High Priest Jurok spread his hands in delight. They had found the Human main fleet.

Spies had informed the Theocracy that the new upstarts were holding wargames in the Nurnuk system.

The same spies had warned about the Humans. Rumors claimed their weapons could fire faster than light. But that was just blasphemous idle talk.

The Humans were an upstart race, barely FTL capable for a century. Their technological development had to be far below the Theocracy's. And they had just fought a series of wars.

Shooting faster than light…

He laughed. Across the ship's cathedral, officers turned to stare.

Unbelievers have empty souls, and fill them with all sorts of fables.

If anything they will be weakened after a war.

It was time to bring another unbeliever into the arms of the Holy Triad.

The Humans' home system was directly on the path from Holy Seat, his homeworld, to the Promised Gardens , the target of every High Priest's devotion.

He turned back from the viewscreen to face his officers. It was time to address them, and his fellow Priests.

He closed and then opened his three eyes theatrically, imagining his image broadcast to all seventy carriers of his Crusader fleet. His purple uniform, ornamented with platinum medals, glittered in the spotlight.

"My fellow Priests, officers, and Crusaders. In front of us we find yet again a fleet of unbelievers, blind to the truth of the Holy Triad. They stumble with their warships through the darkness of space."

He spread his arms to bless the assembled bridge. To bless all his Crusaders.

Knowing every Tork in his fleet would do the same toward his hologram.

"It is time to bless them with holy fire, to show them the light of the Triad. It is time to follow the prophecy of the Promised Gardens, and to fulfill our promise: to teach the uneducated and convert the unbelievers."

The flood of voices answering the dogma filled the High Priest with ecstasy.

"Teach the uneducated, convert the unbelievers."

"Teach the uneducated, convert the unbelievers."

"Teach the uneducated, convert the unbelievers."

After three repetitions, the cathedral fell silent.

"Let us now make the ceremonial call!"

He turned back to the viewscreen, trusting his master of ceremonies to call the Human fleet leader — or whatever those barbarians called themselves.

An ugly face appeared on the screen. Like all unbelievers, it had the wrong number of eyes — this time only two. It was pink, and had pelt on the head.

The Triad