. If there was outside access at all, it had to be somewhere down there, right?

Once down in the large room, she went along each of the walls, looking to see if anything stood out as being out of place. Out of all the rooms on the first trip through, this one had been the one she’d only glanced at. If she’d missed something, it was probably down here.

And it turned out that she’d missed something big.

What she’d assumed was a solid wall at the far end of the long room was anything but. There were actually two walls on that side: one more of a partition in the middle and two outer walls set almost ten meters farther away, leaving plenty of room to walk between them.

Taken together, it was an optical illusion that made it look like a solid wall. That was damned clever.

On the other side of the divider was another room. Or perhaps room was the wrong word. It was a long chamber made to hold one of those flying vessels with the gossamer wings.

How did she know that? Because there was one docked there. It looked significantly smaller than the crashed one, but it seemed to be intact.

What was it they’d called something like this? She’d heard Kelsey use the word before when they’d talked about bringing ships into Baxter Station for repair. Slips. This was a slip where a ship could dock and move cargo or get repairs.

Whereas the other ship had definitely been a cargo vessel, this one looked sleeker. It was thin and long and reminded her of a racing yacht.

Elise had never actually raced herself, but there had been times where she’d been present at races. If she’d had to put money down, she’d have bet that this little ship was fast.

It was also armed, though she didn’t recognize exactly what the weapons were. She’d been around enough warships to recognize the places in the hull that could be moved aside and where weapons could be run out.

She was lucky that the atmosphere in this dimension was everywhere, or this place would be in vacuum. The slip was open to what passed for space here.

It was also a way to access the surface of the planetoid. She discovered several reinforced doorways that could be slid aside, and when she did so, she found the familiar surface of one of those planetoids.

Unlike the one where the crab facility had been, this one looked significantly smaller. Even so, it still had what felt like normal gravity.

This tiny sphere was only a hundred meters in diameter, and much of its interior was taken up by the strange alien mansion. There wouldn’t be any strange liquid core in this planetoid, so that couldn’t be responsible for the gravity.

Or maybe there was some, and it was just under the basement floor. There was no way to guess. As Carl always said, aliens were going to alien.

The idea that this was an alien mansion matched her impressions. This was some rich person’s getaway home. It was accessible through the bracelet that she’d found, so it was literally a getaway.

Or that was what she was going to believe until someone found evidence that proved otherwise.

Her guess that the middle level of the facility was the second story of a building was confirmed when she got a good look at the structure from the surface.

The panels of the upper room started about two meters above the surface of the planetoid. She’d have to examine the interior again, but she was certain that the space between the floors was at least five meters. Maybe ten. Whoever had built this place hadn’t been shy about making sure that everything was well supported and solid.

If her guess at the size of the place was anything close to correct, the middle of the planetoid was somewhere under the basement floor. If there was a chamber with that weird liquid down there, it wasn’t far under the deepest part of the construction.

Once she’d trudged back inside, she took a quick tour of the ship, and her suspicions were confirmed. There was what was obviously a luxury suite of rooms for the owner and her guests and a separate crew area that was much more spartan.

It was empty of contents, and there weren’t any signs of wear and tear. This was either something that had been put together to be sold to someone else and never messed with, or it was a lot newer than it looked.

Elise checked her internal chronometer and discovered that she’d been here for almost an hour and a half. She really should get back and let the rest know what she’d found. She didn’t want to cause any kind of panic if someone came looking for her.

Her mind made up, she headed back to the central room but stopped. Did she have to go all the way back to the central room, or could she use that strange method of transportation to get there from here?

Only one way to find out. She rolled up the sleeve of her vacuum suit and touched the oval.

The portal opened, and she was able to step into the central room. The robot followed her without prompting this time.

The central room sounded stupid. Maybe she could call it the antechamber. That would work.

She thought about what she was going to tell everyone. With the bracelet seemingly absorbed into her wrist, she wasn’t sure if anyone else could even reach this place, so for the moment, it was going to be her private domain.

She wondered if she’d really be able to access it from anywhere. If she could, she could stock it with all kinds of interesting things that they might need at some point but couldn’t carry with them.

Like weapons and supplies. Maybe even powered armor for Kelsey. Things like that could be really useful in a pinch, especially if no one knew she had this capability.

Was the original bracelet supposed to be absorbed by the owner? That certainly made it concealable.

Had it turned into something like the nanites that now inhabited her body? If so, why wasn’t there some kind of all-out war taking place right now?

More questions to ask Carl as soon as she could catch up with him. Her friends were going to get tired of all the situations she kept stumbling into. Hell, she was tired of them.

Still, out of all the things that had happened to her thus far, this was one of the more benign.

She wondered how far away her new home away from home was from the alien facility. There was really no way to tell, although there had to be some method of navigating this place, or ships wouldn’t exist here. Why build a ship that was only going to get lost?

As the portal had closed, Elise reached under the sleeve of her vacuum suit and touched the oval, opening the strange floating doorway back into her bathroom. She’d expected to find everything pretty much as she’d left it, so she was surprised to see Carl standing there, staring at her with wide eyes.

“Oh!” she exclaimed in surprise. “Hi there. I suppose I should probably explain this.”

31

Zia cursed as she quickly walked out the briefing room and onto the flag bridge, her eyes already tracking the large plot at the front of the compartment to see what was happening. If the Clans had come in force, the system was lost, and nothing she could do would change that.

The data from the FTL probe they’d dropped near the flip point gave them a clear look at everything that was happening there. None of the other destroyers inside the Devon system would realize that they were under attack until the vessels there started moving with any significant speed and were detectable via gravitic scanners.

The defenders had a pair of destroyers relatively near the flip point, but they would likely be outgunned by any Clan forces. No matter what was happening, it wouldn’t be good.

“Is it the Clans? What kind of forces are we looking at?”

Esther Frazier turned from her console to brief her. “Surprisingly, no. They look like Rebel Empire warships: a heavy cruiser, two light cruisers, and four destroyers. Whoever they are, they seem to have cowed the defenders without firing a shot.”

That wasn’t surprising. At that range, the new force would’ve cleared the table in short order.

Could they use the arrival of this new fleet as leverage to get the defenders to cooperate with them? She suspected not. The odds were very high that these people were here to do the same thing that she hoped to accomplish, only they were ready to use overwhelming force at the outset to achieve their goals.

They wanted to expand their dominion from wherever they came from to include the Devon system, and she suspected they had a good chance of managing it unless she intervened.

“The ships at the flip point have just increased speed and are headed toward the main planet,” one of the staff members said. “Their passage is detectable on gravitic scanners.

“The two destroyers that we were stalking have just broken orbit and appear to be heading for the new force. They won’t have any information on who they are, so they have to suspect it’s the Clans.”

Well, that certainly complicated matters. She wasn’t in a position to intercept them. The fighters would be able to catch them, but there wasn’t much point in letting them know that they were being chased. If she’d had a gun to their heads before they’d known she was there, an attack would’ve made sense. That opportunity was now lost.

“It looks like they left in a hurry,” Kelsey said. “Wouldn’t they have had to leave people behind on the station? They didn’t have time to recover anyone.”

“I suppose it’s possible,” Zia said with a shrug, “but what difference does that make?”

“We might not be able to take out part of the military structure here, but perhaps we can find someone else that’s just as useful. One of the problems with the resistance capturing my mother is that we don’t have any way to speak to someone in power. We need to find a conduit.

“I’m willing to bet that we’ll find someone like that on that station. At the very least, someone that those running the show here are willing to listen to long enough for us to make an offer.”

Zia wasn’t so sure. They wouldn’t willingly cooperate with the new ships, but they didn’t have much of a choice. That left her forces as the odd man out.

She supposed it didn’t hurt to take a look, though. It wasn’t as if they had any other goals that they could accomplish out here.

Persephone would be in position to observe what went on at Devon, since the new ships wouldn’t detect her presence there, but they wouldn’t have any means to interact with or spy on the new people. She might as well continue the mission at hand and at least explore the situation here at the gas giant before the fighting eventually started.

“Let’s put the FTL probe we had monitoring the destroyers into the gas giant’s atmosphere and get a look at the station. If it’s built anything like the other one, we can dock a couple of pinnaces to it and take a look around.”

It only took about an hour to get the probe into position to verify that the destroyers hadn’t left any small craft in orbit. That made it safe to allow the probe to enter the gas giant’s atmosphere without fear of detection.

Once it was down in the atmosphere, it would be able to detect the area where there was no scanner return. The AIs shielded their hidden stations very well, and only the lack of a signal told anyone with the knowledge of what to look for that they were there.

As soon as the probe broke through the clouds, Zia realized the situation would be a lot more complicated than she’d expected, and this mission just became a whole lot more critical. The station was just as they’d imagined it, but it wasn’t completely empty.

It had been built to house four battlecruisers, and one of them was still there.

No wonder the two sides had been very interested in what was going on here. Zia was now absolutely certain that the two sides would have armed camps inside the station. Maybe on the battlecruiser itself too.

For whatever reason, that ship hadn’t been able to depart with the others, and neither side in this particular conflict was going to allow it to fall into the hands of the other. That would mean an instant loss for them.

They certainly wouldn’t be revealing its presence to the new arrivals. An operational battlecruiser could take the new force in a standup fight. It wouldn’t come out unscathed, but it would win.

The probe couldn’t get very close to the station because, unlike in orbit, the station itself was heavily patrolled by marine pinnaces. Not just what could be carried on a couple of destroyers, but dozens of the damned things. Getting to the station would be almost impossible.

She could clear the area around the station if she brought Audacious into orbit and sent her fighters down. It would be a bloody affair, but it was a fight they could win. Sadly, that would let everyone on the station know that they were in serious trouble, and there was a real risk that they would sabotage the station or destroy the battlecruiser to keep it from falling into someone else’s hands.

Where the hell had they found that many pinnaces? Even if they stripped all six of the destroyers in the system, that was only twelve. Maybe they’d stripped some from the orbital defenses around the planet itself. That didn’t seem too bright, but she understood the impulse to protect such a prize.

“Well, this certainly changes things,” Zia said grimly. “If we can get people onto that station and secure the battlecruiser, it might be repairable, and that would change the mathematics of securing all the systems we need to get. Audacious is a powerful ship, but she really does need an escort. If Fiona could control that battlecruiser, our striking power and overall safety would be significantly improved.”

“They’re going to fight,” Kelsey said. “They’ve almost certainly got a lot of heavily armed troops on board that station and on the battlecruiser. No matter what happens, we’re going to have to board it under fire. That’s going to be an ugly fight with a lot of ways that things can go wrong.”

“What if you could get aboard it without having to fight for every centimeter?” Elise asked as she stepped onto the flag bridge. “What if you could smuggle as many marines as you like—armed with whatever you’d care to give them—past every single defense? Would that make things easier?”

“It would at least make something possible,” Zia admitted. “We can take that station by force, but the loss of life and the damage on both sides would be significant. There’s also the possibility that they could destroy the station or the battlecruiser in the process.

“If we had a platoon of Marine Raiders that we could dump on them without them knowing we were here, it would still be an ugly fight, but we could probably take the station and battlecruiser intact. Why? Do you have a plan? If so, I’m all ears.”

Elise smiled wryly. “You’re not going to be happy when I tell you the details, but I think I have a way that we could smuggle everything you could ever ask for in to seize that station right under their very noses.”

* * *

Carl shook his head as he stared at the scanner readout. What he was seeing was flat-out impossible.

After Elise had explained the strange new ability that she’d somehow acquired in the other dimension, she’d brought Kelsey, Zia, and Don Sommerville down to his lab to get a demonstration of what she could do and allow him the opportunity to try to explain how she did it.

Sadly, he had absolutely no idea, and the scanners weren’t helping. Somehow, Elise was able to open a strange doorway back into the other dimension, to a precise location, and he couldn’t detect a single thing coming off of her that could explain how she did it.

There were no extra nanites that he could detect in her blood or tissue, and there was absolutely no way that her body could generate enough power to open this kind of portal. Whatever was happening, the real action had to be on the other end.

The fact that she was able to open the doorway in multiple different locations kind of pointed that way as well. She’d done it in her bathroom, and now she’d done it in his lab. Both attempts opened to the same room on the other side, so perhaps the power and control elements were there. He’d have to look much more closely to see if he could determine if that were true when he had time.

What he could say for certain was that once she’d created a doorway, she could turn in place, and the exit on the other side would pivot in the destination room. She’d indicated that the same was true when she was on the other side and that she’d managed to inadvertently look into her neighbor’s bathroom.

That suggested some interesting ideas on how one could get into areas they weren’t supposed to be. Say that she opened a doorway while next to a bank vault. She could go into her own little personal universe, turn around and move the exit into the vault.

It was crazy.

And yet, it was an extremely ingenious way to get an attacking force inside the AI station. There was some risk to Elise, but the possibilities were simply staggering.

“How is she doing that?” Kelsey demanded of him. “That’s not science; that’s magic.”

He shrugged slightly. “Well, you know what they say. A sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Who said that? Asimov?”

“Arthur C. Clarke, but that still doesn’t explain any of this. What the crabs did was already nuts. They could disassemble a person and send them across the known universe. That’s magic, but at least we could understand the principles behind it.

“All Elise has is this darkened oval on the back of her wrist, and by touching it, she can open a portal into another dimension. How could anything on the other side even know that she’d signaled for it to be opened?

“There’s certainly nothing on this side that’s opening it, so it has to be over there. That means there’s some kind of communication between this dimension and that one. How the hell does that work?”

“I think this falls into the category of it doesn’t matter,” Zia interrupted before he could answer. “What’s important here is that it makes an impossible situation at least technically feasible. How large is this complex on the other side?”

“I think it’s far easier to show you and will take less time than trying to explain it,” Elise said, gesturing toward the strange opening hovering in the air. “Let’s go take a look.”

Carl took a deep breath and stepped through the opening. The room on the other side was just like it had looked through the door. Stone and wood made up the construction. It was very primitive, though well done. The lights were the only items of technology that he could see.

He wondered where the stone and wood had come from. This other dimension didn’t seem to have trees and rocks, so it had to have come from either an actual planet somewhere in that other universe, or these other aliens had salvaged it from one very much like theirs.

Carl was willing to bet that there were planets of an ordinary kind over there because both the crabs and these new aliens having access to worked stone kind of implied availability.

The wood wouldn’t have grown in the strange soil that he’d seen thus far, though. There just weren’t any of the required nutrients to sustain life. Not life as they understood it.

Once the entire group was on the other side, Elise took them on a quick tour of the facility. As she’d said, it was sizable, and they could stuff as many marines and as much equipment inside as they chose. The downstairs area in particular would be very helpful because it was all one large space, and the wide stairs led up to a hallway that they could go directly into the room with the doorway through.

It was tough for him to turn away from the ship docked at Elise’s new home away from home. The alien craft looked fully intact, and his fingers just itched to explore its secrets. Yet one more thing that he had to do when he had time.

The upstairs room would also be helpful for staging, but Carl was much more entranced by the view. They were definitely in that other universe. It was impossible, and yet here they were.

He turned to his friend and shook his head. “The trouble you keep getting yourself into. Stop touching things.”

“You’d think I’d have learned by now,” Elise said with a sigh. “I suppose this is at least less destructive than some of the potential outcomes, but I really do need a minder. I obviously have a problem.”

Kelsey laughed. “It’s okay. We love you anyway.”

The princess turned to face Zia. “Carl can work on discovering exactly how this functions at some other point. Right now, I think we need to give serious consideration to Elise’s plan. If we pack this area completely full of marines in powered armor, we can spring the surprise of someone’s life on them once she gets aboard that station.

“Having her there would mean that we wouldn’t have to fight our way through the pinnaces all around the station. They’re going to flip out when the internal attack starts, probably thinking that the other side has jumped them, and that’s going to start a dogfight on the outside.

“There’s nothing we can do about that, but the end goal has to be to secure what prisoners we can and capture that battlecruiser. We absolutely can’t have it fall into enemy hands when we need it so badly.”

She turned toward him. “It’s obviously got some kind of mechanical failure, or it would’ve joined its friends when they left. Do you think it’s possible that we could fix whatever is wrong with it?”

He shrugged. “I have no way of knowing until I take a look at things. Once we secure the station and the battlecruiser, I can assess the ship’s condition in conjunction with the engineering staff from Audacious. I won’t make promises ahead of time.”

Personally, he suspected that the ship wasn’t going to be easily repairable. If it had been, the remotes that normally kept the ships and station in shape would’ve already seen to it. That probably meant that it had some kind of severe damage or an engineering failure that would take time to correct.

If it was even possible without a shipyard.

He watched as Zia and Kelsey discussed the tactical situation and agreed to send Elise down aboard an unarmed cutter. The pinnaces flying patrol would see her coming, and they’d direct her to the station where the cutter could dock and take her into custody.

When they saw only a single woman, they’d have some very pointed questions for her. They’d want to know what ship had dropped her off, since she obviously hadn’t come from one of the departing destroyers.

How Elise handled that was going to be up to her, but the odds were damned good that she’d get on board the station unharmed. Even though they were going to question her, there was still going to be an opportunity to activate the doorway and step through into this dimension where they couldn’t touch her.

While they were standing there with their mouths hanging open, the marines on this side could go through and stun everybody before heading for the battlecruiser and the control area of the station itself. As large as this alien mansion—as Elise called it—was, it could hold every marine aboard the carrier without any difficulty whatsoever.

It was a brilliant plan, but he was sure that something was going to go wrong. It always did.

Then the challenge would be getting Elise safely out and securing the station. After all, what would happen if the station was destroyed? Her doorway would then open up into the atmosphere of a gas giant.

To his mind, that was the worst-case outcome, and it was going to be a challenge to make sure that it didn’t come to pass. If it did, getting to anyone trapped there would be almost impossible.

32

Justine was more than a bit surprised when her captors cut her daily torture session short. She could tell it was early because she was still conscious. Sort of.

The days had blended into one another, and she was really starting to worry that she’d give in to temptation and tell them everything they wanted to know. She just wanted the pain to stop, and continuing to resist seemed harder and harder every time they gave her a chance to talk.

The amount of time that she’d be able to resist them was limited, and if something didn’t change soon, she was probably going to die in this place.

Honestly, there were times now that she wished she would die. The pain was that bad.

Whatever was going on, Tranick hurriedly left the room first. She left so abruptly that Justine figured something was wrong, and a little part of her cheered. A quiet part, deep inside her.

The goon removed her restraints, and she pretended to be unconscious. It would be easier that way because, if she was awake, the bastard usually tormented her himself. It wasn’t bad compared to everything she’d already endured, but it added insult to injury.

He threw her over her shoulder in a fireman’s carry and left the torture room. The bastard even had the gall to whistle a jaunty tune.

Because she was mostly conscious, Justine was able to see something that she hadn’t noticed before. The guards only used their fists on her, but now she could see that this guy was armed. The butt of a pistol sat at the small of his back where his shirt had ridden up enough to reveal it.

The way she was hanging, her swinging hands almost brushed it. If she stretched, she’d reveal that she was awake, but she was sure that she could get her hands on that pistol.

Sadly, her training with firearms was sketchy at best. The Imperial Guard had made certain that the Imperial Family had at least minimal training when she’d been married to Karl, but that had been a long time ago.

She didn’t have much time to make up her mind. If she was going to take advantage of the situation, she’d have to act quickly. Her cell wasn’t very far from the torture chamber, even though she couldn’t directly map it out in her head.

There’d be a safety on the weapon, of that she was sure. Her fuzzy memory suggested where it might be positioned, but if she guessed wrong, it was going to take precious seconds that she didn’t have to fix the problem. Bluffing was not going to be enough; she’d have to shoot someone.

The old her would’ve been horrified at the idea, but she actually wanted to shoot someone now. She wanted to shoot a lot of someones, but she was going to have to be judicious. She needed to rescue her friends, and they all had to get out of here, or they were going to die.

Taking one last breath to steel her will and focus her mind, she twisted her torso, extending her right hand down to grasp the butt of the weapon. It came out of the holster as her captor squeezed her torso with all his might, blowing the air right out of her lungs.

Justine didn’t think that he even knew that she had his pistol. He was just subduing her now that she’d started struggling, and it was working. Her vision began dimming, and her brain instantly fuzzed up.

She hadn’t been that far from unconsciousness in the first place, and she was about to black out again.

She brought the pistol up, barely able to note that it wasn’t a stunner but a flechette pistol, and put it to the back of the man’s head before pulling the trigger.

Nothing happened. She’d forgotten the safety.

Well, it wasn’t fair to say that nothing happened. The guy realized what she was doing and hurled her off him. She flew through the air and slammed into the corridor with tremendous force, rolling to an abrupt stop against the wall at the corner ahead of her. She had to use both hands and every bit of her remaining strength to keep ahold of the weapon.

The man was already racing toward her when her finger found the safety and clicked it off. She barely had the strength to raise the pistol and squeezed the trigger rapidly at the charging bull of a human being.

The pistol fired this time, kicking lightly in her hand. Flechettes tore through the man’s body, starting at the lower torso and walking up until one of them hit him in the face.

Dead before he hit the ground, his momentum still took him all the way into her, and his body almost crushed her against the wall. When he came to a stop, he was piled on top of her, and she could barely breathe under the weight.

She tried to roll him off her but failed. He weighed too much, and she was rapidly losing consciousness. She had to get him off her, and it needed to happen right now.

With a superhuman effort, she wiggled forward until he fell to the side and off her. She rolled onto her back and sucked air into her starving lungs, trying to ignore the blood all over her face and front.

She expected to hear sounds of alarm and people racing to see what the commotion was about, but the complex was eerily quiet. Perhaps no one was close enough to have heard the shots or the scuffle. Flechettes weren’t exceptionally loud, and nobody had been shouting. Maybe she was going to catch a break.

It wasn’t going to be much of a break if she couldn’t take advantage of it, though. She had to find the others and get this pistol into the hands of someone trained to use it.

Veronica was probably the best choice. She was a trained Fleet officer, and she’d know how to use a flechette pistol.

Well, Olivia had been a high-ranking resistance leader, so she probably knew how to use one as well. When it came right down to it, anybody would be better than her. She’d gotten lucky, and she knew it.

Forcing herself to focus, she climbed to her knees and then levered herself to her feet. The wall helped, though she left several bloody handprints there that would undoubtedly freak out the first person that saw them.

And the dead body, of course.

She almost set off in search of Veronica and Olivia but stopped herself and staggered back to search the dead body. If anyone had keys, a com, or something else useful, it was going to be the guard.

And he might have a couple of extra magazines for the pistol.

Justine found all of that and more on him. The guy was a packrat. He had so much stuff in his pockets that she didn’t know how he could possibly find anything. Enough stuff that she had no place to put it.

That set her into the struggle of getting the man’s shirt off so that she could use it for a makeshift bag. Everything that the guy was carrying went into it. The only thing that she kept in her free hand was the pistol, though she replaced the partially used magazine with a fresh one.

If she had to start shooting, she didn’t want to run out of ammunition before the other side ran out of bodies.

That done, she started down the hall, looking for her friends. They had to be behind one of the doors, but everything must be soundproofed. She was going to have to open every single one of them until she found them or someone found her.

It took four tries before she found a door that was locked. That was a good sign that there was something behind it that she might be interested in.

Justine set the bag of junk on the floor, looked through it quickly as she could, and found the man’s keys. The third one did the trick.

She opened the door, ready for trouble but hoping that she’d find her friends. Instead, she found something completely unexpected.

Lying on a bed inside the room was a strange man. Based on the terrible condition of his clothes and personal hygiene, he wasn’t here willingly either.

He sat up with a look of fear on his face. “Who are you? What do you want?”

Considering how she probably looked, he had every reason to think the worst.

“I’m a prisoner, but I’m looking to change that. You have the option to come with me or stay here. Decide now because I’m leaving as soon as I find my friends.”

The man hurriedly got to his feet. “I hope this isn’t some kind of trick.”

“Grab that shirt and the stuff that’s in it,” she said, stepping away from him so that he couldn’t grab the pistol. “You’re going to walk in front of me and try every door until we find my friends. Here are the keys.”

He caught the keys and stepped out into the corridor. Once he’d picked up the bloody shirt filled with junk, he started to say something to her, but his eyes widened as he looked past her. She realized he was looking at the goon’s dead body.

“I suppose this isn’t some kind of trick after all,” he said, his voice faint. “I’m Richard Kagan, but you probably already know that.”

Justine frowned slightly. “Why would I know that?”

That made him frown in return. “Until a few weeks ago, I was the coordinator of this entire system, so I can’t imagine how you wouldn’t know me unless you lived under a rock.”

Well, that certainly made things interesting.

“Living under a rock isn’t that bad of an analogy, I suppose. We really don’t have time to talk about that right now, so let’s focus on getting the hell out of here before someone comes along and stops us.”

Justine used the wall for support as much as she could, but she knew that she was in bad shape. If anyone really did come along, her resistance probably wouldn’t be worth much. If the guy in front of her decided to attack, she wasn’t even certain that she could shoot him before he was on top of her.

Just to be a little more cautious, she let him get a couple of steps farther ahead of her. Better safe than sorry.

It felt like it took an eternity, but in reality, only a few minutes passed before they found the next locked door. As soon as the man found it, Justine’s heart started beating faster. Once again, she was sure this was it.

And she was right.

As soon as the man opened the door and stepped away, giving Justine enough room to edge up and look inside, she saw her friends staring at them from the table they were sitting at, their eyes wide.

“Stop staring at me like idiots and let’s get the hell out of here,” Justine said waspishly. “I don’t know how long it’s going to be before they figure out that I’m gone. We’ve got to get moving.”

That certainly spurred the women into action, and they raced out of the cell. Olivia rushed out to support Justine while Veronica took the pistol out of her hand. The former Fleet officer then gave the man the stink eye.

“He was a prisoner just like us,” Justine said tiredly. “We don’t have time to talk about it right now, so let’s focus on getting out of here as quickly as possible. Here are the extra magazines for that pistol.”

Veronica gave her a look. “Based on all that blood, I’m going to assume that whoever owned it before won’t be needing it anymore?”

“That’s a safe bet. This is Richard. He and I are going to have a nice long talk once we’re somewhere safe, but first, we’ve got to get going.”

“I don’t know the way out of here, but I do know that it’s underground,” the man said. “And if we can get out, I know of a place that we can hide that should be safe. Someplace that no one knows about but me.”

With that, the four of them headed down the hall, looking for stairs or an elevator. Stairs would be preferable because elevators could be stopped, and then they’d be trapped.

They did find an elevator, and a little searching around it located the stairs. They still hadn’t run into anybody, but Justine was confident that that was because there weren’t that many people here. Maybe the entirety of the resistance didn’t know what was going on, and only a certain trusted few were in on the secret.

This kind of betrayal wasn’t something that one wanted the rank and file to know about, after all.

Their good luck ran out when they got to the top of the stairs and opened the door. The room on the other side apparently had people in it because Veronica opened fire and advanced into the room beyond quickly, continuing to fire.

There was a lot of shouting, and then everything went quiet. Veronica stuck her head back into the stairs and gestured for them to come along.

When Justine hobbled into the room, she discovered it was the lobby of some kind of cheap hotel, unless she missed her guess. Based on the blood and bodies—armed bodies—this had been a guard post.

The remains of a woman behind the desk and two guys off to one side of the dingy room were all that was left of the opposition. Pistols lay beside all three that Olivia quickly collected. With the weapons and extra ammunition, each of them could be armed, but Veronica took the spare weapon for herself rather than giving it to Richard.

Justine approved.

If the man cared, he was bright enough not to complain.

Olivia walked to the front door and looked outside. “There’s an air car parked here that looks like it probably belongs to one of these people. Veronica, search their pockets for keys and anything else interesting.”

It only took the former Fleet officer a few moments to find the keys. She started collecting everything else that looked interesting, and Justine noted how she immediately disabled the communications devices. It took her a moment to understand that she was worried about them being tracked.

“I’ve got the dead guard’s com in his shirt. Richard has it. Please disable it too. I absolutely don’t want them to be able to track us down once we escape.”

Veronica took the bloody shirt from the man, found the com unit, and quickly disabled it. She went through everything else that was there and seemed satisfied, then she gestured toward the front door.

“Let’s do this.”

The four of them made their way out to the beat-up air car and piled in. Justine was going to get in the back, but Veronica redirected her to the front passenger seat. She then indicated that Olivia should drive while she sat in the back with Richard.

Once they’d all settled into place, Justine could see why. Veronica still had the pistol in her lap and aimed toward the man. She didn’t trust him and was making clear that he shouldn’t give them any trouble.

Time for Justine to spread some oil on the troubled waters.

“This has been a high-stress situation,” she said. “If we can get to someplace where we can get to know one another, I’d bet we can all be friends.”

Richard didn’t look convinced, but he wasn’t going to argue either. “Just get us off the ground and start heading south. I think I know roughly where we are, but I need to see some landmarks before I can get us to the place I mentioned.

“Keep our speed under the posted limits and don’t attract any attention because I can’t be sure that the security forces aren’t working for these people.”

Justine shook her head. “I’m pretty confident that these people aren’t who you think they are, but weirdly, they probably are working with the ones that betrayed you. At least a little.

“Olivia, do as he says, and let’s find someplace where we can be safe for a bit.”

Justine wanted to collapse in relief. This nightmare was almost over. If they could just get away safely, she might be able to turn this entire thing around and find a solution to their political problem.

If, of course, someone didn’t catch them and kill them first.

33

Elise was bemused by their approach to the AI station. Under other circumstances, she’d have had to fly the cutter to the station herself and deal with the consequences.

Not this time.

Since she could open a portal to another place, she had a trained pilot to bring her in. Once the cutter was docked to the station, she’d open a portal to the other dimension, and the pilot would step through. It would be as if she’d never been there.

Elise was sitting at the copilot’s console, waiting for the inevitable challenge to come in. Once they started talking, the people on the other side had to see her and only her. They had to believe wholeheartedly that she was alone on that cutter, or there’d be trouble that Elise couldn’t talk her way out of.

Part of her would’ve preferred to have Kelsey with her in these last couple of minutes, but that wasn’t possible. Major Collins had forbidden it and actually made it stick this time.

The marine officer hadn’t been able to keep Kelsey from being involved at all, but she was in powered armor in the other dimension. She wouldn’t have fit in the cutter’s control area, so one of the carrier’s fighter pilots was taking her in.

In fact, their senior pilot: Captain Annette Vitter.

Vitter handled the cutter as if she’d flown one just like it thousands of times. Her eyes took in everything, and her fingers made minute adjustments to this control or that. Since she was a trained pilot, none of it made any sense to Elise.

“Nervous?” Vitter asked, glancing over at her.

“A little,” Elise admitted. “If they decide to restrain me, it’ll be a while before I can open the portal. That’s actually my biggest worry. I don’t want to leave everybody stuck in that place.”

The woman laughed slightly. “You’d think they were going to be there for a year based on how much food and other supplies they packed in there. If it takes you a while to open the portal, they’ll be fine. For that matter, I suppose I’ll be fine too, since I’ll be there.”

“Why are you flying the cutter? Shouldn’t one of the marines have done this so they could do double duty?”

The pilot shrugged slightly. “The major wants every shooter he has in armor, so that called for a separate pilot. Technically, I probably shouldn’t have come myself, but I’ve got a lot of experience flying cutters that I earned back on the original Athena before I was injured.”

“You were injured?”

The pilot raised her right arm. “I lost it in a crash. Trust me, this situation isn’t nearly as ugly as that one, so we’re not in danger of crashing this time. Blame an asteroid impact for the last one. In comparison, this situation doesn’t even get my heart rate up.”

Elise was impressed. She couldn’t even tell that the arm was artificial. Imperial medical technology was awe-inspiring.

“How long do you think before they challenge us?”

Vitter leaned forward slightly and looked at one of the screens in front of her. “Fifteen minutes, at most, before one of the pinnaces detects us. Once that happens, they’re going to move to intercept us in a hurry.

“They’ll herd the cutter to the station and force it to dock where they want. That’ll be my cue to leave, and you’ll get the opportunity to run your bluff. Are you really worried that they’re going to lock you up and keep you from letting everyone in?”

Elise shook her head. “Not really. I think they’re going to search me thoroughly and then asked me some tough questions, but I’m not exactly that much of a threat. If I’m unarmed, there’s not going to be any real reason to secure me.

“Part of any decent interrogation technique involves letting someone stew by themselves at some point during the questioning. That would be the place where I open the portal and let our people through. Once Kelsey and the rest get on board the station, it’s all over but the shooting.”

Vitter didn’t look convinced. “That really depends on how firmly these people want to hold onto what they have. If they’re willing to destroy the station, that could prove… awkward.”

“True,” Elise said with a nod. “That would make getting back out of the other dimension a little bit tougher. Not impossible but challenging.”

The two of them flew on in relative silence. Just as Vitter had guessed, someone spotted them right around the fifteen-minute mark, and the scanners on the screen in front of her showed some pinnaces near the station moving to intercept her.

Her feed was being sent directly to her from the stealthed FTL probe via tight beam. That feed was about to go dead because now that the enemy knew they were there, Audacious wouldn’t take any chance that the beam would be detected.

And right on cue, the cutter switched over to its own passive scanners. The view was much less revealing, but she could still detect the incoming pinnaces. They were flying in separate groups, which confirmed everyone’s guess that both sides were patrolling outside the station.

“Unidentified craft, this area is restricted,” a male voice said over the com channel. “Identify yourself.”

Elise reached forward and touched the response key on her console. “This is cutter seven five three inbound to the AI station. I’m bringing more information about the situation unfolding in the system and need to speak to both sets of senior officers.”

There were a few seconds of silence, and then the same voice came back. “I repeat, identify yourself.”

“Elise Orison.”

That caused another minute of silence while the cutter continued on its course, even as the pinnaces settled around it with their guns trained on it. If that bothered Vitter, she didn’t show any concern.

The pilot reached over and muted the outgoing transmission. “We’re going to have to get docking instructions in the next sixty seconds, or we’ll have to circle around the station until they make up their minds.”

Elise nodded and unmuted the channel.

“Inbound cutter, no one seems to know who you are. Which ship did you say you came from?”

“I didn’t. That really isn’t something that I can go over on an open channel. I’m the only person on this cutter, and it’s not armed, so I suggest that you bring me in to speak to your leadership. They’re definitely going to want to hear what I have to say.”

That didn’t seem to make the person on the other end very happy, but after another few seconds of silence, he directed the cutter to a specific dock and instructed her to fly slowly and that she would be destroyed if she deviated the least little bit.

Vitter was able to get them secured to the docking clamps without any issue and shut everything down. Once that was accomplished, Elise stepped into the main compartment and opened a portal to the other dimension. She could see the armed and armored marines waiting on the other side and waved at them.

Kelsey was nowhere in sight, which was a telling sort of thing as well. It seemed that the major wasn’t going to allow her friend through on the first run.

Vitter stopped just short of the portal. “This is amazing. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I’d have never believed it.”

The woman put an arm—her artificial one—on Elise’s shoulder. “Just keep taking deep breaths. You’re going to be fine.”

“I sure as hell hope so,” Elise said, unsure that she really felt that way.

“You’ll be fine,” the pilot repeated.

With that, she stepped through the portal before Elise dismissed it. Now she was alone on the cutter, and it was time to go face the music.

She walked to where the cutter connected to the station and opened the hatch. As expected, there were a lot of people on the other side with weapons pointed at her.

All she did was raise her arms and smile.

“Take me to your leaders.”

* * *

“I don’t understand why I’m being kept back until the very last wave,” Kelsey complained as she walked around the basement area in the strange dwelling that Elise had discovered.

“If you don’t get it by now, I think that’s probably willful ignorance,” Carl said as he visually examined the ship docked just outside the room. She could tell that he really wanted to go on board and start studying it, but he didn’t have that option until everything was settled.

“Zia gave Major Collins an order to keep you out of the fighting,” he continued without looking at her. “Honestly, you don’t really think that you need to be up front, do you? His people have this covered.”

“I want to be involved,” Kelsey grumbled. “What’s the purpose of even having me here in armor if I’m just going to sit and wait for everything to be finished?”

Carl gave her an incredulous look. “Now you are being obtuse. They’re going to have to take control of that battlecruiser, and that means that they’re going to have to have teams everywhere. There aren’t enough people here to do everything, so you’re going to get your chance to be in on the action.

“Kelsey, what’s your real problem?”

“I’m losing control of my life,” she said, throwing her hands in the air. “When I was a kid, I didn’t have a lot of control over things that were going on around me. Either my father or Ethan was always telling me what to do.

“It may not seem like it, but the end result of all this trouble I’ve been through is that it’s given me agency in my own life. Now, other people are once again telling me what I can and cannot do, and it pisses me off.

“I understand that I’m pregnant, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t make decisions for myself. Who are these people who think they can just tell me what to do? Am I not their damned princess? I should be telling them what I’m going to do, not the other way around.”

Even as she said it, she could hear the petulance in her voice. Honestly, it just pissed her off even more. She sounded like teenaged Kelsey.

She held up a hand before Carl could respond. “That sounds bitchy, so strike that. I know that they care about me and worry about the baby, but I’m having a real problem being dictated to. I need to be the one making the decisions about my life.”

“Then why are you standing here with me? If you’re calling the shots, don’t you think you should be up there actually doing something to someone?”

Kelsey opened her mouth to respond, but no words came out.

Dammit. He was absolutely right.

They’d told her to come down here, and she’d complied. She’d been a willing co-conspirator in keeping her from doing what she wanted to do.

“Thanks, Carl. Once again, you’ve shown me that I’m not looking at the situation clearly.”

With that, she picked up her helmet and headed toward the wide stairs that led up to the middle level. She knew that she’d get into an argument about being involved in this, but that was something that would actually be worthwhile, and she wasn’t going to be told where she would stand and what she would do.

By the time she got to the room where the portal would appear, she was ready for the fight that she knew was coming. Major Collins wasn’t going to be happy to see her, and she knew that he would do his absolute best to cow her.

She wasn’t going to allow that to happen.

To her delight, she didn’t have time to get into an argument. He hadn’t even seen her arrive in the room before the portal opened, and Elise stepped into their space.

“They just locked me into what amounts to a closet,” her friend said. “Let me see if I can spin this portal around so that you don’t have to blow a hole in the door.”

With a gesture, Elise pivoted, and the portal did so with her. There was a brief visual disturbance as it passed through the metal bulkhead, and Kelsey found herself staring at a Rebel Empire marine standing in the corridor with his mouth hanging open.

Without conscious thought, she drew her stunner and took him down. Then she jammed her helmet on her head as the marine response team rushed into the station before jumping in just behind them.

The corridor was mostly empty. Yes, there were half a dozen people there, but they were so busy watching one another that they barely noticed the new arrivals before they were stunned.

Once into the corridor, their people established a beachhead on the station and started teams toward the critical areas. They had to prevent the people holding the station from doing anything to the fusion plants, so engineering would be a primary target.

There would also be teams securing the rest of the station, but Kelsey knew that the next big area of interest would be the battlecruiser. There were only a few docking tubes that they could use to board the ship, and they needed to secure them as rapidly as possible.

To her amusement, Major Collins missed her arrival completely. That was probably because she was wearing regular powered armor instead of her Marine Raider gear. He was so focused on making sure that the boarding operation started off right that he didn’t even realize that she was there.

Perfect.

With him suitably distracted, she was able to attach herself to the team headed toward the battlecruiser. They raced through the corridors, using the maps they’d acquired from her previous incursion into one of these stations, and were rewarded because the other side had no reason to expect an invasion.

Better yet, there were two sides inside the station that were busy watching one another, and that made everything they did overly complicated. Their numbers were already relatively small, and the fact that they were keeping an eye on one another meant that they had no chance to put up an effective blockade against the forces from the New Terran Empire.

Kelsey and the team she was with were at the boarding tube that they’d picked to get on board the battlecruiser in less than four minutes. Unfortunately for them, the ship was docked with its front toward the station, which meant that they’d have to fight their way through its entire length to get to the engineering section on the ship.

By this time, the defenders had realized that there was a third force involved, but the confusion had cost them. There’d been some fighting between the two sides already on the station, and a number of them had been either stunned or killed without ever having seen anyone from the New Terran Empire.

That was unfortunate, at least so far as the deaths, but sometimes that was the cost of doing business.

In this case, it meant that the boarding tube they’d chosen was almost undefended. A couple of Rebel Empire marines fired at them with flechette rifles, but the defenders were significantly outclassed.

The attackers didn’t even bother using their lethal weaponry. They were able to break into the tube and take the defenders out with stunners, securing their entrance to the battlecruiser.

The lieutenant in charge of this portion of the operation quickly sent his people on the direct path toward the engineering section of the warship. They had to secure the fusion plants to make sure that they weren’t used to destroy the ship and station.

Right now, the defenders wouldn’t have even thought of doing that, but they’d turn their minds in that direction as soon as it became apparent that they were going to lose.

Kelsey gleefully fell into the middle of the group and raced toward the upcoming fight. She expected engineering to be heavily defended and was ready for the fight to turn bloody. Therefore, she was utterly surprised when they didn’t even run into anyone aboard the battlecruiser.

Not a single person.

They arrived in engineering to find everything dark and cold. The fusion plants weren’t even online. Hell, there might not even be anyone aboard the battlecruiser.

By the time the lieutenant in charge sent teams to other areas of the ship to verify that there wasn’t anyone aboard, Major Collins had secured the station. The irony that she’d inadvertently sent herself into the safest part of this operation wasn’t lost on Kelsey.

Frankly, it was damned annoying.

Well, she supposed it didn’t matter. They’d done what they’d needed to do, and the station was now under their control. She might as well just wait here for Carl and his people to come and look at things.

Collins might never even realize that she hadn’t been where he’d told her to go, and that galled her a little.

Even now, the fighters from Audacious would be herding the pinnaces away from the station. They’d give those people every chance to surrender, but if they posed a threat to the station or the battlecruiser, the fighters would take them out.

She supposed the fact that there hadn’t been any sign of being fired upon probably meant that that part of the plan was working. Honestly, things were going surprisingly smoothly, so she expected there to be additional problems going forward.

Once everything was thoroughly sorted out, she and Zia needed to have a talk with whoever had been in charge before they’d arrived. They needed to know what the situation was in the system, and then they had to convince these people to work with them.

Otherwise, some other outside force would seize control of the Devon system, and they had to stop that at all costs.

34

Zia walked into the makeshift interrogation room, expecting to find prisoners seated at the tables with their assigned guards standing behind them, and was surprised to find only Kelsey there. She stopped, raised an eyebrow, and gestured toward the empty tables.

“Where is everybody? Was there a room change, and I didn’t get the memo?”

Kelsey shook her head. “Nothing so dramatic. Well, nothing dramatic in quite the same way anyhow. The two sides are busy arguing about who should actually speak to us, and rather than put them in the same room where they’d just continue shouting, I’ve decided to separate them into two smaller rooms.

“Believe it or not, there’s a lot of ego running around in this particular group. From what I understand, the two leadership groups were formed by senior aides of the previous coordinator, and they don’t particularly care for one another. We could’ve put our foot down, but I kind of thought that we’d want to make a better first impression than just shooting the first one that wouldn’t shut up.”

“That would certainly make an impression,” Zia conceded. “Since we have the time, maybe you can explain to me why Major Collins is so upset with you again.”

Kelsey rolled her eyes. “The man is perpetually upset with me. It’s kind of like an existential state of being for him. For a lot of people, I suppose.

“In this case, it’s because I managed to slip out of the safe little box that he put me in and went on board the station and battlecruiser. Not that I got to shoot anybody, unless you count that one marine I stunned at the beginning, and no one was really shooting at me.

“It was kind of boring, really.”

Zia pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head. “I gave him those orders. It’s my job to keep you safe.”

Kelsey walked over to her, put a hand on each of her shoulders, and stared deeply into her eyes. “That’s bullshit, and you know it. Your job is to make certain that your mission is accomplished. You’re taking me on as kind of a personal crusade, and I’m willing to tolerate some of that.

“What I’m not going to let you do is put me in a box and surround me with paper to keep me safe. That’s not who I am, and that’s not how I’m going to behave. I’m not subject to your orders, Commodore, nor am I subject to the major’s.

“I am your crown princess, the heir to the Imperial Throne. Do I have a military rank? Yes, I do, but I’m not in Fleet, and I’m not under your command. The list of people that can order me to do something is extremely small, and as much as I like you, you’re not on it.”

Zia started to snap back but stopped herself. Her friend’s—no, the Empress of the Terran Empire in waiting’s—words frustrated Zia, but there wasn’t much she could do about that.

Kelsey was right. She had precisely as much authority over the woman as Kelsey herself allowed. Talking sense to her was about the extent that she could legally manage.

Unless she chose to stun the woman and lock her up in the brig. Sometimes that sounded like a reasonable course of action, but she needed to watch exactly how far she allowed that impulse to go. Unlike Admiral Mertz, she wasn’t Kelsey’s sister, and there was only so far that she could push things.

“You really didn’t have any problems with the prisoners, did you? You arranged all of this so we could have this talk, didn’t you?”

Kelsey raised both of her hands in a defensive gesture. “Nope! Everything I said is true. Those egotistical buggers wouldn’t stop yelling and screaming at one another, pointing fingers about who exactly was responsible for this entire fiasco, and swearing retribution.

“My guess is that their bosses just don’t get along, and that’s bled into the organizations themselves. Maybe that’s why they couldn’t find common cause once the coordinator was off the scene.”

Zia sat on the edge of one of the tables. “Do we have any idea what happened to the original coordinator? I know that the data our people have gathered don’t talk about him other than saying that he was deposed, so he must be locked up somewhere, or they executed him, right?”

Kelsey gave her an elaborate shrug. “I haven’t asked any questions about him because I wanted to save that particular can of worms until we were both here. Like you said, this is our one chance to get some straight answers from these people and maybe get a little bit of cooperation before the outside group takes over completely.

“The two destroyers that left here are almost certainly going to be swept up just the same way the two at the flip point were. The remaining two in orbit around Devon aren’t going to be a threat to these new people, so as soon as they make orbit, they’re going to be able to assume control of the planet, at least in name.”

Zia considered that and nodded slowly. “They didn’t bring enough people to actually replace whatever leadership is still in place in the system. They’re going to have to use the people who are already here, so there’s only so much that they’ll be able to accomplish directly.

“Of course, they’re going to control the orbital space around Devon, so that’s a pretty big threat all on its own. I’m not sure that we’re going to be able to overcome it without using force. Doing it the easy way, relatively speaking, was your mother’s job. Mine is to break things and kill people.”

Kelsey hopped off the table. “Don’t sell yourself short, Zia. You’ve saved a lot of people too. Sadly, I kind of agree with you. Until we figure out what the resistance has done with my mother and the rest, our options are limited.”

The blonde grimaced slightly. “I know you have to be worried about Veronica, probably more than I’m worried about my mother. It’s only going to be a matter of time before we find and rescue them.”

“I sure as hell hope that you’re right,” Zia said with a sigh. “Veronica means a great deal to me, and if someone has hurt her, I’m going to literally kill them.”

“And I’ll probably hold them down for you. We’ll be able to use our people on the planet to get some idea of what’s going on as well. The real question is going to be what do we do about this invading force.”

“We could seize the unprotected flip point, and we’d have them trapped. Unfortunately for us, we can’t chase them all around the system because they’re mostly faster than we are. That would make for something of a standoff, and we only have one ship to position at the flip point that would keep them at a distance: Audacious. That really limits our options.

“What about the battlecruiser?”

“Carl is still looking at things, but he didn’t sound very hopeful the last time I saw him,” Kelsey said. “All of the fusion plants were offline, and the computer systems aren’t operational. He said that he has to do some testing before he can determine what’s going on.”

“It doesn’t sound like that ship is going to be of any use to us,” Zia said with a sigh. “That’s a pity. It honestly sounds like straight military force isn’t going to work. When there were only six destroyers, it was a real possibility. Now? Not so much.”

“Then I suppose we need hope that we can talk one or both of these squabbling groups into supporting us against the third,” Kelsey said. “Diplomacy isn’t my strong suit, but we really need to find a way to leverage the current groups in the system against the new group.

“The New Terran Empire can work with whoever ends up in control, as long as they haven’t done something monstrous. And even if they have, sometimes one has to hold their nose and deal with the group that’s in power. We just have to find a way to use the force we can bring to bear as leverage to make that happen.”

Zia nodded, already thinking along those lines herself. This was the gunboat diplomacy that had been mentioned in earlier discussions. They would have to either use force or the threat of force to compel some kind of diplomatic concessions from somebody in this system.

In the original plan, its utility had been much more straightforward. Now, Kelsey was right. They’d have to acquire what allies they could and hope that they could live with the decision later. This was only the first system of five they had to secure control of to get things started.

Even those were only a drop in the bucket compared to taking the entirety of the Rebel Empire back under their control. In a perfect world, everyone would bow their heads to the emperor, but thinking that would happen now was laughably naïve. The cat was out of the bag, and there wouldn’t be any getting it back in.

Admiral Mertz and the fleet he was assembling were going to act against the Clans, and that was definitely a worthwhile goal, but it didn’t help unite the Empire now that the AIs had stood down.

Building a nucleus that other worlds inside the Rebel Empire wanted to join was key to their success, and even though she had some ideas of how that started, it was a relative certainty that things wouldn’t work out the way they’d planned.

Probably not even close, based on recent history.

“I suppose we’d best go talk to these people,” Zia said with a sigh. “I really do wish that at least a few things would break our way. This situation has gotten more complicated the longer we’ve been here, and it doesn’t look to be easing up anytime soon.

“With our luck, the Clans will arrive in the middle of our negotiations, and everything is going to go straight down the toilet.”

“That’s not even funny,” Kelsey said sternly. “But our luck is crap. Come on. Let me go introduce you to our squabbling guests.”

* * *

Justine kept her eye on Kagan as Olivia drove. The man was a cipher. Until recently, he’d been the ruler of this world, though under the direction of the AIs.

That made her briefly wonder what happened to the AI after it had surrendered. Had they destroyed it? In their place, she’d have certainly felt the urge. They didn’t know that the hardware could be reused to create a free being like Fiona.

She’d have to ask about that when the opportunity presented itself. Recovering another set of AI hardware would be exceptionally useful.

When they finally got to a place where they could speak in relative safety, she felt confident that both sides would get their share of surprises. Yet this situation gave her hope that they could actually manage to work out an agreement that allowed them a chance of success.

The urge to start those negotiations right now was so strong that she almost had to bite her tongue to keep from talking. The idea to become an ambassador to the resistance had been brilliant and really did play into her strengths. At least as long as she could keep her eyes off every man in the vicinity.

Thankfully, her relationship with Don was surprisingly fulfilling, and she hadn’t even been tempted to stray. It was actually shocking how much her life had changed with just that one thing.

Thinking of him when they’d been torturing her hadn’t been an option. Every time she’d tried, she’d felt herself weakening. Now that she was free—relatively speaking—those emotions were threatening to flood back over her, and she didn’t dare let them in just yet.

If things worked out in their favor, perhaps she could get off this damned planet and back into his arms again. That couldn’t come soon enough.

Her implant com pinged with an incoming call. It’d been so long that the noise in her head almost made her twitch.

Suspicious and reluctant, she accepted the call, ready to terminate it at once if it were somehow their captors trying to taunt her. Or track her.

Ambassador Bandar, I can’t tell you how good it is to finally make contact with you. This is Senior Lieutenant Jack Thompson from Persephone. I’m down on the planet, and we just picked up your signal. I’d like to rendezvous with you as soon as possible. Is everyone okay?

Justine immediately relaxed. There was no way anyone on this damned planet could know about Persephone or name one of her crew. She vaguely remembered the helmsman, and a quick check confirmed his implant serial ID number matched what she had on file.

She was glad that her daughter had provided her with that information about both her ship and Audacious. It took the guesswork out of deciding whether she could trust him or not.

It’s good to hear your voice, Senior Lieutenant, she said silently. We’ve managed to escape the place where the local resistance was holding us. We only just got free, and if you’re communicating with us, that means you’re somewhere within ten kilometers, right?

That’s right, ma’am. I’m working on triangulating your location right now, but if you could give me some landmarks, we can be there very quickly. If you’re in imminent danger, we’re armed, and I think we can probably turn the tide.

Since he was a Marine Raider, she was more than confident that he could handle any issues that the resistance wanted to throw at her, should they try to pursue. Ideally, that wouldn’t be necessary because it would draw unnecessary attention to them, but it was nice to have that option in her pocket.

Let me get a little bit of information from one of the people with us, and I’ll pass it along to you shortly. I think we’re okay for the moment, but the quicker we can get to the hiding place that we’re going to, the better. We probably also need to get rid of the vehicle we stole because they might be able to track it.

Copy that. Standing by. Say the word, and we come down on any obstacles like an orbital strike.

Justine sent a brief note through her implants to her two companions about the contact. She couldn’t reveal that they had long-range coms at their disposal because that technology didn’t exist inside the Rebel Empire. They’d have to gingerly work their way around to bringing the new people into the scene so that they didn’t reveal the capability.

She also gave them a brief rundown of everything she knew about Kagan, including the fact that he’d been the coordinator here until relatively recently. They needed to know who they were dealing with so that they didn’t inadvertently spill any secrets they shouldn’t.

They also needed to know that he was potentially the key to their ultimate success, and there was only so far that they could push him.

That done, she focused her attention on the man of the hour. He was sitting kind of cocked in the backseat so that he was partially turned toward Veronica and the weapon that she had trained on him. It obviously bothered him, but he was taking pains not to look threatening.

“About how far away are we from that destination you have in mind, Richard? You don’t mind if I call you that, do you? You’re, of course, welcome to call me Justine in return.”

“You saved me from a hideous situation, so for the time being, I’m going to regard us at least as neutral, so please do,” he said. “We’re probably still fifteen or twenty minutes away at this speed. We’re going to have to leave the main thoroughfare in fairly short order and start moving through some side streets, though.

“It’s pretty well off the beaten path because it was supposed to be a last-ditch safe house that no one knew about but me. Frankly, you wouldn’t believe how difficult it is to get something like that built while concealing the ownership and possession of it from literally everyone around you when so many people have their eyes on you.”

Justine nodded. “I’d imagine so. Olivia will need some specific directions. Once we arrive, and we’re sure that we’re safe for the moment, we’ll be calling in some friends to assist us with protection and getting rid of this vehicle so that it can’t be used to trace us to where we’re hiding.”

The man shifted uncomfortably. “I understand that I’m completely in your power, but I don’t know your friends. Considering that I don’t even know you, that’s saying something. I do understand that we’re going to have to have a long conversation to introduce ourselves to one another, but why exactly again am I supposed to be giving you complete and utter power over me?”

“We already have complete and utter power over you,” Veronica said matter-of-factly. “We’re not going to be able to call for our friends to come and help us until we get to the destination in any case because we’re not going to stop somewhere to use a com or use the one built into this vehicle because that might be traced. That gives us a very narrow window of opportunity to convince each other that we can help with the other’s problems.

“Justine seems to already know something about you, so that makes me believe that this discussion will be worthwhile. I’ll start off by introducing myself. My name is Veronica Giguere, and until a year ago, I was a commander in Fleet. I commanded a destroyer out on the edges of the Empire. Now I’m working for Justine and her superiors.”

The man raised an eyebrow. “And just who might her superiors be?”

“Would you believe the actual emperor of the Terran Empire?” Olivia said from the driver’s seat. “I understand that sounds crazy, but the situation definitely isn’t what the AIs led us to believe.

“I’m going to let her give you the specifics of that because it’s a longer story than we have time for, but I should also introduce myself. My name is Olivia West, and I’m the Coordinator of Harrison’s World, though I’m on a bit of a sabbatical at the moment.”

“I don’t know that I’ve ever heard of Harrison’s World, so it must be some distance away,” he said slowly. “That’s quite a claim to make. I don’t suppose you have any way to back that up?”

“Of course I do, as you well know. Allow me to send you the authentication codes that place me in the leadership of that world.”

Richards’s eyes widened after a few moments. “I see. I suppose this does change things. What is the coordinator for an entire world doing so far from home?”

“This might surprise you, but I was a member of the resistance back before the AIs fell. The intervention of Justine’s superiors allowed our world to separate itself from the Empire, and it’s been an extremely illuminating experience.

“Let me be clear that I don’t work for the local resistance and that I don’t support anything that they’ve done to you or us. If I have anything to say about it, the people in charge here are going to deeply regret the decisions that they’ve made.”

“And I suppose that I should probably fully introduce myself as well,” Justine said. “I’m not sure how much you studied history, but the last emperor of the Terran Empire also had the last name Bandar.

“The reason I have it is because my ex-husband is the current reigning emperor of the New Terran Empire, a group of worlds outside of the borders of the Empire. I’m here as part of a group that engineered the fall of the AIs, and now we’re trying to bring all of the worlds of the Empire out of this dark age and keep the Clans from taking possession of everything.”

Richard blinked, opened his mouth to say something, and then closed it again. After a few seconds, he shook his head slightly.

“The Clans? I think we’ll have to have that longer discussion very soon because I’m utterly confused. Still, to do that, I suppose you’re going to need directions. Here’s how you get to the safe house.”

35

Carl set up the portable power generator and found the appropriate port in the door to the computer center. As soon as the readouts indicated that it had power, he got to work on cracking the security protocols. They were tough, but he had their measure. It only took him a couple of minutes to open the doors.

The inside of the compartment was just as dark as the rest of the powered-down battlecruiser, so everyone went in with their lights out and looking for any trouble. Once the marines had cleared the area, the scientists were allowed inside.

Over the years, he’d seen a number of these particular rooms, including on battlecruisers. He’d also examined ones belonging to the Rebel Empire. In that respect, this place looked perfectly normal. So why wasn’t it working?

The computers here required more power than the doors, but they’d come prepared. It took half an hour to get enough of the portable power units connected to the various locations on the hardware so that he could bring the computer up in diagnostic mode and begin figuring out why it wasn’t working.

The answer turned out to be far more straightforward than he’d expected. The computer hardware powered up, but the unit itself failed to boot. It seemed that the master processing unit was broken in some way.

It took another half hour of careful examination by the three of them before Austin sighed and shook his head. “There’s been some type of electrical failure inside the central processing unit. Something fried itself, and the safeties that were supposed to protect the rest of the unit failed. It’s a loss.”

“So why didn’t the repair units just fix it?” Austin asked. “Isn’t that their job?”

“It is, but if the flaw only revealed itself when everything was powering up so that the ships could leave, they wouldn’t have had time to do anything.

“I suppose they could’ve started the repairs and then sent the ship on to join the rest, but for whatever reason, once the AI in charge of the system sent the stand-down order, that’s exactly what they did. It doesn’t look like they’ve attempted to repair this thing at all.”

Carl considered that potential explanation for a second or two and then nodded to himself. “We should be able to get some replacement parts from the station and have the computer back up and running in short order. The question is, is that really what we should be doing?”

Ralph raised an eyebrow. “What’s that supposed to mean? Of course we should be trying to get the system back online. Commodore Anderson said that she really needed this battlecruiser. If it’s only the central processing unit, we should be able to have it back online in a few hours.”

“True, but we have another option. Right now, Fiona is sitting on board Persephone, twiddling her electronic thumbs. Wouldn’t it be a better idea to put her in command of this battlecruiser? Then, if we can take control of any of the destroyers in this system and revert them back to computer control, she’ll be able to direct them in combat and help protect Audacious.”

The other scientists struck thoughtful poses that amused Carl and slowly nodded.

“That’s certainly doable, but not only does Fiona need to agree, we’ll have to get buy-in from Kelsey and Commodore Anderson,” Ralph said. “It’s going to take Persephone a couple of days to get out here, and that’s going to delay things as well. With things progressing as quickly as they are in the rest of the system, I’m not sure that we have time to actually make the magic happen.”

“Maybe not, but with the computer offline, we can begin tearing out all of the equipment here in preparation for moving Fiona in, if they agree. We’ll have to beef up the power runs and add some extra shielding to make sure that the compartment is as well protected as possible, but that’s simple enough.

“We can use the extra time to expand the compartment into the adjoining section, and that should allow us to make Fiona more secure and allow for easier maintenance.”

He gestured at the dark compartment. “Now that we know the problem is the computer, we should be able to bring the ship’s fusion plants online manually and provide power for everything.

“That’ll let us refresh the atmosphere and bring the defensive and offensive systems online. Audacious can send over some people to crew the ship at minimal levels, and a single battlecruiser should be up to handling anything our new friends throw our way, even without a computer.”

“That’s not going to help us if the Clans show up,” Ralph argued. “Still, a battlecruiser would really stiffen the line for the forces are already in the system if Commodore Anderson and the rest can get everybody working from the same page.

“Do you think it’s even possible to bring all of these different players we’re going to be fighting with into some kind of accord? It really seems like everybody’s cutting out their own bits and pieces of the Rebel Empire, and they’re not going to want to give up what they’ve taken. The whole damn thing is going to come apart as various coordinators try to secure their power base and expand it.”

Carl shrugged and headed for the main hatch. “We can only do what we can do. If we get all the pieces lined up, we can give our people a functional battlecruiser and potentially control a bunch of other ships without having to worry about some of the players you were just talking about sticking knives in our back.

“Just remember that we can only work on the technical aspects of this. The negotiations and power plays are somebody else’s problem. We’ll support them by being ready for whatever happens. I suggest that we hope for the best and plan for the worst.

“If we assume that this battlecruiser is all we’re going to get, adding Fiona to her will certainly improve her combat capability. There are only so many people that Audacious can give us to work with, and taking as many operational requirements as possible off their hands will mean that the ship can work with no one aboard if push comes to shove. That’s what it was designed for.

“But to do that, we need to get down to engineering and get the power on so that we can start all the other work. I’ll send our idea to Commodore Anderson and Kelsey and let them start working on their end. If they decide not to do it, we won’t have wasted any time, since we need the power anyway.”

He really hoped that they could get the ship ready quickly because one way or the other, there was likely to be fighting in the system very soon. An extra battlecruiser in their pocket would go a long way toward keeping their people safe and possibly forestalling a fight entirely.

It was his job to make that happen, so he’d best get busy.

* * *

Elise was getting tired of acting as a doorwoman. People continued to go in and out of the strange new place that was connected with her, exploring its nooks and crannies and even examining the ship that was moored there, and she was the only one that could get them there.

Rather than opening the portal from the space station, she was back aboard Audacious in Carl’s lab. There really wasn’t any need for her to be over on the old AI facility. Everything there was well in hand.

She was getting hungry and starting to wonder how she could get some lunch when Don Sommerville strolled from the main corridor. The man had brought her a sandwich, drink, and a salad with a selection of potential dressings on the side.

“Bless you,” she said fervently. “I was starving.”

He’d brought a second meal along, so they sat down together at one of the tables and dug into their food. The portal moved with her, but the people coming in and out could dodge around the table.

Sommerville didn’t say anything until he’d finished disposing of the trash that was left when they were done. At that point, he returned to his seat and gave her such a direct look that she knew he wanted something.

Well, he wasn’t the first, and he had brought food.

“I’d like to ask you a few questions about this brand-new ability of yours,” he said earnestly. “It occurs to me that the way it seemingly violates physics might be useful to us if it has a little bit of give to it.”

Elise frowned and crossed her arms over her chest as she leaned back in her chair. “I don’t understand.”

“You can open that portal and step into the other dimension from any location that you’ve tried thus far. When you close it and then open it back up again, it’s in the same location, right?”

“That’s right.”

“That held true even after you spent all the time exploring it. You were there for something like ninety minutes, I think. That tells me that whatever physics you’re operating with has some give to it if you can figure out how to work it.”

Her frown deepened. “How does that give us options? It literally opens to the same place that I was in.”

He smiled a little at that. “You don’t get it because you’re not a former Fleet officer or a spacer of any kind. During the time that you were gone, Audacious traveled quite a distance. It may seem like you opened that portal in the same place that you left, but in fact, you opened it millions of kilometers away from where you’d entered.

“Whatever opens that portal for you was able to track the new location of the ship to allow you to come out in the same compartment that you left from, but that’s absolutely different than coming out in the same place.

“That implies that there’s the potential for you to pick a different place to open that portal, and if that’s true, we need to explore precisely what the limitations of that ability are.”

Elise blinked in surprise at the revelation. Everything he’d said was true. The fact that the ship had been moving through space hadn’t even occurred to her.

“It’s more than that,” she said abruptly. “Not only was Audacious moving, but the Devon system is also rotating around the galactic core. It’s moving pretty fast too. Faster than the ship by far. The galaxy is also moving through space at some probably ridiculous velocity. How does the portal keep track of all that?”

Sommerville shrugged. “I have absolutely no idea, yet the fact that it can pinpoint precisely where your compartment was with all of that relative motion indicates an exceptionally good level of control over the positioning of the portal itself.

“The same is true of the AI station. It was deep in a gravity well and orbiting the gas giant. What’s more, we know that those orbs or whatever they are in the other dimension are in motion as well. It’s keeping track of everything we can think of and likely more besides.”

That was significantly more disturbing than Elise had expected it to be. It was one thing to mentally blow something off as “oh, it’s magic,” but quite another to get down into the nitty-gritty of exactly what the strange technology was capable of.

Had this bracelet that she’d found been intended to take people from dimension to dimension? If not, how did it manage that? If it was, what other dimensions did these strange aliens have access to? Was it possible that she had access to them all as well?

“Well, thanks for all those disturbing thoughts,” she told Sommerville. “I’m surprised that Carl hasn’t come to bug me about any of that. What are you hoping to get out of this?”

She had her suspicions but wasn’t sure that she’d be able to give him any good news.

“I’m hoping that if we can prove this theory to be true, you can open a portal from the other side to somewhere on Devon. Say, where Justine is. Have you tried opening a portal to come out near someone on this side? If the blasted thing can keep track of all that relative motion, it’s possible that it could open a portal in a location where someone else is.”

“I haven’t tried anything like that,” she said with a regretful shake of her head. “I have to say that I’m skeptical, though. Exactly how would whatever this is know where another person is? At least with picking the location where I’ve exited the ship, it has a port of origin that it can keep track of.

“Let’s say I picked Kelsey as a potential destination. If she wasn’t here right now, exactly how would the machinery, magic, or whatever this is figure out where she is? It certainly isn’t keeping track of where every single person in the universe is.”

At least she hoped it wasn’t. That would be horrifying.

“We can test it out right now,” he offered. “If you go to the other side and close the portal, I’ll walk outside of this compartment, and you can try to open it back to where I am. It’ll either work, or it won’t.”

Elise shrugged. “It’s worth a try.”

She stood up and walked through the portal. Once she was on the other side, she double-checked to make sure that no one was needing the portal right away and closed it.

After a count of thirty, she touched the dark oval on her arm and envisioned the portal opening next to Sommerville. Nothing happened.

And by nothing, she meant the portal didn’t open at all.

That was kind of scary, but it also gave her some interesting data to work with. The portal would’ve opened if it was simply a touch that activated it to the last location she’d been. Some new parameter was in play.

She pressed the oval again and imagined opening the portal back in Carl’s lab to test that theory. It opened just the way she’d expected, and she was able to step back through and note that Sommerville wasn’t there.

Well, that was too bad for his theory. Still, it had told her that there were potentially other things she could do. She just had to experiment with them a little to find out how they might work.

A couple of minutes later, a dejected-looking Sommerville came back into the compartment. “I take it that it didn’t work?”

“No, but I did learn some interesting information from the attempt. When I told it to open to your location, the portal didn’t open at all. That tells me that it’s possible to go somewhere else, but telling it to go where you were wasn’t a valid destination. That makes me question exactly what a valid destination might be.”

The man pursed his lips. “Maybe you have to have been there and opened a portal there at some point. Step into the other world and try to open one back to your quarters and see what happens.”

Elise did precisely that, stepping back into the other world and waiting for a couple of moments as some scientists crossed back into Carl’s lab. Once the path was clear, she closed the portal and then touched the oval and imagined her bathroom.

The portal opened in her bathroom.

Wasn’t that interesting? If she’d been somewhere, she could open a portal there. Exactly how far and to what extent might that work? Had she needed to open a portal there in the first place, or was it just that she had been there?

Her next attempt was to open a portal to the mess hall. She’d been there plenty of times, and if this was going to work, that was an excellent location to try. She imagined a spot in the corner to try to keep potential foot traffic to a minimum.

The portal failed to open. No dice to that theory, then.

She confirmed that she could open a portal back to the AI station where they’d been about to interrogate her, but that was it. She hadn’t been to enough other places and used the technology there.

The experiment complete, she returned to Carl’s lab and waved away Sommerville’s questions as she walked over to the alien ring that opened a portal into the same dimension that she just come from, only going to the crab facility.

Once the connection was stable, she stepped through the blackness and appeared in the same large room that they’d arrived at the facility in. Without closing down the ring, she activated the portal, and it appeared, showing the arrival room on her planetoid.

Elise stepped through the portal, closed it, and opened a new one back to Carl’s lab.

When she appeared, Don grinned at her. “That was amazing.”

She smiled as she went to shut down the ring. “It was, but it doesn’t really help us. I can only go where a portal has been opened. That means that since I’ve never done that anywhere on Devon, I can’t go there.

“We also don’t know if there’s any maximum range to it. Can I do it inside the system? Can I do it across systems? If I’d opened a portal on Pentagar, could I go home right now?

“All interesting questions that won’t help you get back to Justine. I know that you really want to rescue her, and we will, but this isn’t going to be the way to do it.”

His grin didn’t waver. “While you were out, we got word that she and the others have escaped from the resistance. They’re about to rendezvous with people from Persephone.

“It’s entirely possible that they can extract her and the rest, though they also seem to have found someone there who might be able to help us accomplish our mission. It looks like all of this isn’t going to help with that, but I’m glad that you now know what the thing’s capabilities are.”

Hearing the good news, Elise gave him a hug. “I’m so happy to hear that! We’ll get this all sorted out.”

He stayed a couple of minutes more before leaving, but her mind really wasn’t on the conversation. She was thinking over the possibilities that had opened up to her now. If they could find examples of this technology on the other side, it was possible they could create travel that was significantly faster than what they’d managed thus far.

The same would be true if they figured out how the crab-like aliens moved people from one side of the galaxy to the other. A lot of possibilities had just opened up, but to start using them, they needed a base of operations here in the Rebel Empire.

And that was going to be the Devon system if they could manage it.

36

Justine had to admit that Kagan’s little hideaway wasn’t that much to look at. It was a small apartment building right on the edge of a slum. No matter how much advanced worlds tried to see that everyone had a certain minimal level of living conditions, circumstances and greedy individuals usually managed to find a way to create places like this.

Admittedly, the New Terran Empire’s were significantly less ugly than this one, but they still existed.

Rather than park the vehicle directly in front of the building, Olivia simply stopped long enough to let them out and then drove away once Richard told her where to go inside the building when she’d returned.

Once they’d gotten close to the hiding place, Justine had insisted that they stop long enough to buy a disposable com. That was to keep up the appearance that they had to call for assistance from their friends rather than being in constant communication with them.

She’d been so mind-dead that she’d started to go in for it before Olivia stopped her. As covered in blood as she was, they’d have called security, expecting that there’d been a murder.

They wouldn’t have been all that wrong, really.

Once he’d known the address where the hiding place was located, Senior Lieutenant Thompson had changed course and arrived in the area before they did. He was out of sight and beyond any area that would be monitored by the safe house itself, but he was ready to act if need be.

Olivia would drive the vehicle directly to them, and one of the people from Harrison’s World would disable every single thing that could be traced and then fly it to another city. Once that was accomplished, he’d take a train back and join the overwatch team sometime tonight.

Justine imagined that the resistance would be a little too busy evacuating their secret site to be overly worried about them right now. That chicken had flown the coop, so to speak.

Not that she personally knew much about chickens, other than they were delicious if prepared correctly.

The three of them entered the building relatively confident that they weren’t being observed. That was when things got a little bit different. Rather than punching an elevator button to take them up, Richard pressed several buttons simultaneously and then repeated a different pattern twice.

With that accomplished, the elevator began going downward. Considering there were no buttons for any basement structure, she was relatively certain that none of the people who actually lived here knew that there was something underneath them.

“And exactly how is Olivia supposed to find out where we are?” Justine asked.

“When she hits the buzzer to the apartment that I told her to go to, I’ll be able to intercept the intercom and direct her back to the elevator and bring her here remotely.”

“Why not just tell us that’s what we’re doing before we got here?” Veronica asked from the far side of the elevator car, where she was still keeping a watch on him even though her weapon was now hidden.

“The safe house knows who I am. If I’d wanted to, I could’ve pressed a different sequence of these keys, and everyone in the elevator other than myself would’ve been stunned.

“Can we dispense with the threatening posture and start figuring out how we’re going to work together to accomplish our goals? Or, for that matter, could you enlighten me as to what your goals actually are?”

Justine laughed. “That’s fine by me, but if you don’t mind, I think we need to see to our personal hygiene first and maybe get something to eat.”

“You’re right,” Veronica said. “You need a shower, and then I need to take a medical kit and give you a look.”

The elevator doors finally opened, hinting that they were deep underground, far deeper than just an ordinary basement. Whatever facility they were in now had never been part of the building above it. They were probably somewhere deep underneath the city’s subway system.

The elevator let out into a hallway that led to several large, open rooms. There were doors along it as well, but it was evident that no one had been down there in quite some time. The open rooms had shelves filled with supplies of one kind or another, and a peek inside of one of the closed rooms showed a neatly made bedroom. One that hadn’t been dusted in years.

Richard took them to a single larger room near the far side of whatever this was, and they found themselves in a small common area surrounding a suite of bedrooms. Like the rest of the facility, it didn’t seem to have been cleaned in quite some time.

“You’re welcome to pick any of the rooms you like,” Richard said. “They were supposed to be for my guards if we had to stay down here for any length of time. My room is the one right there at the end.”

“I should probably search that,” Veronica said.

“No,” Justine replied, holding up her hand. “He’s earned our trust. Let him have one of the weapons, although I’m sure there’s one in his room already. We’re not here to fight one another, and I believe that we can help one another achieve everything we hope to accomplish if we can find a way to work together.”

“What’s to stop him from taking us prisoner and turning us over to his security forces?” Veronica objected.

“The fact that I haven’t got any clue which of them I can trust,” Richard said flatly. “My personal bodyguards betrayed me and turned me over to those bastards. I thought each of the people working for me was someone who would give their life for me, and I couldn’t have been more wrong. They’d been plotting for God only knows how long to overthrow me.

“I want to hear exactly what your offer is because the only way I’m getting back in power is if somebody helps me upset the applecart. If you can help me do that, I’m willing to do just about anything to help you achieve your goals, depending on what they are.

“We need to have a deep conversation on that subject, but Justine is right. She desperately needs a shower.”

“Thank you so much for that support,” Justine said dryly. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to try to become human again.”

Justine picked a room at random, walked into it, and closed the door behind her. She stripped herself naked, tossing the ruined clothes in the corner of the room so that they could be burned later. She knew that there would be other clothing somewhere in this facility that she could wear, and she wasn’t getting into those nasty rags again.

She’d rather be stark naked.

It took a little bit of time before the water actually turned hot, but once it did, she was able to soak herself so thoroughly that she finally had to turn the temperature down. There was some soap in the dispenser that she used to clean both her body and her hair.

There’d been a time when she’d never have dreamed of using body soap to clean her hair, but those picky days were long gone. At this point, she didn’t care what damage she did to her hair because it could be fixed. She needed to get the blood out of it so that she didn’t smell like some kind of monster.

So that she didn’t remember what they’d done to her. What she’d had to do to survive.

Oh, she knew the nightmares would come, but that was for later. Once she got back to Kelsey, she’d ask her how she’d dealt with them. For once, her daughter could share her wisdom and help her through the undoubtedly difficult times to come.

When she finally finished getting clean, she toweled herself dry and went back out into the bedroom. The bloody clothes were gone, and another outfit lay on the bed, which seemed to have been shaken out.

Basically, she was looking at a simple jumpsuit and undergarments that would fit a woman her size. Nothing fancy but clean.

Aching more than she’d expected after the hot shower, she dressed slowly and made her way back out to the common room. Olivia had rejoined them, and she hadn’t come alone. The helm officer from Persephone rose from one of the couches, and a woman seated next to him, holding a large pack, rose with him.

“Ambassador,” he said and inclined his head. “I can’t tell you how good it is to see you safe and relatively unharmed. Everyone’s been terribly worried. This is Kiersten Fraguada. She’s got some medical training, and she’ll look you over to make sure that anything that needs to be done for your health is done right away.”

Based on the woman’s short hair, she was a marine, probably a combat medic. Justine wasn’t certain that the woman could do anything for her, but she wasn’t going to argue. This was more like giving in to the inevitable because there was no way that Thompson would allow her to evade a thorough medical exam.

With as much of a smile as she could drum up, Justine gestured back toward the room she’d just left, and the woman followed her inside. Once the door was closed, she motioned for Justine to strip and have a seat on the edge of the bed as she laid out her backpack so she could begin removing a whole host of instruments and tools.

“I’m Corporal Fraguada, a combat medic,” the woman said, confirming everything that Justine had suspected. “Please just call me Kiersten. If you could, tell me exactly where you hurt and what was done to you. I saw the clothes that you were wearing, and that’s a lot of blood. How much of it is yours?”

“Surprisingly little,” Justine said, feeling exhausted. “I had to kill a man, and that was his blood. I shot him, and he fell on me. It took a little bit for me to get out from under him, and I was soaked in his blood before I could manage it.

“As for injuries, they’ve been torturing me in ways that I’m not certain that I can describe adequately ever since they captured me. There was a lot of blood spilled with that, too, but the medical nanites have done their work, mostly. How long did they have us?”

“About a week,” the woman said as she began running a medical scanner across Justine.

It had felt like ten times longer than that.

“I can see signs of some of the things that they did to you,” the woman said. “Medical nanites are wonderful devices, but they have limitations. We really need to get you into a regenerator because some of this damage is going to be permanent unless we do that.”

The exam took significantly longer than Justine had suspected it would, but at least the woman gave her some drugs that took the edge off of the terrible ache that permeated her body and soul.

By the time they were done, she felt like lying back on the bed and just going to sleep, but she knew that she couldn’t do that. Everything they were hoping to accomplish in the Rebel Empire depended on her convincing Richard Kagan to accept their help in exchange for his. That wasn’t going to be a simple negotiation, and she couldn’t afford to waste any more time.

She dressed when the exam was over and stared at the woman. “I need some kind of stimulant to keep me going for at least a little bit longer.”

“I really don’t recommend that, ma’am. You’re already in tough shape, and a crash like that could cause even more damage.”

“Me failing to negotiate the deal that we need would be worse. The shot, Corporal.”

The medic sighed, dug back into her pack, pulled out an injector, and shot something into Justine’s arm. After a couple of seconds, Justine felt her head clearing and a little bit of pep coming back into her step.

“That’s going to last about an hour and a half, and then you’re going to come down like a shuttle with a failed engine,” the medic warned firmly. “I’m going to have my eye on you, Ambassador. The moment I see you start to flag, the negotiations are over for the day, and you’re going to bed. Don’t push me on this.”

The woman’s tone brooked no argument. Justine suspected she might just stun her if she caused her too much trouble. She could see where Kelsey had picked up some of her attitude.

They returned to the central room to find that everyone was eating, and the scent of whatever takeout food they’d brought made her mouth water so badly that she had to swallow, or she might’ve choked.

“Olivia went out and picked up something,” Veronica said, gesturing to the seat next to her. “Sit down and get some while it’s still hot. You can talk and eat at the same time. I know that’s true because I’ve seen Kelsey do it, and you can’t possibly eat as much as she does.”

Justine laughed slightly at that but didn’t argue. She sat down and saw that it was some form of spiced chicken with rice and tea. She had no idea what she felt about its quality under normal circumstances, but the first bite she took was literally the best thing she’d ever tasted.

Her intent had been to start the negotiations while eating, but she couldn’t slow down enough to spare the breath. She shoveled food into her mouth as if they were going to take it away from her.

Honestly, part of her secretly feared that they would. The part of her that had been tortured had gone through exactly that.

When she’d taken the edge off of her hunger, she saw that everyone was staring at her. It seemed that she hadn’t utilized any of her excellent table manners. In fact, she hadn’t even picked up her fork. She’d been busy stuffing rice and chicken into her mouth with her fingers.

Not her best moment.

“Sorry,” she mumbled, searching for and finding some napkins to clean her hands and face. “I haven’t had anything that good in quite some time.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” Richard said seriously. “I know the kind of place we were in, and your friends told me what they did to you. I’m no medical expert, but I know that it will take time for you to recover. If you need to eat more, just keep going. Filling the void inside yourself is a lot more important than talking to me.”

Justine started to say something, but a vast pressure inside of her chose that moment to escape in one of the loudest belches that she’d ever heard, much less caused. She clapped a hand over her mouth in dismay.

There were a few seconds of shocked silence, and then everyone at the table laughed. She should’ve been angry or humiliated, but all she could do was laugh along with them.

Well, she supposed the ice had been thoroughly broken now.

“Sorry,” she said again in an embarrassed tone. “What I meant to say was that talking to you and finding common ground may be the most important thing we can do to make sure that the people who did this to us pay for what they’ve done and keep the citizens of the system as safe as possible.”

“Not to have poached on your negotiations, but I gave him the outlines of what’s going on, who we are, and what we’ve done,” Olivia said. “Here’s some information that we didn’t have. Forces from another system have arrived in the system and seem to be set on taking control here even as we speak.

“The destroyers in the system don’t have the firepower to resist them, but if we can find a way to work with Coordinator Kagan, then we might still be able to come out on top without killing everybody.”

Justine probably should’ve been angry, but in a way, she was relieved. Getting the background information out of the way meant that they could get right to the point.

“I’ve also checked some of the news programs with the taps I have into secure communications channels used by the government,” Richard said. “It confirms everything you’ve said about the new forces arriving.

“If you really do have a ship with that kind of firepower, you could probably win that fight, but everything here would be wrecked when you’re done.

“If we can figure out a way to work together and achieve control of this system, and if you can find a way to put me back in charge and make it stick, I’m willing to pledge my support to the New Terran Empire.”

He held up a hand before she could speak. “I’ve done things I’m not proud of to get into power and to stay there. One thing I can say for sure is that I’m not a monster. I’ll be looking for a pardon when it comes to those crimes, but in return, you’ll get my full and enthusiastic support. Believe it or not, I’d actually like to see the lives of the people under my care improve.

“I’ve hated the AIs with every fiber of my being. When they handed over control to me, I didn’t waste one second. Too bad for me that my lieutenants decided that they would make better rulers than I did. If anyone is going to fall afoul of having done evil things that warrant being imprisoned or even executed, it’s going to be them.

“I understand that me ending up in control is contingent on verifying that I haven’t done the terrible things that some have. I’m not worried what you’ll find in that particular examination, and so I’m willing to talk turkey.”

“Then let’s do this,” Justine said, taking a drink of her tea. “They tell me that I’m going to pass out in about an hour. Let’s see if we can iron out a real alliance before I plant my face in this delicious meal.”

37

Kelsey stepped out of the air car and looked around the building that they’d stopped in front of in one of the crowded cities on Devon. It looked like a dump—and it probably was one—but that was just a disguise. Her mother had passed along more than enough information for them to determine that this was some very secret government facility only minimally connected to the building itself.

Coming to Devon had been a risk, but she’d needed to bring Elise here. Well, she’d needed to get Elise to Persephone. Having her come down to the surface of the planet was helpful because of the new ability she’d somehow managed to come up with. They now had a way to get back to the planet if need be.

They’d stopped at several areas inside and outside the city to let her use her ability. Whether they could be used in the future or not—or even if there was a limit to the number of places she could link to—wasn’t clear, but it never hurt to give it a shot.

Frankly, Kelsey didn’t understand how any of what her friend did was possible. How could someone enter that strange dimension in one place and then choose to exit someplace else that she’d been at some point and opened a portal? That made absolutely no sense.

Then again, this was alien stuff, and that very often didn’t make sense.

Slipping onto the planet had been a bit hair-raising, but ultimately no one had questioned their presence. A civilian cutter that Senior Lieutenant Thompson had rented came out to pick them up and then brought them back down to the surface. Even with the enemy warships in orbit, regular civilian traffic wasn’t being impeded.

There’d been a chance that they’d be searched, but if that had happened, everyone except Thompson would have gone into the strange other-dimensional space. His cover was pretty good, and he’d have probably been okay.

She was still grateful that there hadn’t been any trouble.

There hadn’t even been any shooting in orbit when the new Rebel Empire task force had arrived. The local forces had simply surrendered.

What choice had they had? Even if all six destroyers inside the Devon system had resisted in concert, they wouldn’t have been able to stand up to a heavy cruiser, two light cruisers, and the bevy of destroyers that accompanied them. They’d had no choice but to stand down.

Even as Kelsey thought that, the front door to the apartment building opened up, and her mother came out with Veronica at her side. She came down the steps slowly, and Kelsey could tell that she wasn’t all that steady, but she moved under her own power. That was good.

She pulled her mother into a hug and squeezed her tightly before pushing back to give her a good look. “You look like crap.”

“Thanks,” Justine said dryly. “That makes me feel so much better. It’s good to see you too. Now let’s get back inside before somebody sees something that they shouldn’t.”

Thompson had already driven off with the rented vehicle, so they all walked inside to the elevator. She watched with interest as her mother press a specific sequence of buttons and sent the elevator down.

Yep, definitely a government facility somewhere below them.

“Once we’re done here, I really need to sit down and talk with you,” her mother said. “I won’t claim that what happened to me was as bad as what you went through, but it was pretty bad. I think I’m going to need your advice on how to cope.”

Kelsey pulled her mother into her arms. “I’ll be there with you every step of the way. You’re not alone. And when I get my hands on the people that did this to you, they’ll regret ever having been born.”

That last sentence came out hard and cold. When she found the people that had tortured her mother, she’d see that they got an exquisitely fair trial and then personally execute them. She’d space the bitch herself and wouldn’t lose one single instant of sleep over it.

The elevator opened onto a long corridor in what was obviously a mixture of underground storage and a place where high-ranking officials could stay in case of trouble. It was mostly empty of people, but she could see several marines that she recognized.

One of them had set up a desk near the elevator, and Kelsey knew that there was undoubtedly a heavy weapons team at the woman’s beck and call.

Her mother led them to the area most distant from the elevators, where a man she didn’t know was seated with the rest of their missing people. Everyone rose as she approached.

Kelsey walked over to Olivia and Veronica and gave them each a hug.

“All of you have been through hell, and I’m so very sorry for it,” she said once she’d finished. “As soon as we have the situation under control, I’ll personally make sure that we dig the resistance out, identify the ones that were behind this atrocity, and make them pay. You have my word on that.”

With that, she turned to the man and extended her hand. She already knew his name, but it was best to get the formal introductions out of the way.

“Coordinator Kagan, my name is Kelsey Bandar. I’m the Crown Princess of the New Terran Empire and heir to the Imperial Throne. I’m also an ambassador plenipotentiary, so any agreement we come to will be fully binding on my nation.

“I understand that you’ve been fully briefed on exactly what we’re doing here in the Empire—or as we call it, the Rebel Empire—by my mother. Are you ready to talk?”

The man smiled slightly, his grip firm but not one that would’ve put her in danger even before she’d become a Marine Raider. “I’m not sure if it’s going to be a pleasure to meet you yet or not, Your Highness, but I’m definitely ready to talk. You understand that everything I agree to is contingent upon regaining the power to actually enforce it, right?”

Kelsey nodded and took a seat across from him, pulling her mother down to sit beside her. “I do. Do you think you’re going to be able to turn things around with your rebellious lieutenants? We’ll be able to provide some assistance, but almost all of the force that we can put in the field will be in space.

“There are a couple of people that I can dedicate to operations on the ground, but shooting people and blowing things up may not suit what you have in mind.”

The man nodded slightly. “They warned me that you have a penchant for direct action, and I have to admit that I expected someone a lot taller and scarier than you appear to be. I don’t doubt your mother and her companions one little bit, but I’ll be frank in saying that you don’t seem to be all that threatening.”

“Appearances can be deceiving,” Kelsey said dryly. “In days past, I’d feel compelled to provide a demonstration, but let’s just say that I’ve seen the elephant and that I’m not afraid to get bloody when it’s necessary.

“Is it going to be necessary? The situation in this system is very complicated. You’ve got two former subordinates fighting for control of the system, and now a third player has arrived and is basically holding a gun to their heads.

“Neither of the people who overthrew you is going to want to just hand over everything they’ve seized to someone else, but they’re not going to have much choice. The new group—whoever they are—certainly won’t be inclined to back down.”

Kagan nodded. “The gentleman—I use the term very loosely—behind this invasion force rules the Ritali system. Whereas both of us can sleep at night, I do so because I’m not a monster. He, on the other hand, has no conscience and was a willing tool of the AIs.

“His forces in this system probably make up the greater part of what he had at his disposal before the AIs handed over control of his system to him. Ritali is just a couple of flips away, so it makes sense that he’d want to expand his power here.

“The man in command of his ships is a senior Fleet officer. The two of them had a private arrangement, if you know what I mean, and the two of them are peas from the same pod. Monsters that will do whatever they need to do to get and maintain power.”

“Our people have done some research and verified that you haven’t done anything so heinous that we can’t overlook it,” Kelsey agreed. “That being the case, I’m willing to make an agreement with you and help you to regain power. We’ve got a couple of tricks up our sleeves that might help, but it’s still not going to be an easy task.

“You’re going to have to work with the people that I can loan you to deal with those that overthrew you and regain control of Devon. While you’re doing that, my people and I will deal with the ships that have invaded your system.

“I understand that getting your destroyers free of their influence might be difficult, but their support could prove critical in this matter. Do you think that that’s at least possible?”

“Maybe,” Kagan said with an ambivalent hand gesture. “That really depends on who they’ve replaced the commanding officers with. I think it’s possible, but I’m not going to say that it’ll be easy. What I can say for sure is that no matter who’s in command, they’re not going to be inclined to help the invaders.

“So, how are we going to do this?”

“Your word that we’ll settle the details after we finish is good enough for me. My mother can negotiate the details once we have everything settled. That way, we’ll both know the other party came through on their end of the bargain. Deal?”

“Deal.”

* * *

Zia paced the computer center aboard the AI battlecruiser nervously. Elise had opened a portal here before she’d left for Devon so that she could potentially return, though they’d never tested whatever the strange alien process was from such a distance. If everything worked according to plan, she’d open a portal from Persephone reasonably soon, and they could begin moving Fiona into her new home.

That wasn’t why Zia was here, of course. The most important thing for her right now was that Veronica was coming home. She’d gotten a little information about what had happened to her girlfriend, and to say that she was furious was perhaps the greatest understatement in the history of understatements.

She wanted to taste someone’s blood.

It was moments like these where her upbringing in Fleet as a tactical officer became apparent. Other departments inside Fleet might be more prone to negotiation and subtlety, but tactical always fell back to missiles. She’d press the button on these resistance leaders in an instant and watch with hungry satisfaction as her weapons chased them down and blew them to atoms.

Those thoughts were busy chasing themselves around her head when the area they’d cordoned off for the portal lit up with pale light and a portal into that strange other-dimensional space opened. She could see Elise on the other side waving at her before gesturing for Veronica to step through.

Zia’s heart almost burst at that moment. Ignoring the fact that she had subordinates all around her, she stepped over to Veronica and yanked her into a tight hug.

“I was so worried about you,” she said, her voice husky. “I’m so glad that you’re safe.”

Though surprised by the gesture, Veronica hugged her back. “They didn’t torture me, at least not physically. They reserved all the physical pain for Justine. I think they were trying to break her or use her torture to crack us.”

The two of them had to move aside because engineering personnel had begun moving the different pieces of hardware that made up Fiona through the portal. It would take a couple of hours to fully transition the AI from operations aboard Persephone to the unnamed battlecruiser.

In most cases, they’d recovered ships that had once been human controlled, but this one had been built after the AIs had seized power. It had never had a name, and Zia really wasn’t sure how to refer to it.

Well, that was just one of the things that she needed to talk over with Veronica.

The two of them stepped over to the side of the computing center and watched as the personnel began installing the new hardware into the areas that Carl and his people had prepared for them. It really should be a plug-and-play operation, and with the expanded compartment, the entirety of Fiona’s hardware should be protected in battle.

Which was good, since she was confident there would be shooting soon enough.

“Kelsey and Coordinator Kagan came to an understanding,” Veronica said. “She’s staying there to help coordinate whatever they’re going to do on the planet with what you end up doing out here. Right now, we still have the advantage that no one knows what we’re doing.”

“That’s not technically true,” Zia said. “There’s been a couple of communication attempts from Devon trying to get hold of someone on the AI station. It’s all been very covert, using tight beams and codes, so I don’t know what was said, but the fact that no one is responding has to have someone alarmed.

“I don’t believe that they’re going to actually send anyone out to investigate because that would just draw attention to the gas giant, and that has to be the last thing that any of them want. To them, this battlecruiser is the ultimate in trump cards. If they can send someone out to get it functional, they have to believe that they can sweep the system of opposition.”

Veronica nodded. “And that isn’t far from the truth, based on the specifications. The battlecruiser could definitely give the new task force a run for their money, but it would be moderately damaged when the fight was over. On the other hand, having it in your back pocket will allow you to have a lot more tactical flexibility.”

“That’s true, and it’s one of the reasons that I need to talk to you, other than the fact that I’ve missed you. This ship needs a commander, and I think you’re the person for the job. I really don’t have a lot of people to spare, and you’re an experienced ship commander. The slot is perfect for you and would come with a Fleet commission at the rank of captain.”

Veronica blinked at her. “I have no experience in fighting a ship this large. Even if I did, the implications for our relationship would be huge, and I’m not willing to sacrifice what we have on the altar of expediency.”

“I was a lieutenant five years ago, so don’t tell me that you can’t figure it out. And Kelsey approves wholeheartedly of our relationship, so she’s given us an Imperial dispensation to continue our relationship, even if you come back into Fleet in the same command structure.

“This battlecruiser—which needs a name, by the way—is going to be part of my force, and I want somebody in command that I can trust implicitly. Yes, I trust Fiona, but she doesn’t have any experience in combat. That’s what I need you for.”

Zia longed to say more, to attempt to convince her girlfriend that this was the right course of action, but she closed her mouth when Veronica waved a hand and stepped away to pace and consider.

After a couple of minutes of deep thought, she came back and nodded. “I’ll accept, but only provisionally. If this gets in the way of what we have, I’ll walk away from it in a heartbeat. You’re far more important to me than Fleet ever was.”

“If it doesn’t work out, we’ll be able to get someone from Admiral Mertz’s fleet eventually. You’re not even going to have many crew people to worry about because the ship is made to fly and fight without humans aboard. Basically, I intend to give you a cadre of people to oversee everything, but it’s probably not going to be more than a couple of dozen all told.

“If you really aren’t comfortable staying in command, I suppose that I could offer it to Don Sommerville if I could lure him back into service. He’s agreed to operate as your executive officer for the time being, and I think that’s a grand idea because the two of you have experience working together.”

Her girlfriend nodded firmly. “He’s a good officer, and he’d make an excellent XO. I’m going to have to get busy making sure that this ship is fully operational. I wanted to spend time with you, but I suppose it’s time that we’ll have to set aside later.”

Zia shook her head. “The ship won’t be operational for at least another couple of hours. I had them set up the captain’s cabin for you. Why don’t we go and spent the next couple of hours there in… consultation?”

Veronica wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her toward the exit. “I like the way you think, Commodore.”

The two of them left the compartment with a pep in their step. The next few days might finally see her forces in action, and she wanted to make sure that her girlfriend knew just exactly how much she loved her. The rest of the universe could wait a couple of hours.

38

Carl and his people had Fiona back online in just over ninety minutes. A quick series of self-checks by her and some double-checking by him over the next half hour confirmed everything was connected the way it should be and that she had full access to and control of the ship’s robotic systems. At the end of that time, she pronounced herself satisfied.

With that accomplished, he headed for the bridge to inform whoever was in command that the ship was ready for whatever was required while his team prepared to depart. He’d been so buried in the work that he didn’t even know who he’d find.

The ship felt eerily empty without crew bustling about. Rather than a regular crew, this ship was maintained and repaired by small robots. They actually looked like spiders but could use their limbs to do everything a human could and sported harnesses filled with spare parts on their bodies.

Seeing them scurry along the corridor, dodging the few people that were there almost mindlessly, was just a little bit creepy.

When he arrived at the bridge, he found that it was fully staffed. Every console had someone sitting at it, and they were all doing the same thing that his people had been doing: double-checking the systems to make sure they were functional.

Seated at the command console was Veronica Giguere, back in a Fleet uniform with a captain’s insignia. Standing at her side was Don Sommerville, also in uniform and sporting a commander’s tabs.

Carl stepped over to them and inclined his head. “Captain, Commander.”

“It looks like you’ve done your usual excellent job, Carl,” Veronica said with a smile. “My people tell me that all systems are online, and the ship is ready to detach from the station and move into orbit. Would you concur with that statement?”

“Absolutely. The AIs and their maintenance systems kept the ship in tip-top condition, except for whatever went wrong with the computer. I still have the pieces of that set aside so that I can try to figure out exactly what fried the central processing units, but I suspect it was a manufacturing defect of some kind.

“What’s our plan from here? Oh, and welcome back. I’m glad that you’re safe.”

“Thank you. It’s good to be back. As for our plans, we’ll join Audacious in orbit and wait to see what the commodore decides is appropriate. With these ships, we’ve got enough firepower to stand off an attack by every vessel in the system while only sustaining minimal damage, but that’s not going to solve our problems.

“With only two ships, we’re not going to be able to force an engagement. They’ve got more than a dozen vessels at their disposal: a heavy cruiser, two light cruisers, and ten destroyers. That means that they can head in thirteen different directions and be confident that they’ll outrun our carrier, though not this battlecruiser. That limits our options, and a lot is going to depend on what happens on Devon itself.”

He nodded and stared at the main screen, which showed a view of the gas giant’s atmosphere. Since the ship had her nose toward the station, that meant that whatever camera was capturing the view was positioned somewhere toward the rear of the ship.

“Does she have a name yet?” he asked. “Having just a hull number is kind of awkward in conversation.”

“Zia left the decision up to me, so I’ve decided to name her Artemis. It’s kind of weird having a ship with only a couple of dozen people aboard. That’s a smaller complement than my old destroyer had.

“The people in the computer center are going to be boarding a cutter to head back to Audacious shortly, and that’ll just leave me with the people in engineering and here on the bridge. I have to admit that relying on mechanical systems for damage control and restocking the weapon systems makes me nervous.”

“The mechanical systems are quite robust,” Fiona said from the overhead speakers. “I realize that biologics like yourself are uncomfortable when you’re not in control of the situation, but I assure you that I’ll be able to make certain that Artemis is in the best condition possible, even during battle.”

“Do you really think we can win a fight against the ships?” Carl asked.

Veronica shrugged. “It really depends on how the fight plays out. If they’re determined to take control of the system, it’s possible we could lure them into an engagement as long as they don’t think that Audacious is a warship. With that many ships, they might believe they have a chance against a single battlecruiser.”

“At the risk of sounding gauche, I’m going to disagree with my commanding officer,” Sommerville said. “I don’t think they want the system enough to fight for it. Not against a battlecruiser. If they got chewed up, that means that their home system would be at risk of being invaded just like they’re trying to do here. I just don’t see that happening.

“It’s one thing to send most of your forces to take something when you know it only has half a dozen destroyers, and you can count on three cruisers to intimidate your opponents. That’s what bullies do, and I’m sure they came here expecting to walk over any resistance.

“That’s completely different from dealing with a ship that’s much bigger than they are. That puts whoever is commanding this particular engagement at direct risk because if there’s a fight, they become a primary target.”

“Whatever happens, we’ll deal with it,” Veronica said. “Let’s get up to orbit so that we can get our people on their way back to Audacious. Helm, you’re clear to decouple from the station and back away at the lowest power. Once we’re a safe distance from the station, turn us ninety degrees and give us some thrust to start taking us up to orbit.”

The woman sitting at the helm console nodded without looking back. “Disengaging locks now, Captain. Artemis has decoupled from the station and is backing away on minimal thrusters.”

The view on the main screen shifted to show the station slowly receding as the battlecruiser pulled away. Once the entire station was in sight, the ship began rotating to the side and then pulling ahead and up.

Ships like Artemis were designed to enter the upper stages of an atmosphere, and they could even crash land if the crew was really good. Carl had seen the remains of the battlecruiser Dauntless on Pandora. The doomed battlecruiser’s crew had brought her down to the surface almost intact, though the impact had been fatal to those left aboard. That was a testament to the aerodynamics built into the ship and their skill.

He briefly wondered how the AIs had come up with the idea of stashing stations like these in the atmospheres of gas giants. That was a lot more creative than he’d have thought the early AIs would be.

It only went to show that one never knew what an enemy was going to come up with.

It took almost half an hour at the slow speeds they were using to achieve full orbit and fall into position beside Audacious. He’d known it was safe, but he still was glad once they’d finished the maneuver.

“Well, I’d best gather my people and head back to Audacious,” he said. “Good luck to you both and to you as well, Fiona. Do Artemis proud.”

“Thanks for all you’ve done, Carl,” Veronica said. “Stay safe.”

“Indeed,” Fiona added. “Thank you for the speedy move from Persephone, Carl. I’m in your debt. If there is ever anything that I can do for you in the future, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

“I’m sure I’ll come up with something that you could help me out with, Fiona. Stay safe yourselves.”

And with that, he turned on his heel and headed back toward the docking area. There were tasks in his lab that he’d like to be spending time on, and he didn’t know how much time he’d have before the fighting started.

If there was one thing that he was confident of, it was that there’d be fighting. The people who had conquered this system weren’t going to give up without a fight.

* * *

Justine felt a little bit nervous flying up to the orbital Devon used for its planetary governmental operations. It felt a little like sneaking into the lion’s den, but it wasn’t like they had much of a choice if they intended to subvert either the government in power or any of the ships under their control.

She sat in the passenger area of a commercial cutter with Kelsey, Olivia, Elise, and Coordinator Kagan. They were surrounded by other people—primarily civil servants of some type or another—all lost in their own pursuits.

They’d taken the precaution of disguising Kagan. It was amazing how well a different style of clothes, hair coloring, extra padding on his midsection, and a fake beard made him look so different.

Their public nature meant that they couldn’t discuss their plans other than via implant coms, and they didn’t even do that because they were concerned about eavesdropping. Such a process wouldn’t be easy, but it wasn’t impossible either.

The plan had sounded simple when they’d decided on it, but she was worried now about what would happen if they were caught. Being tortured by the resistance hadn’t been a picnic, but she had no doubt the people they were trying to upend would be just as ugly if they got their hands on them.

Kelsey seemed breezily unconcerned about what would happen, and that was concerning in its own right. Her daughter was impulsive, though it was unlike her to just dismiss worries about them being able to get away. It was like she had an escape plan up her sleeve that she wasn’t sharing details about. One that she had complete confidence in.

Justine would have to hope for the best because unless they pulled this off, getting out of this system with their mission accomplished was going to be impossible.

The cutter finally docked and let all of the passengers out into an area where everyone had to present their identification and state the purpose for their visit. Luckily, it wasn’t like a military checkpoint where you had to have everything scanned, including yourselves.

This was the center of government people had to visit either in person or electronically all the time. Those who decided to make the trek could also treat the occasion like visiting a tourist destination, so the security officers weren’t as strict as they might otherwise have been.

Kelsey really put their security measures to the test when she breezed through the checkpoint first, presenting her false identification with a cheery smile and indicating that she was there to see about getting a marriage license. She then tugged Elise close to herself and grinned at the man.

For his part, the guard seemed utterly oblivious to them and just went through the rote motions of scanning their ID and asking them both a couple of basic questions before giving them directions to the section of the station they needed to go to.

And with that, the most dangerous woman that had probably ever visited this orbital sauntered through the checkpoint with her faux fiancé.

Coordinator Kagan was next, and his presence was significantly more dangerous than Kelsey’s because the chances of his being recognized were significant. They’d done what they could to minimize the risk, but there was always the possibility that someone would see right through everything they’d done.

Fortunately, the guard was just as oblivious with the former leader of the Devon system as he had been with Kelsey.

When it was Justine’s turn, she stepped up and smiled at the man. “Good morning. I’m here to do some research on a piece of property that I want to purchase outside the capital.”

Weirdly, that seemed to catch his attention. “What part of the capital, if I might ask?”

Justine was thankful that she had done a little bit of research on a prospective piece of property just in case some general questions came up. “A parcel out at the edge of the commercial zone on the south side that I think might make a decent vineyard. I’d have to use climate control to grow the grapes the way I want them, but the soil seems to be in line with what I need. Are you familiar with the area?”

“I grew up in the capital,” the man said with a smile. “I know where the commercial district is, but I’m not really that knowledgeable about what’s outside of it. It sounds like a nice place.

“Once you get up and running, maybe I’ll come around when I’m down there and bring the wife. She’s always after me to take her to a vineyard.”

Justine had visited more than a few wineries over the years she’d spent as the Empress of the New Terran Empire, and so she was on much firmer ground now and grinned at the man.

“I’m planning on calling it the Bandar Estates. It’ll take a couple of years to get everything up and running, but if you ever do come by, ask to see the owner, and I’ll give you a private tour.”

“I’ll do that. Good luck. Next.”

And with that, they were all through the security checkpoint. She let out a slow breath and joined the others once they were out of view of the guards. They’d gone to some trouble to make sure that no one realized they were a group, and she didn’t want to screw that up right at the last moment.

Now that they were inside the station proper, Kagan led them through a series of corridors and down into the bowels of the orbital. He seemed quite comfortable reading the obscure signs that indicated where they were, and she supposed that made sense. He’d done most of his work on this station for decades.

“When we get there, let me do the talking,” he said in a low tone. “They might react negatively, but I don’t think so. Even if they do, I might be able to talk my way out of trouble.”

Kelsey smiled. “Trust me when I say that if there’s trouble, I’ll end it.”

He didn’t seem convinced, and that almost made Justine laugh. If he’d seen some of the things that her daughter was capable of, he’d have probably fainted.

It took them another ten minutes to reach their destination, a bar that catered to a Fleet clientele. It was in a section of the station very close to the area reserved for Fleet operations.

As they stepped inside, she saw that the place had far more people than she’d have expected during what was usually the middle of a business day.

That made her raise her eyebrows at Kagan. “Is it normal for there to be so many Fleet officers and crewmen in a bar in the middle of the day?”

He shook his head. “Probably not, but I’d imagine that things are a bit unsettled right now. Heads up, there’s our table.”

He led them over to a table in the corner where four men and two women sat drinking what looked like tea but could’ve been anything. They all looked up at his approach. Most seemed somewhat confused, but one of the women nodded.

“That’s what I thought,” she said with a little bit of a smile. “Why don’t you all take a seat.”

There were enough empty seats for everyone, but Justine let Kagan sit first and then picked a spot next to him.

He sat as if he were in complete control of everything going on and smiled at the woman. “It’s good to see you again, Commander Brzezinski. Thanks for making time to see my associates and me and for bringing your friends.”

“Our schedules were completely open, so it wasn’t tough to arrange,” she responded. “In case you don’t recognize our guest, maybe the rest of you should think about the recent change of command ceremony that we were speaking of this morning.”

That was a very vague statement, but Justine saw the lights go on in everyone’s eyes. They now recognized Kagan for who he was. That was immediately followed by them casting worried glances at everyone else in the room.

Thankfully, no one seemed to be paying the group any mind at all.

“I’d like to thank you all for seeing me on such short notice,” Kagan said urbanely. “For the education of my associates here, these are the commanders of the destroyers that Devon has at its disposal. They each picked one of the potential leaders to back after the late change in governance, but I think we might be able to change their outlook with a little bit of work.”

It was evident to Justine that the arrival of the new force inside the system wasn’t something that any of these men and women liked. The fact that they were all here rather than aboard their ships spoke volumes.

It meant that the new commander of forces was busy installing his own leadership to ensure that all ships in the system were under their total control.

That was an excellent motivator for convincing these people to support the resurrection of their original government. They hadn’t been the ones who had overthrown Kagan—probably.

Even if they had, she was ready to wager that the man sitting beside her would let bygones be bygones so long as they were willing to fully back him right now.

With the support of these people and a little bit of luck, they might be able to gain control of the six destroyers without firing a shot. If they could, that made the military capture of the other ships significantly more likely.

“Your presence does alter our calculations,” Commander Brzezinski said. “Word around town was that you suffered a terrible and fatal accident. Your miraculous recovery changes everything.”

Kagan smiled. “I thought it might. Now, let’s see if we can figure out a way to restore all our fortunes, shall we?”

39

Despite Elise’s worry about being betrayed by the Rebel Fleet officers, the next three days passed without incident. She had no idea what their specific plans to seize control of the destroyers were, but considering that they’d been the commanding officers of those very ships until recently, they had all the information they needed to do so if they could get assistance from the people still aboard the ships.

The real problem was going to be what happened when they did so. The invading ships were more than powerful enough to deal with six rogue destroyers, so they’d have to be very cautious about how they broke contact with the invading task force. That was a military matter, and she had no idea how it would work, so she’d just have to hope for the best.

While that plot was underway, Kagan was setting up events to deal with his rebellious lieutenants and the incoming military governor on board the station. Complicating his plans was the fact that there were so many civilians underfoot.

Whatever they did had the possibility of spilling over into the civilian sector of the station, and they couldn’t allow that to happen. They had to be surgical in neutralizing the Rebel Empire marines the invaders had put on the orbital.

Rather, Kelsey and her marines would have to take care of that. That was where she came in.

The plan Kagan had finally settled on was only possible because he still had contacts inside the administrative section who knew where everyone was and when they’d be there. There would be a series of meetings over the next few days where the new military governor asserted control over everything and replaced those people he couldn’t trust.

Which would be everyone, she suspected.

Oh, that wasn’t what the new governor had said out loud, but that was what he intended. The two competing rebellious factions undoubtedly knew this, but what could they do? The marines from the invading force had expelled anyone armed enough to give them any trouble. That meant that they could do whatever they wanted with relative impunity.

It also gave Kagan fits, trying to figure out how he could get around that particular limitation. Kelsey had assured him that they could get people aboard the station who would be more than capable of handling the marines and that he just needed to focus on the leadership, but he couldn’t understand how that was possible.

Under normal circumstances, it wouldn’t have been possible, but with her there, they could smuggle everything they needed in with impunity, up to and including marines in powered armor with plasma weapons.

They couldn’t tell him that, but bringing the station under control wasn’t going to be a problem. So long as they knew where the enemy forces were, they could deal with them.

Watching Justine and Olivia try to figure out exactly how any of that might be possible was hilarious. They’d considered telling the two what was going on but had ended up deciding to maintain operational security on this new capability to be sure that no word of it leaked.

In the end, Kelsey made the decision that her mother and Olivia assist Kagan in seizing control of the political elements once the station was in their hands. That kept them out of her hair.

As for Elise, nobody really questioned what she’d be doing. They just made assumptions that she’d be staying out of the way. That suited Kelsey’s plans quite well, so she just went with it.

Kagan and the rest set themselves up in a decrepit office that he’d rented. Where he’d come up with the money, she had no idea, but she supposed he had his resources.

Kelsey was in an old warehouse in one of the most run-down commercial sections of the orbital. It hadn’t even been in use when they’d secured it.

They’d told the negligent owners that they’d inspect it to see how long repairs would take before they could begin commercial operations there. If Elise was any judge, it would’ve taken months, so there was little worry of anyone disturbing them.

Once Kelsey was sure that she had all the access points locked down and there were no monitoring devices, Elise opened a portal, and the marines began bringing their equipment through.

In a matter of hours, they’d set up a firebase, and there were piles of crates and racks of powered armor in place and ready for them to act. Since the warehouse was inside the security cordon, they could even send careful patrols out to get a feel for where the Rebel Empire marines had set themselves up and what their forces would be dealing with.

It always amazed Elise how industrious the marines were. They were always busy, and it seemed miraculous that they could accomplish everything that they did in such a short amount of time.

Kelsey came over while she was thinking about that.

She turned to face her friend with a smile. “It looks like things are going well.”

Her friend nodded. “We’ll be ready to commence operations soon. If everything goes to plan, there’s not going to be any realization about the change in control over the destroyers, but one never knows, so events might get rolling before we’d like.

“I want you to head back to Audacious. They’ve been coasting in toward Devon for the last three days, and they’ve got to be getting relatively close to detection range.

“Once the invaders detect them, they’re going to break orbit and head toward them. That’s going to be our signal to kick things off here. The destroyers will wait for an opportune moment to break contact with the invaders.”

Elise wasn’t sure that she understood how things were supposed to unfold. “Maybe you could explain to me why they wouldn’t just open fire on the destroyers? Or send forces back here to deal with the uprising?”

“They might open fire on the destroyers, but if they don’t realize exactly what’s happening immediately, they’re not going to want to divide their attention with a battlecruiser and a sizeable unknown vessel so close to them. At least that’s the plan.

“They certainly won’t be sending ships back to Devon with everything they’ll be dealing with, so we’ll have a free hand here.

“As for you, I think you’d be safer aboard Audacious. We can use the FTL coms to coordinate everything in real time without your assistance.”

“What if you need to evacuate?”

“Then I’ll call and ask for an evac. You can open a portal here, and we’ll bring out as many people as we can. I honestly don’t think that that will be necessary, particularly if we can lead the invasion force far enough away from the planet.

“The invaders believe that they have complete control over the destroyers, and so they’ll make their battle plans based on that. If we can use that against them, it’s entirely possible that we can put them into such disarray that they surrender or make a run for it. Now get going.”

Elise didn’t argue. Fighting wasn’t her strong suit, and she had no desire to be here when the shooting started. She gave her friend a hug, opened a portal, and stepped into the other dimension.

* * *

Zia kept going over the tactical information on the main plot as they crept ever closer to Devon. They were coming in from the angle most likely to remain undetected for as long as possible, but their time was running out. There was no way that they could get much closer and stay unseen.

Once the enemy realized that they were there, the other side’s choices would suddenly become very limited. They could either come out and meet Audacious and Artemis—which was pretty much what she expected them to do—or they could make a break for the flip point.

There was no reason for her to try to blockade the flip point because while the battlecruiser could probably chase the invading forces down before they reached it, the chances of them splitting up approached unity.

It was what she’d have done in their place.

If they ran, she was going to let them go. Since their home system was close, the odds were that they’d meet again very soon, but that was a fight for another time.

Sadly, she didn’t expect things to go that cleanly. The invading force was going to come out to meet them, but she didn’t expect all of them to do so. Chances were, they’d leave some of their number in orbit around Devon.

Frankly, she expected them to use the local destroyers as cannon fodder and send them out in front. That spoke a lot about the negative qualities of Fleet in the Rebel Empire. It was a cutthroat organization, and she strongly suspected that any ships and crew that made common cause with the New Terran Empire would have problems adapting.

Worse, they were going to have trouble stopping themselves from doing all of the bad things that they’d been doing before they joined. It was going to be an ongoing challenge until Fleet weeded the worst of them out.

She tried to juggle the number of ships the other side might send in her mind. Kelsey had thought that they’d send everything—and in a perfect world, that was precisely what they’d have done. However, what the Marine Raider failed to realize was that that wasn’t how Fleet worked inside the Rebel Empire.

They’d end up keeping some of their force in orbit, at least for a little bit. They were going to bolt, but would they do so before or after the local destroyers turned coat? The answer to that question made all the difference in how she responded once the fight was imminent.

“We have a change of status, Commodore,” one of her staff said. “It looks like they’ve detected our approach. The FTL probe in far orbit around Devon has detected a number of the enemy vessels moving away from the orbital and shaping course to meet us.”

Zia tilted her head forward enough to get a good look at the updating tactical plot. It looked as if eight of the thirteen warships in orbit were coming out. The heavy cruiser was not among them. Both light cruisers were coming out, though, and that counted for something.

“It looks like we’ve got two light cruisers and six destroyers coming our way. Those numbers are going to change as soon as they realize exactly how much force we really have. Right now, they can’t see us clearly enough to determine our size, particularly since we’re going slow and keeping our power emissions down. That’s going to change shortly.

“Kelsey is going to have to deal with the heavy cruiser and four destroyers. That won’t make her very happy. Make sure to update her about their status right now. Tell her to hold off reacting until that heavy cruiser is moving.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The next ten minutes saw the warships continue heading their way. Undoubtedly, there was a signal challenging them also on the way, but it hadn’t quite arrived yet. That would happen any minute.

Even as she was expecting the challenge to be reported, the hatch to the flag bridge slid open, and Elise hurried in. “Did I miss anything?”

“Not yet. It looks as if they’ve sent about half their fighting force out to meet us. My bet is that most of the six destroyers we see belong to the local forces. Probably not all of them, but at least four, I’d bet.

“That’s going to make for a fascinating quandary on their end once the fighting actually starts, supposing that it does start. Two destroyers and two light cruisers would be dead meat against Artemis or our fighters.”

Elise studied the plot, though it was apparent from her frown that she didn’t really understand what most of the icons represented. “How do we get the rest of the ships to leave Devon orbit? If they stay there, they’re going to be able to intervene in the fight on the orbital. Probably the worst-case scenario would be if that heavy cruiser decided to open fire on the orbital from short range.

“I understand that that’s a war crime, but I’ve heard some really nasty things about the system that they came from, and the most likely commanding officer of this task force is supposed to be something of a monster. We’ve got to get them out of there, or Kelsey and the rest are in serious danger. So are the thousands of people aboard that orbital.”

Zia nodded. Everything her friend said was correct. That was going to be a challenge, but she thought she had a solution.

“It doesn’t really matter if they come out to fight us or if they just run. Either option is going to be acceptable. We’re going to continue to lure the ships in front of us in just so that we can try to peel off the destroyers with a trick.

“Once it becomes apparent exactly how much force we’re bringing to bear, the invading forces coming toward us right now are going to change course. I suspect they’ll order the local destroyers with them to continue on for a little bit and try to use them as a screening element to keep themselves out of danger.

“That actually plays into our hands really well because we want those destroyers to get free. While they’re not precisely allies at this point, we’re not counting them as hostile either. If Coordinator Kagan can once again resume control over this system, it’s almost certain that the commanding officers of those ships will support him.

“At least that’s what Ambassador Bandar tells me, and I’m willing to trust that she knows what she’s talking about. Do you have a different opinion?”

Elise shook her head. “I’ve only spoken to the group once, but from what I’ve seen, they don’t really think that highly of the people who rebelled. I suspect that some of them may have participated in the overthrow but then realized that they weren’t getting the kind of bargain that they’d wanted. They’ve got buyer’s remorse now.”

Zia laughed. “In a weird way, I think that actually helps us. They’re going to want to prove themselves to Kagan at this point. The trick now will be shaking the ships still in orbit loose before they do anything hasty.

“And to do that, we’re going to have to up the stakes. Esther, pass the word to Captain Levy to give me flank speed. Let’s show them exactly how big Audacious really is. Artemis can continue on our side.”

Zia smiled coolly. “I think it’s time for a little game of chicken. Let’s see how much nerve these buggers actually have. If they want to fight, I’ll be more than happy to give them one, but let’s see if we can make them run first.”

40

Kelsey double-checked the disposition of the marine forces aboard the administration orbital for what felt like the millionth time. Now that things had finally kicked off, it wasn’t going to be long before she’d be doing some fighting.

Or she would have if Major Collins hadn’t stayed glued to her side like a limpet mine.

He’d apparently learned his lesson and wasn’t letting her out of his sight. He’d even positioned his console so that it had a gap in the monitors that he could see her through.

And he was watching.

She knew that because the one time she’d gotten out to go use the restroom, she hadn’t taken a single step before glancing in his direction and seeing the way he was looking directly at her and watching where she went.

No, she wasn’t going to fool him this time. Even though she was technically his superior, he wasn’t going to allow her to be unescorted anywhere. She wouldn’t be surprised if he’d tasked a squad of marines in powered armor to surround her at a moment’s notice.

She wanted to be involved in the fighting, but she would have to do the adult thing and command from the rear this time.

Fortunately, that was probably going to be enough for this particular action. There were a lot of Rebel Empire marines aboard the orbital, but they weren’t there as a conquering force. At least not now.

They’d arrived in greater numbers than were currently stationed aboard the orbital. Once everything was secure, and there was no longer anyone aboard capable of resisting them, their numbers had been reduced to the point that they could repel any attacks and respond to any trouble but not to the level that Kelsey intended to deliver.

In addition, the forces that were present were spread out across the orbital. There were various security checkpoints not dissimilar to the one that she’d passed through when she’d boarded the station. Even though there hadn’t been any marines present at the civilian checkpoint, she had no doubt that there’d been a squad ready to respond if there’d been any trouble.

The largest grouping of enemy marines was their command post, which was relatively close to the warehouse that they were using as a staging point. That meant that the response team that was going to breach it and take the enemy leadership down was setting up right here.

That was the only team that was going to use powered armor right from the get-go. Everyone else was going to use unpowered combat armor though they’d be armed well enough, and several quick-reaction squads would be standing by in powered armor to hit any resistance points before they became a problem.

The teams that were taking care of each checkpoint consisted of several different elements. The first were unarmed observers that scouted out the positions while masquerading as civilians. They got the numbers and specifics of each group so that the attack force could go in with good intelligence.

The assault groups had been staged in areas near each checkpoint. The goal was to attack each as close to simultaneously as possible. She didn’t think that there were more than eighty Rebel Empire marines aboard the orbital right now, and half of them were at the command post, most of them either racked out, eating, or performing other tasks while off duty.

Ironically, the command post would probably be the most straightforward fight. There would be one sharp engagement to break through their defenses, and then the marines would be among them with their stunners. Most of their targets would be out of armor, and a decent number of them probably wouldn’t even be armed.

It was the marines that were on duty elsewhere that were going to be fighting for their lives. There were going to be casualties—of that she was confident—but they had to gain control of this orbital as quickly as possible once the word was given.

The most challenging mission was going to involve Coordinator Kagan, her mother, and Olivia. The military governor that the invaders had installed had decided not to cancel his meeting with the two lieutenants today, even with the strange ships being detected in the system. Apparently, he wanted to finalize the change of power and assume command of this system immediately.

To ensure that they kept their protectees safe, the marines accompanying her friends and family would have to take out any Rebel Empire marines that were in the way while leaving the principles untouched. Kagan needed to have the two lieutenants awake and in his custody, if he wanted to avoid any trouble from the usurpers’ supporters.

The success of all their plans really hinged on what the heavy cruiser and remaining destroyers did. If they stayed near the orbital, they’d be able to reinforce the marines reasonably quickly and also use their shipboard weapons to commit an atrocity if they chose. That had to be avoided at all costs.

Persephone was close by and still undetected. If need be, the Marine Raider strike ship would open fire on the heavy cruiser and probably cause him significant damage, but it wasn’t likely that they’d take out the warship. Even if they did, that would still leave two enemy destroyers to deal with, though they had two supposedly friendly destroyers to ambush them.

No, the fight on board the orbital didn’t worry her. It was what was happening in space that would settle everything.

“We have movement,” one of the marines manning a portable computer said. “The heavy cruiser and all four destroyers have left orbit on a course that looks like it’s going to match up with their other ships. The first group has slowed somewhat and looks to be waiting for them. Audacious estimates that they’ll rendezvous inside an hour.”

Audacious and Artemis were still hours away from engagement range. That meant that the combined forces that they would face would be a danger to them. She knew that Zia had a plan to separate the local destroyers from the rest, but she had no idea how well it would work.

She just had to put her trust in her friend’s competence and hope that the cards fell their way.

“I want all teams ready to act if the situation changes, but we’re going to hold primary action until the space battle commences,” Collins said. “We’ll try to make this as close to simultaneous as we can.

“I’d wager that the Rebel Empire marines in the command post are going to become more active now that their support has vanished. It’s not going to be as much of a walkover as it might’ve been before, though I might be wrong. We’ll plan for the worst and hope for the best.”

Kelsey thought that was probably the right call to make and felt her anticipation level ramp up. Unless something went drastically wrong in the next two hours, they were going to be in control of this system, and they would’ve achieved almost all of their goals.

The only things left to do at that point would be to finish driving the invaders out and locate the resistance holdouts. And whether Major Collins approved of that or not, she was going to make sure that she was involved in the process.

Whoever had hurt her mother was going to bleed, and if that meant that she had to go down to the planet herself, search all the likely hiding spots, and drag the bitch out by her hair, that was what she’d do.

No one hurt her family and just walked away.

* * *

Justine sat in the corner of the room the marines were staging in and tried not to tremble. They’d been there for a couple of hours now, and the closed-in space was starting to get to her.

While it wasn’t anything like the room where she’d been tortured, she recognized that she was having some kind of reaction to what she’d suffered.

The marine combat medic had called it post-traumatic stress disorder and said that she would need to speak with someone about it once this was all over so that she could find the means to cope with the reactions until they could correct them.

She was grateful that that sort of thing was treatable by medical science these days. From what she’d been able to research, that hadn’t always been the case. That didn’t mean that it would be easy or that she wouldn’t have nightmares for many months to come, but if her daughter could make it through something like this, then so could she.

Olivia’s presence was definitely helping. The other woman seemed to realize what she was going through and was sitting beside her, holding her hand without speaking. Justine was confident that the other woman would’ve turned into a chatterbox if Justine had wanted to talk, but she was happy just having the other woman there with her.

“We’re about to get started,” Olivia said gently, startling her a little. “Kelsey says that the heavy cruiser has reached the other group of ships, and they’re about an hour from being in missile range of Audacious and Artemis. She and Major Collins have decided to kick the fight off before the shooting starts in space.”

Justine nodded, feeling as if she were about to throw up. “What do we do? Are we going to need to fight?”

“No,” her friend said gently. “Don’t worry about the fighting. You’re not going to have to shoot anyone ever again.”

To her surprise, Justine found that her trembling had gotten worse. She was now clutching Olivia’s hand tightly and felt as if she could barely control herself. This wasn’t the reaction she’d expected, though she probably should have.

“I hope that you’re right,” Justine said softly. “I don’t know if I could make myself do that again.”

“You’re strong,” Olivia said levelly, squeezing her hand firmly. “Never doubt that. Whatever is required, you’ll do it. You’re your daughter’s mother, and she got her strength from somewhere. All you have to do is reach inside yourself and believe that you can do it.”

Justine wanted to laugh, but if she did, she wasn’t sure that she could stop. Her daughter was easily the strongest person she’d ever known. How she’d become the woman that she was today, Justine didn’t understand. She certainly hadn’t gotten her strength from her.

Well, she supposed that she did know how her daughter had become so strong. She just couldn’t envision herself ever completing that same journey. No, she’d never be as strong as her daughter, but she’d be strong enough. She’d make sure of that.

While they’d been talking, the marines had gotten themselves in order and looked to be prepared to rush out. When they went, they’d be crossing the corridor and going down a set of stairs.

The enemy marines were set up somewhere below them, guarding a meeting room where their military governor and the two people that had overthrown Coordinator Kagan were located.

The plan was to rush down, deal with the resistance, and capture everybody before they slipped away. Justine didn’t have any idea about that because she was just supposed to help Kagan by representing the New Terran Empire when he resumed control.

Olivia was supposed to be helping with that, but Justine was pretty sure she was there to make sure that Justine didn’t lose it, and for that, she was grateful.

At a silent command, the marines rushed out of the room. They left two of their number behind to keep watch on them. They’d be following behind the rest as soon as the way was clear.

There were the sounds of weapons firing on the level below them, and Justine could hear vague shouts of alarm that were quickly silenced. She flinched violently at the shots and didn’t even try to hide how much terror she was feeling.

She’d thought she’d be okay, but that was obviously not the case. Her mental condition was far more precarious than she’d feared.

Olivia wrapped her arms around her in a protective cocoon. She was saying something, but Justine couldn’t grasp the words. All she could hear was the shooting and the screaming. All she could see was blood.

To her surprise, Kagan—now without his disguise—reached in and squeezed her shoulder in support. The move shocked her until she remembered that he’d been a prisoner there as well. He knew what she’d been through and had seen her at her very worst. His support actually meant a lot.

After five minutes, two marines returned and gestured for them all to come along. Kagan was in the lead, and Olivia and Justine followed along behind. The four marines accompanying them set themselves in a square around them, their weapons prominently displayed to deter anyone from giving them trouble.

When they arrived on the deck below, Justine could see the aftermath of the battle. There were bodies sprawled everywhere, but mostly they looked like they were sleeping. A couple were bleeding and receiving medical treatment, and a few more were obviously dead.

She didn’t see any that looked like they were from their side, so she hoped all of the injuries and deaths had happened to the enemy.

It was impossible to tear her eyes away from the blood. Somehow, seeing the scarlet stains made her flash back to seeing her own hands covered in blood. Her world narrowed down to that view, and it took every ounce of her focus and concentration to keep walking.

When they arrived at the conference room after a seeming eternity, Justine saw that the doors had been blown open, and the room was filled with marines. Standing on the far side of the long wooden table, their hands bound behind them, were three men dressed in business attire. Marines stood behind them, obviously holding them in close custody.

There were other people in the room, all huddled in a corner and dressed much the same, but they were obviously underlings. These three were the ones they’d come to deal with.

Two of the prisoners looked shocked, and one was furious. Based on that, Justine decided that the man in the group’s center was the military governor. Why he wasn’t in uniform, she didn’t know.

Perhaps that was a question she could ask later. For right now, she was focused on her breathing and staying on her feet. She wouldn’t present an image of weakness to these people. Her expression was one of strength and power. All her years of being the empress allowed her to put on the façade when all she felt like doing was curling up into a ball and crying.

“Joel, Andrew, it’s so good to see you again,” Kagan said urbanely as he took a seat at the head of the table. “I’m sure you never expected to see me again, but life is just full of little surprises. Allow me to say that I don’t look forward to what I’m going to end up having to do to you, even after everything you’ve put me through.”

“Who the hell are you?” the man in the middle snarled. “You’re going to be executed for this.”

“You haven’t done your research,” Kagan chided. “My name is Richard Kagan, and I’m the Coordinator of Devon. You, whoever you are, are an invader and are also under arrest with these traitors. I suspect that you’re not going to like the punishment for what you’ve attempted to do any more than they are.”

“You’ve lost your mind,” the man sneered. “When our ships come back, you’re going to regret the day you were born.”

“I suppose we’ll see about that,” Kagan said with a cool smile. “My allies are a lot cleverer than one could reasonably expect. They can do surprising things from seemingly empty air.”

To emphasize that, he gestured at all the marines standing around them.

“Lieutenant, would you escort the prisoners away, make sure they are thoroughly searched, and secure them?”

The marine officer nodded, and the prisoners were quickly hustled out of the room, leaving only marines, Olivia, Kagan, and Justine. Kagan stepped over to Justine and looked at her with concern.

“Madam Ambassador, with these people in custody, it should be simple enough to browbeat the bureaucrats left behind into cooperating. I acknowledge that you’ve returned me to power, and I want to continue to assure you that I’ll work with the New Terran Empire to incorporate this world into it.

“Do you really need to be here, or can Olivia oversee that process? I think you need to see someone. We have excellent medical care available on this orbital, and I urge you—no, I beg you—to avail yourself of it.

“You’ve been pushing yourself hard to see that this moment came to fruition. It’s time for you to receive the medical care that you need.”

Justine nodded, barely trusting herself to speak. “I think that might be the best idea. Olivia can go with you.”

“I’ll go with you,” her friend said. “You don’t have to go through this by yourself.”

Justine shook her head. “I can do this. Focus on seeing this through while I talk to someone. I feel confident that you’ll tell Kelsey exactly where I’m going the moment that I leave the room, and she’ll be along as soon as she can. Thank you for being here with me.”

She hugged the other woman while Kagan told one of the marines where to take her and quietly added that he should take her in a different direction to avoid the bodies. He undoubtedly thought he was quiet enough for his instructions to pass unnoticed, but she still heard and appreciated his concern.

When the marines assigned to get her to the hospital formed around her, she left the room with her head held high. She’d maintain her composure no matter how much she wanted to sit down and cry.

She’d accomplished the mission she’d been sent on, even if it hadn’t been done precisely the way she’d envisioned it. Now it was time to take care of herself before she fell apart.

41

Carl examined the com unit that Justine Bandar had recovered from the man she’d killed in the resistance prison. It was a high-end civilian model and fully encrypted. So fully encrypted, in fact, that it was illegal. There was no way for the police—or anyone else—to get information off of it, which was a violation of law inside the Rebel Empire.

Of course, that made perfect sense for somebody working to fight the government, so he wasn’t surprised. Luckily for him, Ralph had encountered this particular model before and was aware of a hardware flaw that could be exploited—with sufficient skill—to gain access to the device’s contents.

As he watched the young man work, Carl was once again glad that they’d run into him because Ralph was an absolute genius when it came to software manipulation. He’d been wasted working for a criminal enterprise. Though Carl had to admit that he wouldn’t have had the necessary skills if that hadn’t been what he’d been doing.

Sometimes life was funny that way.

It took the young man about ten minutes to fully unlock the com and extract all of the relevant data. Where the man had made calls from, the numbers that he’d called, and the duration of the calls. It even had text messages that should have been deleted and other recorded notes that the man had made for himself.

The final item of interest was his calendar.

That was actually where Carl went first. It was amazing how much of their lives were dictated by their schedule. Be here at this time, be there at that time, go pick up your laundry, and for God’s sake, don’t forget your wife’s birthday.

He didn’t think the man had a wife because there was no information on the device about that, but the skeleton of the man’s existence was laid out for him to see. Now all he had to do was pull some useful information out of it.

That turned out to be a laborious and time-consuming process. He buried himself in the data, looking for patterns. Even though the man had never expected his com unit to fall into the hands of someone who could see its contents, he’d been careful not to explicitly mark anything relating to the rebellion.

Nevertheless, patterns did emerge. There were certain times of the month that he visited specific locations. They usually didn’t end up being the same locations on the same days, but he could narrow it down to half a dozen distinct areas that the man visited often enough to make them stand out.

He was able to exclude one of those because it was the apartment where the man lived. A search of public records run by the team from Persephone still on Devon confirmed that. Senior Lieutenant Thompson was still on the planet and busy searching for any clue to find the rebellious resistance.

He only knew the man peripherally, but he’d worked for Kelsey when she’d been in command of Persephone. Carl knew the kind of loyalty that the princess engendered in people. The man would not rest until he found the people who’d hurt his boss’s mother.

Another location that stood out was the prison where they’d been holding Justine and the rest. It was deserted now. They’d sent a team in just to make absolutely sure. Sadly, there were no computers left there for him to peruse.

That left four potential areas for them to explore. His bet was that the resistance had a number of other locations that weren’t in the data set that he had. This com unit had only been in use for a couple of months and was probably disposable. If the resistance was smart, they rotated communications devices often and locations that they worked out of even more so.

He’d passed on information about the four remaining sites to Thompson. It was his job to monitor everything, and if he spotted signs of activity or the woman that Justine had described, he’d pull together a strike team, and they’d go in.

Carl was more than happy to let the man take the lead on that. All he needed to do now was find a way to give them even more information about the resistance and their potential hideouts. And he thought he had a way that they might do that.

All he needed was Elise to give them a ride. She’d been on the flag bridge when he called and said she’d be right down.

While he had enough information at this point to map out the man’s activities for the last several months, he wanted more. The moment they sent people in, anyone who wasn’t at the location they chose would scatter like cockroaches when the lights came on. He had to get this perfectly right the first time.

Kelsey was still on the orbital. He knew that they’d not only seized the orbital itself but that the deposed system coordinator had regained control and was now assisting them in their task while everyone watched the battle in space unfold.

It wouldn’t be long before the shooting actually started, and he wanted to get the rest of this work underway before things heated up. Besides, it would get Elise off the ship during the fighting, and he knew that Admiral Mertz would prefer not to have his wife in the middle of a fight.

For that matter, he’d prefer not to be here either. He’d take advantage of her ability to transfer them through that alternate dimension, and they’d go to the planet and dig into the data together. Instructions from the system coordinator should be more than enough to get them all the cooperation they needed from the telecommunications company that the dead man had used.

If Carl was right, some of the numbers on this account would link to others in the resistance that might still be active. If he could track those people down and see what numbers they called and connect them to other numbers in turn, he might be able to work his way back for quite some time to locate where they’d made calls and where they’d been in person.

The smartest thing to do for the resistance would have been to dump all of the communications devices at once and replace them all at the same time with brand-new ones. That was a time-consuming logistical hurdle, so he suspected there was some overlap that he could leverage.

The hatch slid open, and Elise walked in. “You wanted to see me?”

Carl nodded, picked up the bag that had all of his equipment, and gestured for Austin and Ralph to join him. “We think we have all the information we need to pin down exactly where the resistance is located. We’re going to need you to take us to Devon so that we can get that ball rolling. Right now, they’re undoubtedly waiting to see what happens next, and we want to get our hands on them before they can scatter to locations we don’t know about.”

“You think you know where they are?”

“We have our suspicions,” he said, making a gesture that he used to mimic uncertainty. “They’re not firm enough for us to send the troops in just yet, so I want to be absolutely sure before we act.

“In any case, the fighting is about to start, and it’s probably best we civilians get out of the way. In fact, we’ll take all the scientists with us into the other universe, and they can wait there until the fighting is over. There’s no need to risk them when this isn’t a fight they can help with.”

“You’ve got it,” Elise said as she touched the oval on her wrist and opened a portal in the same area of his lab where she’d done so before.

It only took about fifteen minutes to evacuate all of the scientific personnel and everything they were looking to take with them. As soon as they’d done so, Elise opened a portal to Devon, and the four of them exited. Everyone else would be safe because there was plenty of food, water, and people still working in that other space.

The place that Elise had brought them was near a vehicle rental location. They didn’t have local ID, but that was something that could be handled with sufficient money, as Thompson had demonstrated. It was time to get a vehicle and go see the people at the telecom company.

Carl was worried about how the fight in space would go, but the outcome was out of his control. He needed to focus on finding the people who had tortured Justine Bandar, and he was going to do just that.

* * *

Zia watched as the thirteen vessels ahead of them continued to advance on her carrier and her battlecruiser escort. There was definitely a split taking place in the enemy formation. Six of the destroyers were now in front of the rest, and she was utterly certain that those were the local vessels. The invaders were using them as human shields.

Classy.

It seemed the invaders had no desire to take the first shots in this battle. By now, they had to know they were facing a battlecruiser and a ship that was larger than even that, though they wouldn’t know what the carrier truly was. The Rebel Empire didn’t have fighters, and so far as she knew, no one here had ever seen superdreadnoughts in the Rebel Empire.

If they had, they’d have turned tail and run long ago.

The next part of her plan was going to be a bit of theater. She wanted to get the local destroyers out of the line of fire without actually damaging them. If they could secure the system, those ships might very well help protect her carrier, and she was loath to sacrifice any of them.

Besides which, these people had done nothing to hurt her, and she preferred to make friends rather than enemies.

That certainly wasn’t true of the other seven vessels. They’d come here looking to enslave the people in this system in everything but name. The coordinator of the system that they came from wanted to create his own little pocket empire, and everything that she’d heard about the man indicated that he wasn’t somebody they could work with.

All she had to do was make this look good enough that the enemy didn’t figure out what was going on until it was too late. That required some very delicate communications and negotiations with the commanders of those destroyers coming toward her.

And an awful lot of trust.

Fortunately, tight beam communication was easily managed. The hard part was convincing them that all of the missiles that would be coming their way weren’t actually going to hurt them.

There’d also need to be some acting from the local destroyers that had to be good enough to fool the invaders. This was all clever choreography to show the enemy exactly what they wanted him to see.

If it all worked according to plan, she’d end up with the six destroyers in her corner to help her drive the invaders out of the system. If it didn’t, the invaders might shoot up the destroyers to make sure that no one else got them. She needed to avoid that outcome at all costs.

“Captain Levi indicates that we’re approaching firing point bravo,” one of her staff officers said. “If we want to change anything, he says now is the time to bring it up.”

Zia shook her head. “Continue according to plan.”

The seconds ticked by, and then she saw missiles appear on the plot as both the battlecruiser and carrier opened fire on the six destroyers coming their way. The destroyers returned the favor by firing back.

“Incoming missiles,” another of her staff officers said. “Impact in sixty seconds. The ECM profile they gave us seems to be working perfectly. We have lock on them.”

Here was where the delicate nature of the deception was going to come into play. The destroyers had fired to hit both Audacious and Artemis. The key to making that happen without taking damage was the fact that they knew the electronic countermeasures that those missiles would be using. It would be as if they were coming in straight and true without dodging or concealing their locations at all.

The tactical officers on both ships would pick out the most threatening ones and eliminate them with antimissile defenses. The ones that were only peripherally dangerous would be allowed to explode against their battle screens.

It was going to be nerve-racking, but it should be safe enough. Relatively speaking, of course. They were, after all, really shooting at one another.

Honestly, she thought that the other side was displaying a lot more trust in them than they were showing in return. The missiles from her battle group were going to explode all around those destroyers. Many of them would explode just after they’d passed the destroyers, very closely simulating actually exploding on target.

That meant that those six destroyers were going to have to allow her missiles to get close enough to actually hit them if that was what Zia had intended. If she’d had sinister motives, she’d have been able to destroy all six of those ships in one salvo because they wouldn’t have had their guard fully up.

Not that she couldn’t have destroyed all of them in short order anyway.

She watched the master plot as the missiles closed in on the destroyers. She would focus her attention on what was happening in front of her rather than the incoming salvo. Even if the destroyers betrayed her, the two large warships could shrug off what was about to happen to them. If they were betrayed, their retribution would be awful to behold.

As a former tactical officer, she’d never considered this type of deception before. Normally, enemies didn’t cooperate with one another to fool a third party, so this was something new to her.

Her task force’s missiles streaked into the destroyers’ formation, exploding all around the six ships in a tremendous display of destructive power. One carefully choreographed to make sure that the explosive force mostly missed the ships themselves.

As soon as the salvo detonated, three destroyers cut their fusion plants entirely and drifted off course. Two more cut their power by two-thirds and began trying to scatter into different directions. The final ship kept coming toward her warships but at a significantly reduced speed.

It looked pretty realistic to her, and she’d known what to expect.

A quick check verified that they’d taken out the most dangerous elements of the incoming fire, just as planned, and that their battle screens had shrugged off the rest. Neither ship reported any damage or injuries.

That had to make the invaders a little queasy, she suspected. Which was precisely what they’d had in mind.

“Task group Charlie is changing course,” one of her staff officers said. “It looks like they want to get out of firing range before we can close with them. They’ve increased speed to maximum.”

“Are they heading back toward the orbital?” she asked.

“No, ma’am. It looks like they’re curving around our projected course and making a run for the flip point. Captain Levy is ordering a pursuit but keeping Artemis down to our normal cruising speed. We won’t be able to catch them, but we can certainly make sure that they leave.

“Because of the direction of travel they’ve chosen, we’re going to have them in extreme missile range for probably twenty minutes. Do we fire at them to make this look good?”

“Negative. Communicate our intent to pursue the invading force to the destroyers. Have the ones that are pretending to be mobile go back to ‘assist’ their disabled sisters. That should keep up the illusion long enough to make sure that bad guys don’t turn around. What’s their estimated time of arrival at the flip point?”

“Ten hours.”

Zia nodded to herself. That should be more than enough time for the civilian side of the system to get itself in order. She’d plant her ships at the flip point to make sure that no one else came through.

If it turned out that she needed to head back to the planet, she could arrange that, but she was going to hope that Kelsey had things well in hand.

Honestly, this was working out better than she’d hoped, and that had her a little concerned. When things were going too well, that was when something usually went very wrong.

42

Elise watched Carl try to convince person after person at the telecommunications company to hand over the information they wanted to no avail. They kept quoting the regulations and lists of reasons why they couldn’t give him the information, even though somebody from the coordinator’s office had contacted them to make absolutely clear that that was exactly what they were supposed to do.

She could see that the young scientist was getting frustrated, and so was she. Her friend’s mother had suffered grievous harm at the hands of these people, and now bureaucrats were standing in their way.

While they were waiting in an empty office for yet another bureaucrat to come tell them that they couldn’t have what they wanted, Elise bent close to Carl and whispered in his ear, “I’m beginning to think that we need to take care of this ourselves.”

He raised an eyebrow. “What have you got in mind?”

“I think we need to get the information the old-fashioned way: steal it. I mean, honestly, when have we ever been handed everything we need? We need to just get what we need and deal with the consequences later. After all, we have permission from the coordinator, so what’s the worst that can happen?”

She almost didn’t like asking that last question because they’d seen some pretty horrific things happen when they thought everything was safe. Still, this was just a telecommunications company. What was the worst they could do? Arrest them?

If they did, she could get them out again. If not, Coordinator Kagan would take care of the problem, she was sure. The man wanted to have a good relationship with the New Terran Empire, after all.

Carl still didn’t seem so sure, but he nodded. Since they were still alone, she was able to open a portal and send him and the other two scientists into the other realm. Then she stepped into the other realm herself and rotated her point of view so that the portal was now in a different room in their own universe.

That was something of a risk because there might be someone on the other side of the wall. If there was, they were definitely in for a shock.

To her relief, there was no one there. She’d specifically chosen the wall at the back of the room, so it didn’t even open into the same corridor as the one they’d been in. The guard that the company had placed outside the room to make sure that none of them wandered off wouldn’t see them leave.

Elise stepped back out of the other space and closed the portal. She was alone in an office that looked just like any other that she could imagine. There was a desk and a computer console. There was also an ID badge stuck into the side of the computer, probably providing some kind of authentication.

Whoever had left it there was wandering around without a badge. Naughty, naughty.

She grabbed the badge and put the lanyard around her neck. She flipped it around so that the picture wasn’t visible. No one really paid attention to ID anyway, but it was best to take no chances.

Elise smirked to herself as she exited the room and began wandering the halls looking for directions to the server room. She passed various people and nodded politely. Most of them ignored her, though a few gave her curious looks.

Nobody was curious enough to challenge her, which was lousy security but good for her.

She found herself back at the lifts and scrutinized the map of the building displayed across from it. It indicated that the servers were down in one of the basements.

Once inside the lift, she pressed the button for the correct floor and rode the elevator down. It arrived in an area with a nice thick door and a security keypad that someone would have to bypass to get in. There wasn’t a guard there, but she suspected that if anyone tried to get in without the correct codes, security would be able to watch them on a camera.

It took just a couple of seconds to spot the camera in the corner, and she waved at it cheerily. She doubted that the area was under continuous observation, but one never knew.

Since the camera was in the corner of the room adjacent to the server room, she stepped underneath it so that it couldn’t see her clearly and then opened a portal. She stepped through and immediately rotated the portal so that it was on the other side of the wall. Then she stepped out and gestured for Carl and the rest to follow her. Once they were all out, she dismissed the portal.

The server room was huge. It stretched out as far as she could see and was filled with computer equipment. Thank goodness she didn’t have to find what they needed here all by herself because she’d been completely lost the second she started looking.

The same was not true of Carl and the rest. They quickly spread out in a couple of different directions before Austin called out for them to join him. He’d found a terminal and was able to slip a data chip into the port on it and begin the search that they were wanting.

Lines of text began scrolling up the screen, and he grinned. “These people really need to be a little more concerned about their security. Apparently, being inside the server room is all the security they think they need. This terminal wasn’t even locked down. Hell, they should’ve at least disabled the data port.

“I’m getting actual addresses for all the activity related to this account. Not just the stuff we got off it but all the stuff they store here. I’m also running a search for other accounts that have interfaced with this one.

“Incoming and outgoing, as well as numbers that show up in the same geographic location more than a few times. It should only take a couple of minutes to get all of that data onto the chip, and then we can maybe pin down some other players.”

It seemed as if Carl was about to respond, but the sound of the server door opening and loud voices calling for people to spread out indicated that someone had seen them come in, though they probably hadn’t the slightest clue how it was possible.

Well, that was unfortunate, but it wasn’t going to be the end of the world. After all, this was just a telecommunications company, so they weren’t in any real danger.

“There they are!” a voice shouted. Then someone opened fire with a flechette pistol and tore up the computer right next to Ralph.

Well, that was significantly more hostility than she’d expected.

They all dodged around the side of the server next to them and cowered as more shots came in. She pressed the oval on her wrist and opened the portal behind them. She had never tried to do that before, but it worked.

Everyone but Carl dodged through. He dug into his satchel and pulled out a plasma grenade. With more nonchalance than she could have ever imagined showing under similar circumstances, he activated it and tossed it around the corner, to the deep consternation of the shooter.

Carl reached around the corner and retrieved the data chip before he dove through the portal. She managed to dive through the portal and close it before the grenade went off.

“Do you normally carry one of those around with you?” she asked a bit acerbically. “If so, you’ve spent entirely too much time around Kelsey.”

“One never knows when one might need a bigger hammer,” he said with a grin. “They asked for it when they shot to kill without calling for us to surrender.”

All she could do was shake her head.

Why had someone wanted to kill them for getting into the server room? Was this a betrayal from the coordinator, or was a telecommunications company in league with the resistance?

Or was it some third scenario that she couldn’t begin to imagine?

Well, that was for somebody else to figure out. Right now, she needed to get all of them to someplace safe where they could interface with Senior Lieutenant Thompson. Whatever information Ralph had pulled out of the data was going to give them places to go hunting the resistance.

If the telecommunications company was in league with the resistance, the clock was ticking, and they couldn’t afford to waste a single second now.

* * *

Kelsey watched the scan of the aborted battle that had taken place between Devon and the flip point being forwarded to her from Persephone. The invading force had cut and run without even attempting to return for their marines.

That was kind of crappy, but she wasn’t going to argue with good luck.

At this point, the invaders were outside the carrier’s missile envelope. They were still in range for Artemis to catch up, if that was what she’d really wanted to do, but Zia was content to let the others flee so that they could bottle up the system.

It would still be almost half a day before the invading force got to the flip point, but at this point, they weren’t going to be able to get back to Devon without a fight. The “damaged” destroyers had dropped the charade and were now playing escort to Audacious while Artemis ran point.

All in all, things were going very well for them.

An incoming call popped up on her implant com system from Senior Lieutenant Thompson, and she accepted the connection request.

Go ahead, Lieutenant.

Carl and his associates are here. They stopped by the telecommunications company to get the data that Princess Elise wanted. It looks like somebody there is in league with the resistance because there was shooting. Nobody on our end was hurt, but lethal force was employed by both sides. Carl says he had to drop some thunder on them.

She briefly wondered what that meant but set it aside. She’d ask him later.

That was a pretty strong response, even if the telecommunications company was in bed with the resistance. It was bound to draw notice from people who would come looking to see what was going on.

It seemed… excessive.

You’re sure that nobody was hurt?

They’re standing right in front of me, so I can confirm that. While Princess Elise was driving over here, Carl and the rest went through the data, and they’ve narrowed down the potential headquarters for the resistance to a single location.

He says confidence is pretty high that that’s the place, and based on his track record, I’m inclined to believe him. How do we handle this?

Have Elise take them back where she can stash them safely and accompany you to Persephone. Once you’re there, get set to drop both pinnaces down on that location and breach it. We’ll stun everything that moves and shoot anything that resists.

The man on the other end of the call was silent for a few seconds before he continued.

Major Collins isn’t going to be happy to hear that you’re coming along, so maybe we shouldn’t tell him.

You’re a Marine Raider after my own heart, Senior Lieutenant. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt me. See you there shortly.

“Where are you going?” her mother asked from the doorway leading to the bedroom of the suite that Coordinator Kagan had made available for her.

The entire conversation had taken place silently, so her mother hadn’t heard anything that she’d said. She must’ve figured out that something was going on simply on Kelsey’s expression. Now Kelsey had to decide whether to tell her the truth or a comforting lie.

Or would the truth be more comforting?

After considering that for a couple of seconds, she decided that it might be. At the very least, she wasn’t going to be able to lie convincingly to her mother with that sharklike grin on her face.

“Carl thinks that he’s narrowed down where the resistance headquarters is located. I’m heading to Persephone to oversee sending down a team to breach it and capture the people who tortured you.”

Justine seemed to consider her words without any emotion, but Kelsey knew that wasn’t the case at all. She’d talked to the doctor after they’d given her mother a sedative and sent her to bed.

Her mother had a severe case of PTSD and would be a wreck for months to come and still be dealing with the trauma for years. Nothing that happened to her regarding the resistance and the people below could fail to generate dreadful emotions inside of her.

Kelsey understood that better than anyone else. She knew that the bland mask her mother put on didn’t mean a single thing when it came to the pain she was feeling.

Her mother suddenly stepped over to her and squeezed her tight. “I won’t try to convince you not to do this, but I ask that you be very careful. I don’t want anything to happen to you or the little girl inside you. I couldn’t live if that happened.

“Promise me that you won’t lead the way in. Promise me now, or I’m going to get on the com and raise living hell with anyone who will listen to me.”

Kelsey chuckled. “You would too. I’m more than happy to send Senior Lieutenant Thompson and the rest in first. They’ve got blood in their eyes, but they won’t just shoot that woman on general principles. I might be tempted.”

She’d seen some dark days after her brother’s death, and when assassins had come for her at the Imperial Retreat, she’d hunted them down like rabid dogs. She’d given in to the temptation to vent her rage on deserving targets, and exterminating them hadn’t made her feel any better.

This time she’d be smarter. She’d let the woman stand trial for everything she’d done. Kelsey wasn’t certain what kind of penalties the woman might face here in the Rebel Empire, but she knew Imperial law very well.

The death penalty was rarely used, but it was on the table now because her mother had been acting as an ambassador for the Empire, and the Empire took an extremely dim view of those that harmed their ambassadors.

“Be careful, Kelsey,” her mother said, kissing her on the cheek. “And make her suffer a little bit for me, would you?”

“For you? I’ll break her if she resists even the littlest little bit. You have my word on that.”

She kissed her mother on the forehead and gently shooed her back toward the bed. “Get some sleep. By the time you wake up, I hope to be back with good news.”

Once she had the bedroom door closed, Kelsey turned and strode toward the docking ring. It was time to go hunting.

43

Carl sat at the desk in his makeshift lab aboard Persephone. It really wasn’t worthy of being called a lab, but it had a couple of flat spaces for critical equipment and a computer that he could use for data manipulation. Ralph and Austin were seated at the table, using portable computers to help him go over all of the information they’d gathered.

They now knew where the main resistance headquarters was located, but he suspected that wouldn’t be true long enough for them to actually strike it. Ralph had planted a virus inside the telecommunications company servers—which were amazingly still semi-operational after the plasma grenade—and it was busy updating them on the locations and activities of the numbers he’d indicated that he wanted to track.

The company would undoubtedly be searching for something like that, but it would take them a bit to locate it and clean it out, particularly after the mayhem he’d wreaked on them. If circumstances worked in their favor, all of this would be settled before they purged the virus feeding them fresh information.

“What have you got for me?” Kelsey asked as she stepped into the lab. “Thompson said that there was a problem.”

Carl turned to face her and nodded. “We know where the resistance headquarters is located, but it looks like they’re relocating. It also looks like they’re busy dumping their coms and getting new ones. Luckily, they’re not doing it all at once, and I’m picking up some cross-traffic that’s allowing me to continue to keep tabs on them.

“The problem is that if we strike now, the odds of catching their leadership are poor. We need to know where they’re going to settle down, which means we have to follow them until they do. We also have to be sure that the targets we want are in residence when we strike. The situation is too unsettled right now to move.”

He’d been around Kelsey and the Marine Raiders long enough to know how they worked. It would only take them a short period of time to subdue the resistance at any location they chose to strike, but if the people they wanted weren’t there, all they would get was equipment and information that happened to be left behind.

In this case, that wasn’t helpful because the resistance was well trained at scrubbing their presence from an abandoned facility in a hurry.

Kelsey grimaced. “Dammit. They have to be tied in with the telecommunications company somehow. Now, what’s this I hear about you dropping thunder on someone? What does that even mean?”

“They were shooting at us with flechette pistols. I happened to have a plasma grenade to throw back.”

“You just happened to have a plasma grenade?” she asked with a flat look that said she wasn’t buying what he was selling. “Easy to see since the marines just leave them lying around. Give.”

She followed the last word by holding her hand out, palm up, and gesturing with her fingers for him to put something into it.

He sighed and pulled a plasma grenade out of his pouch and placed it in her palm.

Kelsey took it into her other hand and gestured wordlessly for him to keep going. Dammit, she knew him entirely too well.

Three plasma grenades, two flechette pistols, and a stunner followed.

Kelsey’s eyebrows crept higher with each weapon. “As Snaps Provolone from Oscar would say, ‘It’s like disarming Germany.’ What are you doing with all this hardware?”

“After they kidnapped your mother, I thought it best to be prepared and opened up my secret stash. I figured having them wasn’t a big deal. If I’d needed to, I could’ve made something truly destructive in the lab, but these things are extremely reliable.”

She shook her head and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I can see that I’ve been a corrupting influence. Carl, listen to what I say, not watch what I do. You’re a man of science, not a plasma-grenade-heaving Imperial Marine. Leave that to the professionals like your wife.”

He grinned. “With all due respect, are you planning to go in hot when they breach the headquarters? I think that you are.”

Kelsey sighed, pushed the stunner and flechette pistols back at him, and smacked him in the nose lightly with two fingers. “No explosives! Bad scientist! Bad!”

She set the grenades down and shook her head. “I really shouldn’t. I’m a general, for God’s sake. I’m supposed to have big hulking goons to go in hot for me.”

“Then why don’t you surprise everyone and lead from the rear this time? It’s crazy enough that it just might work!”

“You’re a riot,” she said sourly. “When this is all over, I’m going to work with Coordinator Kagan to track down whoever is stymieing us, and they’re going to wish they’d never been born.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Just because the leadership tortured your mother doesn’t mean that every single person in the resistance is bad. Keep that in mind.”

“Fine,” she said with a theatrical sigh. “We’re still going to have to track down and identify everybody so that they can be questioned thoroughly. If the leadership is broken here—and they surely are—it’s almost certain that plenty of their underlings knew what was going on. I don’t want to see anybody skate on this.

“Do we have any idea where they’re relocating to?”

He nodded and turned back to his computer, bringing up a map of the capital city. “The old headquarters was in a run-down warehouse located here.” He tapped the map toward the south of the city.

“The new location is here.” He tapped another location on the map in the eastern quadrant of the city. “The new spot looks to be a dilapidated tenement building. It’s not too different from the place that Coordinator Kagan took your mother to when they escaped, though I seriously doubt that it has a secret facility under it. Still, I’m not ruling that out at this point.

“Senior Lieutenant Thompson and his people are using combat drones to keep an eye on the area as they’re moving in. They’re unable to get a look inside the building, so he’s just keeping track of the faces and vehicles that come and go. We’re using our tap inside the telecommunications company to flag every com that comes within a block of that location too.”

Kelsey paced behind him, which in the small area meant that she took two steps in each direction before turning around. After a couple of minutes, she shook her head and stopped.

“We’re not going to be able to hit them until they’ve settled in and we know for a fact that the leadership is there. We’re just going to have to let them settle down and start thinking that they might be safe again.

“I really wanted to deal with this before my mother wakes up, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. All we can do is get ready to strike, and once we’re completely sure that both of the people running the operation that captured my mother and the rest are present, we act.

“Make sure that Thompson knows to stay as far back as he can and that he keeps a low profile. We don’t want to tip them off that we’re around. If they spook again, locating their new hiding place is going to be a lot more complicated. Particularly if the people inside the telecommunications company track down your virus and terminate it. Or if the building burns down.

“I don’t suppose you have a com number associated with either of the bigwigs, do you?”

Carl shook his head. “Everyone used fake identities, so pinning this down to a specific individual without having some kind of biometric information about them is impossible. If we had a voice profile for either of the bigwigs, we might be able to deal with that, but I don’t.”

Kelsey frowned. “Why not? Both of them talked in front of my mother, Olivia, and Zia. Surely they have something recorded. They’ve also got images of them.”

Carl blinked. “I didn’t think of that. I’ll contact Olivia and see if she can send me any voice samples she has. If we can catch either of them speaking on one of the tapped lines, we should be able to narrow down their current location. That’s a great idea, and I’m sorry that I didn’t think of it.”

Without waiting for Kelsey to say anything, he turned back toward his computer and sent a quick message to Olivia. Within thirty seconds, he had voice files and images for the people who had picked her group up and tortured Kelsey’s mother.

Carl pulled that information into his computer and started a search of all the current communications and past ones that he’d recorded after they’d planted the virus. He also forwarded the images to Senior Lieutenant Thompson to run past the drone feeds.

He got a hit almost immediately. The male had spoken on one of the tapped lines, and Carl now had a number for him. Not one of the old numbers, but one that had changed after the strike on the telecommunications company.

The com unit wasn’t currently in use, but the virus could track its location and saw that it was headed toward the new headquarters from somewhere on the north side of the city.

“We’ve got the male en route to the new headquarters,” he told Kelsey. “No sign of the female at this time. I’ve got her plugged into the information we’ve got, and so long as we still have a connection to the telecommunications company, we should be able to identify her if she uses a com. If not, we’re going to have to count on Thompson catching a visual of her when she arrives.

“No matter which way this plays out, it’s probably going to be at least a couple of hours before you can strike. If we want to let them settle in and start to feel a bit safe, we might want to wait half a day for them to let their guard down.”

Kelsey took a deep breath, obviously thinking about it, and slowly nodded. “We’ll keep at least part of the team ready to go at a moment’s notice. If you get any information on the woman, I want to know immediately.

“Once we locate her, I’m going to tag someone to keep an eye on her. I don’t want her escaping once we make our move. She’s mine.”

“I’ll make it happen,” he said. “Don’t worry, Kelsey, we’ve almost got them now.”

He certainly hoped that was true because if something came around to disrupt their plans at the last minute, she wasn’t going to be pleased, and he’d be very disappointed too. He and the rest would have to devote themselves to making absolutely sure they had the best information they could get on the new headquarters and everyone in it.

When the strike happened, they’d need every advantage that he could give them.

* * *

Justine woke abruptly, her sleep disturbed by yet another nightmare. The drugs that they’d given her helped a little, but she couldn’t seem to sleep for more than a couple of hours without waking up in a cold sweat.

She checked the time and was surprised to see that almost five hours had passed since she’d spoken with her daughter. Surely the raid was over by now. Shouldn’t Kelsey have come back to tell her about it?

Sitting up, she rubbed her face tiredly and checked her messages. Nothing.

That annoyed her immensely, and considering the mindset that she was in right now, it was very easy for that to blossom into anger. What was her daughter up to, and why hadn’t she called?

And then a jolt of fear shot through her. What if Kelsey had been hurt? What if she’d been killed?

Justine threw back the covers and climbed out of bed. She stepped into the bathroom to relieve herself and brush her teeth. Then she dressed hurriedly and headed out to the common room on our way to the front door.

She stopped when she saw Olivia sitting on the couch, working on a tablet.

The other woman looked up as she came into the room and smiled. “How are you feeling?”

“Frustrated,” Justine admitted, stopping, and wringing her hands. “Kelsey was supposed to have called and let me know how the raid went, but I haven’t heard a thing, and now I’m worried. What’s going on?”

Olivia closed down what she was working on and put the tablet away. “The resistance moved headquarters before they were ready to strike, so the decision was made to let them settle in before we made our move.

“The new strike time is about five and half hours from now. The marines from Audacious will hit them from the ground while Kelsey and the remaining Raiders drop with the extra marines through the roof.

“She’ll be coming in on the second pinnace. By the time she gets there, Senior Lieutenant Thompson should be deep inside the facility while the marines surrounding the building make absolutely sure that no one gets away.

“Since it’s not going to happen for a while, why don’t we get something to eat and find a place that we can wait to see what happens?”

Justine considered that and nodded. “We can get something to eat on the way over to Persephone. I’m going down with them. I need to be there when this happens, even though I’m not going to be doing any fighting. I have to see this finished, and I want to make sure that my daughter doesn’t put herself in harm’s way.”

She expected Olivia to argue, but the other woman simply rose to her feet and started toward the door. “I found a fairly decent restaurant nearby. While we’re eating, I can call for a cutter to take us to Persephone, but I think it would probably be better to consider a different option.”

Justine walked beside the other woman as they entered the corridor, and a brace of marines fell in behind them. She wasn’t sure she approved of having guards again after so long.

When she’d been the empress, the Imperial Guard had always been around her, but that had been a long time ago. She’d learned to value her privacy in the years since, and having people watch over her all the time was making her feel nervous.

“If you don’t like my idea, what do you think would be better?” Justine asked, slightly peeved.

“I think that we should take a cutter down to the surface and link up with Major Collins. He’s got a lot more people to help keep an eye on us, and we don’t have to go into the facility until everything is secure.

“If we drop with Kelsey, we’re going to be going in a combat zone, and no matter how much they work at keeping us safe, we’d be a distraction when they can least afford it.”

Justine reluctantly realized that her friend was right. The very last thing she needed to do was distract her daughter in the middle of a fight. That kind of thing could prove fatal, and she wasn’t going to be the cause of her daughter’s—or someone else’s—death or injury.

“I think that’s an excellent idea,” she finally admitted. “I’m not thinking very clearly these days.”

“You’ve been through a lot. With some rest and therapy, I think you’re going to be just fine. Look at how Kelsey turned out, stronger than ever.”

Justine laughed. “I’m never going to be as strong as my daughter. That’s not how I was put together. It’s going to be a challenge just to get back to where I was.

“I’ll be glad when this fighting is over, and I can spend some time with Don. I understand that he has a new job, but I’ll bet that I can wrangle permission to be aboard Artemis and in his quarters.”

“With Veronica in command?” Olivia responded with a chuckle. “I don’t think you’re going to have any trouble at all, since she’s sleeping with the boss.”

They arrived at the restaurant and were quickly able to get a table away from everyone else. They sat down and ordered breakfast, even though it was the afternoon, while the marines took up a table nearby just to keep an eye on everything.

Justine imagined it would take an hour to eat and get herself back in order. By the time she got down to the surface, the strike would probably only be a few hours away. Everything that had been happening in this damned system was finally coming to a head, and she couldn’t wait for it to be done.

“How is everything going with Coordinator Kagan?” she asked after they’d ordered. “Is he going to be a problem?”

Olivia shook her head. “He’s given me complete access to everything, and even though he hasn’t finished cleaning house yet, everything I’ve seen indicates that he’s going to be honest with us and work with the New Terran Empire. I think he can see a good deal when it lands on the table in front of him.

“Most people would have to go out of their way to prove themselves, but the fact that we were in prison together carries a lot of weight. Once we flush out the resistance, then we’ll see how things really play out.

“Those people have been working against him for a long time, and how he treats them is going to tell us a lot about him.”

Justine was already pretty sure how things would work out. There would be amnesties involved for all the players in the resistance now that the AIs were out of the picture. The only people who were going to face charges were the ones who had kidnapped them and tortured her.

She smiled coldly. And that wasn’t going to be a problem at all.

“Let’s hurry up and eat,” she urged. “We’ll take a bunch of extra coffee down with us. Marines love coffee.”

44

Zia followed the invading ships toward the flip point at Audacious’s best cruising speed, not pushing anything. Artemis flew just ahead, matching her. They weren’t trying to catch up to the fleeing vessels, happy to herd them out of the Devon system.

Once it became apparent that her task force had no intention of catching them, the invaders had dropped their speed down until they were moving just a little faster than her ships, opening the distance as they flew but not pushing their engines too hard.

Her original plan had been for the destroyers to conceal their involvement in the ruse, but the commanders of those vessels had other ideas. Rather than pretending to still be damaged, four of them had raced to catch up with her at maximum speed. Once they’d done so, they had settled into a protective sphere around the larger ships.

She had her tactical officers watching them closely, but even if they tried to betray her, Audacious’s battle screens were up, and she could take care of herself. The same was true of Artemis.

The remaining destroyers set course for Devon. They undoubtedly wanted to make sure that Coordinator Kagan had backup if he had problems, so she wasn’t going to complain about that.

She was tempted to complain about Kelsey’s plan to be part of the takedown of the rogue resistance cell. Major Collins had the place surrounded with his marines and was even covertly inserting people into buildings around the area to verify that there were no underground escape tunnels that he was unaware of. When the operation commenced, he’d collapse the tunnels that he’d found and try to keep the rats in their hole.

Realistically, there was no way to keep Kelsey from doing what she wanted. Not only did she have the political position to force her will, but Collins also didn’t outrank her. With her brevet rank of general in the Marine Raiders, Zia didn’t have the pull to make an order stick, even if they’d been in the same organization.

That didn’t stop her or Collins from making sure that the heir didn’t go in first and that there was a squad of marines ready to shield her from any serious counteroffensive.

All in all, the situation seemed as under control as it could be, and they had the upper hand. Which, of course, meant that something was bound to go wrong. That just meant that she’d have to be extra careful as they wrapped things up.

“The invaders are slowing to enter the flip point, ma’am,” Ester Frasier said. “Navigation estimates that they’re less than five minutes from flipping out of the system.”

“Bring the task force to a halt right here,” Zia ordered. “We’ll let them leave, but we’ll make the point that this is our system.”

“Copy that,” her aide said.

The task force smoothly came to a halt. The invading ships had kept out of missile range, but only just. Zia suspected it was their way of taunting the slower vessels. Maybe they’d hoped to get the destroyers to come after them.

Not that she was stupid enough to allow that to happen.

Her implant timer counted down toward the time when they’d flip out of the system and Devon would be fully in their hands. This was the goal that they’d been working toward since they’d arrived.

It would be nice to finally have a real base inside the Rebel Empire. One with a population that they could start educating about what had really happened during the Fall and about who the New Terran Empire was.

Word would spread, she was sure. That would make their task easier. Eventually.

She was still a minute away from the ships being completely gone when Esther abruptly spoke. “Incoming ships at the flip point! They’ve opened fire on the invading ships. The invading vessels are returning fire.”

Zia focused her attention on the plot, and her blood ran more than a little bit cold. The relatively simple tactical problem that they’d been dealing with had just become significantly more complex. Data was still coming in, but if that wasn’t a battlecruiser and four cruisers of some variety, she’d eat her command console without hot sauce.

At the relatively short range they were at, the fight between the invaders and the new arrivals was over in seconds. Each of the invading vessels was reduced to floating scrap after being pounded by more missiles than they could stop.

There would undoubtedly be survivors but probably not that many. There just hadn’t been time for people to get to the escape pods.

The new ships hadn’t gotten off completely unscathed, but once they’d raised their battle screens, the fight had been over.

“Operations has verified that those are Clan warships,” Fraser said in a professional tone, confirming what Zia had already suspected. “One battlecruiser, two heavy cruisers, and two light cruisers. They estimate that one of the heavy cruisers took moderate damage in the fight but is still combat capable.

“The Clan task force is leaving the flip point and heading for us, ma’am. Extreme missile range in ninety seconds. Orders?”

“Launch all Raptors,” Zia ordered. “Flank speed ahead and engage the enemy at will. Artemis will be our main fighting platform, and the destroyers will maintain their protective shield around us.”

There was no way the two task forces could evade one another at this ludicrously short range. The Clan ships could’ve gone back through the flip point, but it was obvious that they were looking for a fight.

Fine. She’d be happy to give it to them.

Getting the Raptors launched didn’t take very long. Annette Vitter was a conscientious wing commander, and her people had been ready to launch at a moment’s notice.

Her wing was understrength, so instead of seventy-two fighters, she had only forty-eight. In less than thirty seconds, the last fighter was in space, and they were all arrowing toward the enemy task force.

“Entering extreme missile range,” Fraser said a few seconds later. “Enemy vessels opening fire.”

“Hold fire. Focus everything on missile defense while our fighters get themselves in order. Once they charge in, I want to focus the task force’s attention on that battlecruiser. If they choose to run, it’s the ship that’s most likely to get away. Let’s make that impossible.”

Since they were only just in missile range, the enemy’s barrage had been far less effective than it might’ve been. Her ships worked together smoothly enough to stop every missile short of the task force.

Impressive, considering that they’d never fought as a unit. The situation wasn’t going to hold, but it was a good omen for things to come.

She’d been worried that the coordination with the destroyers would be substandard, but apparently, Veronica had been working behind the scenes to make sure that everyone was using the same playbook. Most excellent.

To a layman, the two forces might have appeared to be at least in the same general ballpark when it came to force projection, but that mistaken opinion would be shattered in about thirty seconds.

With just her weapons—about two-thirds of the striking power of a superdreadnought—Audacious could handle two battlecruisers all by herself. With the fighters, she wouldn’t even need Artemis or the destroyers to win this fight, though their help would keep the damage to her ship to a minimum.

“Task force orders: stand by to fire missiles on that battlecruiser,” she said. “Thirty seconds from my mark. Mark.”

The enemy task force fired another salvo at them just before the mark, and now that they were in range, this one would be a bit tougher to deal with. Still, she had no doubt that her forces could handle it. It looked as if the Clans had split their fire between Audacious and Artemis.

The task force’s coordinated missile defense would take down most of the incoming fire, and the two vessels’ battle screens would probably protect them from what was left. If not, they’d take some damage, but they’d still be combat capable.

That would not be true of the other side.

Their unfamiliarity with fighters meant that they didn’t recognize the true threat the Raptors represented in time to target them with a salvo, which was what she’d have done in their place.

The fighters were hard to defend against, and the Rebel Empire hadn’t ever fielded carriers. That meant that the Clans—even if they’d fighters of their own—probably weren’t expecting to have to deal with them.

Or perhaps the Singularity just hadn’t wanted them to have that type of craft. Fighters were extremely deadly combatants. Even without a ship, one could have an awful lot of fighters in a system and make it a difficult nut to crack.

Personally, Zia didn’t think that the Clans had fighters. Nothing that she’d ever heard from any of the prisoners or the people from Clan Dauntless on Pandora had ever mentioned them. No carriers had escaped with the Clans, so that had never been a priority for them.

Even if they had, the Grant Research Facility on Harrison’s World had done some amazing work on minimizing weapons systems. Old Empire fighters had carried a pair of missiles and flechettes for antifighter and antimissile roles. Nothing to sneeze at but not as strong on offense as they could be.

The new Raptor class fighters—it was going to take her a while to get used to that name—had the same pair of antiship missiles and flechettes for antifighter or antimissile operations but also had a short-range two-shot shot beam weapon.

That was a game-changer.

Missiles could drop battle screens, and beams could gut even the most powerful ships. And a carrier could deliver dozens of the small craft right into someone’s lap and keep rearming them sortie after sortie.

This was going to suck for the Clan warships, but she was smiling in predatory anticipation.

The enemy salvo slammed into her task force. The defensive fire cut it down by sixty percent, but the enemy ECM had improved. Their close-in defenses stopped another twenty percent of the missiles, but that still left a fair number to slam against the carrier’s and the battlecruiser’s battle screens.

Zia felt the big ship buck, and that meant at least one of the missiles had gotten through. Damage control wasn’t her concern, so she left that in Brandon Levy’s capable hands. She was responsible for fighting the task force, and that was where her attention would stay.

Unlike the enemy’s missile salvo, her task force’s missiles only had a single target, and even though it had battle screens, it wasn’t up to the task of dealing with all of that fire coming in on it at once.

To their credit, the Clan tactical officers did stop a significant number of the incoming missiles. More than her people had percentage-wise, if she really wanted to be charitable. That still didn’t help the battlecruiser very much when explosions engulfed it.

“The enemy battlecruiser has lost battle screens,” Fraser said. “Moderate damage, but he still looks combat capable. The Raptors are making their run now.”

It looked like Black Jack squadron was making a run on the battlecruiser while Scimitar squadron dealt with the two heavy cruisers. The latter vessels still had their battle screens up, but they realized the severity of the threat far too late to do them any good.

They fired on the fighters, but the maneuverable little craft mostly dodged the incoming shots. Not all of them, unfortunately. Two of the dots representing her Raptors blinked out, but there was still a fairly decent chance that the pilots had survived and could be recovered after the fight.

The fighters’ missiles blanketed the battlecruiser and utterly wrecked it. Zia expected the ship to explode outright, but it didn’t. Through some miracle, its fusion plants simply failed rather than exploding. All that was left was a drifting hulk spewing escape pods.

The biggest threat in the enemy arsenal was out of the fight, and the fighters that had killed him turned on the no doubt horrified light cruisers.

The heavy cruisers stood up to the damage a little bit better because they still had their battle screens, but the incoming flight of missiles from the fighters took those down, and then they fired their beam weapons.

Space ahead of the task force lit up with beams as the fighters attacked the cruisers. In the space of ten seconds, they’d fired all their beams and launched their remaining missiles. They’d spent their load, but they weren’t in any danger.

Even without her larger ships involving themselves, this fight was over. One of the heavy cruisers exploded outright, and the other was a wreck. Both light cruisers were simply gone.

“Recall the fighters to rearm, except for those tasked for search and rescue,” Zia said. “Detach a couple of pinnaces to locate the pilots and get them back aboard.”

She tried to keep her voice even, but she knew that the odds were strong that at least one of the pilots probably hadn’t survived.

The next steps of this dance were already written. She’d call on the surviving Clan vessels to surrender, and they’d either refuse or remain silent. Everything she’d seen about the Clans indicated that they were highly xenophobic and paranoid. There was no way they’d just give up without a fight.

If she’d had her marines still on board, she’d have boarded those ships that were still mostly intact to secure prisoners. Since she didn’t, she’d let Veronica coordinate with the four destroyers to use their platoons of Rebel Empire marines for that purpose.

She wasn’t expecting to take many of the Clan personnel alive. They seemed like the type who preferred to fight to the death.

Maybe by the time they were actually in a position to board, she’d have her marines back from Devon. At the very least, she needed to send the report via FTL to make sure that Kelsey knew that the Clans had made an appearance and been firmly dealt with.

“Send Artemis to the other side of the flip point to keep watch,” she ordered. “Spread some FTL drones on the other side so that nobody can sneak up on her. She’s to hold position until we have the situation here dealt with.”

She didn’t expect the Clans to send additional ships right away. They undoubtedly had a decent idea of what the firepower at Devon should have been, and they’d sent more than enough ships to secure the system.

It was always possible that someone else would eventually come along to see why no one had come back to report, but that was a problem for another day.

“Record for transmission,” she said. “Clan vessels, this is Commodore Zia Anderson of the New Terran Empire Fleet carrier Audacious. You’ve lost this battle, and I call on you to surrender. If you do not, I’ll be forced to send marines aboard your vessels to secure your personnel. There’s no need for further loss of life. Lay down your arms and live to fight another day.”

Then she sat back in her seat and waited for their response or lack thereof. One way or the other, she was utterly confident that she was going to have to pry them out of their shells.

Meanwhile, she’d worry about Kelsey and her friends back on Devon.

45

“There she is,” Carl said in a low voice, almost startling Kelsey. “Feed seven.”

She turned her attention to feed seven. She and Carl were watching the various feeds of the resistance headquarters through their implants while sitting in what passed for the crew’s mess aboard Persephone.

Feed seven showed a vehicle that had stopped near one of the entrances to the resistance’s new headquarters building. Half a dozen people had gotten out and walked quickly inside while trying not to look like they were in a hurry.

One of them was the woman who’d tortured her mother.

“Looks like it’s go time,” Kelsey said. “All combatants to the pinnaces.”

Her voice echoed from the overheads with that last sentence.

Taking every Raider but Angela down meant that they were virtually stripping the strike ship bare, but only through overwhelming firepower were they going to secure this area without taking a prohibitive number of casualties. She felt confident that the interior of that building was well protected.

At least under normal circumstances. This wasn’t going to be a normal attack in any way.

She rose to her feet and headed purposefully to the staging area. It was packed with people donning powered armor and preparing to drop. Three-quarters of the people here were regular marines with their bulkier, more protective armor. The remainder were the few Marine Raiders the Empire still had.

It was going to take time and effort to rebuild the force that they’d had before they’d taken out the master AI. Having to do so was soul crushing, but she’d understood the risks that they all took.

Rather than stripping down and armoring up, she simply stood there and waited. She’d be armed but would only be wearing the camouflage Marine Raider duty uniform with the single star that she was entitled to. She’d be doing no fighting today.

As annoying as that was, it was the right call to make. Galling, but the right call.

The Marine Raiders and a selection of the top marines would be going in on the first pinnace. They’d punch a hole through the roof and down into the facility itself. Once they’d quelled the initial resistance, the second pinnace would put in an appearance to drop the reserves.

Kelsey wasn’t in command. That job fell to Major Collins. Her only reason for being there was to make certain that the woman who’d tortured her mother didn’t get away.

Once everyone else was armored up and aboard the pinnaces, she climbed aboard the second pinnace and strapped herself down.

The squad that surrounded her was tasked with keeping her out of the fight. Oh, they’d said that they were just her protective detail, but she knew that they’d do whatever it took to make sure she didn’t engage anyone.

She felt the other pinnace disengage and saw it in her implant feed as well. It would enter the atmosphere like any other small craft, and only when it was directly over the target building would it accelerate again and drop its load of Raiders and marines all over the target building.

Her pinnace was going to come in hot. There’d be no subterfuge. By the time the attack was fully underway, they’d already be in the atmosphere and burning their way in.

They’d sprinkle themselves across the rooftop in about the same manner as the first group, but even though they’d be leaving fifteen minutes after the other pinnace, they’d only be arriving sixty seconds after the attack had begun.

It would be rough but still more comfortable than using one of the drop capsules. One of those could get her from orbit down into the building in less than ten seconds, but using one was a royal pain in the ass, and the building wouldn’t survive the impact.

She’d used a drop capsule only once, and that was because a nuke was involved. Never again. Not unless she had to.

The fifteen-minute wait would’ve made her crazy a few years ago, but now she buried herself in reviewing all the tactical data they had on the target building. Every little bit of information she could get might save someone’s life. Perhaps even her own.

When the signal finally came for them to go, she didn’t have time to be bored. The pinnace detached and dropped into the atmosphere like a stone hurled from the top of a mountain.

That, of course, made traffic control lose their little minds, but Coordinator Kagan had people standing by to calm their fears, and no one interfered with their entry.

Not that that would’ve slowed them down in the slightest.

Their approach was fast and brutal, heaving her around in a way that her doctors probably wouldn’t approve of, but Lieutenant Commander Clark Malone, the senior physician aboard Persephone, had reluctantly agreed that she and the child should be safe enough.

Kelsey could tell that the man wanted to forbid her from going, but he’d accepted that he didn’t have that much influence over her.

Just a few minutes later, the pinnace came roaring in over the building like a falling meteor. It was fifty-five seconds behind the other pinnace, and the attack was well underway. Kelsey could detect weapons fire inside the building, so they’d met resistance, but she was willing to bet that their powered armor would be a lot more than the defenders had been planning on.

The Rebel Empire was very careful about who it allowed to use powered armor. The damned things were booby-trapped so that the officers could kill anyone that stepped out of line. Not exactly something to attract the very best that the marines had to offer.

Undoubtedly, the people inside the resistance headquarters thought they were under attack by Rebel Empire marines. After all, they had no reason to expect that the resistance as a whole had access to the same kind of equipment, and that was who they’d thought her mother represented.

Boy, were they wrong.

When her pinnace slewed to a halt just over the ruined rooftop, the ramp extended out the rear, and the marines began jumping into the holes left by their brethren. Kelsey and her marine protective detail waited until the very last to follow them.

She jumped down through the nearest hole and landed lightly on her feet, her Raider augmentation easily absorbing the impact. The top floor of the building looked as if someone had fought a war there. Walls were blown out, and bodies lay everywhere. But, fortunately, most of them were just stunned, and there were no armored bodies.

The fighting was heaviest in the basement level. It seemed the resistance did have some unexpected layers underneath the building, but nothing quite as deep as what Coordinator Kagan had had.

Still, it was nothing that was going to slow down determined marines and Raiders. They’d use plasma breaching charges and force their way past whatever obstacles were in their way.

It seemed that the people in the lowest level did have some high-powered weaponry because injuries were now popping up on the tacnet. She’d been hoping that this would be a cakewalk, but at least no one had died yet.

The fighting had died down by the time she made her way into the basement. The marines had breached the last of the defenses and had the situation under control. The battle was over.

With her marine detail arrayed around her, she strode through the devastation and looked at the prisoners they had herded against the far wall of the final redoubt. Perhaps half of them were stunned, a couple had been shot dead because they’d had weapons capable of harming someone in powered armor, and only six of them were conscious.

To her pleasure, the woman she was looking for was one of them.

Kelsey walked over to the woman and stared coldly down at her as she sat on the bare plascrete floor. The bitch had the gall to glare defiantly back up at her.

“Rebecca Tranick,” Kelsey said in a flat, uninflected voice, “on behalf of and in the name of the New Terran Empire, I am placing you under arrest for attacking and torturing one of our ambassadors. You’ll be read your rights in due time, but I want you to know one thing before we really get started. Any resistance will be met with force.”

She leaned down and grinned coldly. “Please. Resist.”

The woman spat in her face, sprang to her feet, and clawed for her eyes.

She slapped her with carefully modulated strength. The woman flew sideways, her jaw broken and already unconscious on her feet from a blow that was far stronger than a professional boxer’s right cross. One of the marines almost caught her before she bonelessly hit the floor.

Almost.

Kelsey wiped the spittle off her face and glared at the comatose woman. “If there was going to be a next time, I’d advise you to pick on someone your own size, but I’ll settle for saying that you were warned.”

She stared coldly at the other prisoners. “Does anyone else want to resist?”

They all quickly shook their heads.

She turned and started for the lifts. Major Collins was instantly at her side.

“I shouldn’t have done that,” Kelsey admitted. “She couldn’t have hurt me.”

“You told her that resistance would be met with force,” the marine said. “She resisted, and you subdued her. As far as I’m concerned, that’s equitable. I wouldn’t have really blamed you if you’d tried to break her neck, though I’d have had to stop you.”

So, he’d been right at her elbow. He’d probably been able to tell how much force the slap had had before it had landed and would’ve intervened if she’d been out of control. She was impressed.

“You’re a good man, Major. Let’s get these people out of here before the local security forces get here and start screaming.”

* * *

Justine sat across the table from Coordinator Kagan. It had been two days since all of the excitement, and she’d finally had an opportunity to hammer the details they’d agreed on into an actual treaty.

In all of her time as the empress, she’d never had an opportunity to do something like this, and she felt a sense of accomplishment. Of course, they’d haggled over some of the finer details, but Devon was going to join the New Terran Empire today.

Even though his aides had diligently gone over everything in the treaty, Kagan read it line by line. That was definitely the sign of a careful and deliberative man. She approved.

Once he’d reached the last page, he picked up the pen she’d used to sign it and scrawled his name on the other line. Then he set the pen down and pushed the treaty back toward her.

“So, it’s done,” he said. “What happens now?”

“In the short term? Nothing. Everything continues on exactly as it is right now. We’ll keep our ships here for the time being, but we’re expecting to have reinforcements before very long. I don’t think you’re going to have another incursion by the Clans, but we can’t rule that out, so we’ll be careful.

“Eventually, your position ruling this world will be made official when the New Terran Empire grants you a title of Imperial nobility. That dukedom will be something that you can pass down to your heirs, and the leadership here will continue uninterrupted.

“Of course, we’ll need to establish someone to keep an eye on things for the Empire, but local rule is going to be in your hands, just as we agreed.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “And you’ll be moving on to secure other systems? We’ll be happy to help you put together every bit of intelligence that we have on the systems around us and the people of interest there. I suggest you secure the system that tried to invade us soon, though.

“Without those ships, they’re weak, and you should be able to dominate them without much trouble. If you wait, they may get reinforcements from somewhere, and then they’ll be a harder nut to crack.

“I don’t envy you the task of having to secure each and every system in the middle of an invasion by these Clans.”

“Neither do we, but that’s what we have to do.”

Justine rose to her feet and extended her hand across the table. “I can’t say it’s been a pleasure meeting you, Coordinator, but I’m pleased that we were able to settle this without any bloodshed. If you’ll excuse me, I think I need to return to our ship and deal with our prisoners.”

The vast majority of the resistance personnel had likely had no idea what the leadership was doing, and they’d been granted amnesty by Kagan. The two people who had captured her, and half a dozen others who’d been in on the plan to abduct and torture her, were in the brig aboard Audacious.

She’d be accompanying them back to the Home system shortly on one of the destroyers, along with Elise, Olivia, and all of the other noncombatants. The Rebel Empire was now a war zone that they didn’t really need to be in, so getting into a hidden corner of space was to her advantage.

Justine wished that her daughter was coming with her but recognized the futility of making that argument. At least she’d be able to come to visit her, since Elise could open a way if her powers worked from so far away.

She had no idea how that was even possible, but after having seen that strange place her daughter’s friend could go at will, she wasn’t going to quite rule it out.

Kagan escorted her back to the docking ring and saw her off. That done, she settled into her seat, and the cutter detached from the orbital. They wouldn’t be leaving the system for several more days, and she wanted to spend as much time with Kelsey as she could.

And with Don.

Justine settled into her seat and began reading the latest in a long list of baby books stored in her implants. She’d been a terrible mother, but she was going to be an absolutely wonderful grandmother.

Once her daughter gave birth, she’d need someone to help her, and Justine was going to be that woman. She’d failed her family once, but she vowed to never do so again—no matter what the future held.

* * *

Want to get updates from Terry about new books and other general nonsense going on in his life? He promises there will be cats. Go to TerryMixon.com/Mailing-List and sign up.

Did you enjoy this book? Please leave a review on Amazon. It only takes a minute to dash off a few words and that kind of thing helps Terry make a living as a writer and gets you new books faster.

Want more books by Terry? Flip to the next page and grab one.

Visit Terry’s Patreon page to find out how to get cool rewards and an early look at what he’s working on at Patreon.com/TerryMixon.

Also by Terry Mixon

You can always find the most up to date listing of Terry’s titles on his Amazon Author Page.

Note: the links below (ebook only, obviously) redirect you to my website where you can click a button to go to Amazon. This allows me to participate in Amazon’s associates program and earn a little more. Sorry for any inconvenience.

The Empire of Bones Saga

Empire of Bones

Veil of Shadows

Command Decisions

Ghosts of Empire

Paying the Price

Recon in Force

Behind Enemy Lines

The Terra Gambit

Hidden Enemies

Race to Terra

Ruined Terra

Victory on Terra

When Luck Runs Out

Gunboat Diplomacy

The Imperial Marines Saga

Spoils of War

Imperial Recruit

The Humanity Unlimited Saga

Liberty Station

Freedom Express

Tree of Liberty

Blood of Patriots

Single Novels

Scorched Earth

Storm Divers

The Vigilante Series with Glynn Stewart

Heart of Vengeance

Oath of Vengeance

Bound By Law

Bound By Honor

Bound By Blood

Box Sets

The Empire of Bones Saga Volume 1

The Empire of Bones Saga Volume 2

The Empire of Bones Saga Volume 3

Humanity Unlimited Publisher’s Pack 1

About Terry

#1 Bestselling Military Science Fiction author Terry Mixon served as a non-commissioned officer in the United States Army 101st Airborne Division. He later worked alongside the flight controllers in the Mission Control Center at the NASA Johnson Space Center supporting the Space Shuttle, the International Space Station, and other human spaceflight projects.

He now writes full time while living in Texas with his lovely wife and a pounce of cats.

TerryMixon.com

Amazon

Facebook

Patreon

BookBub

Goodreads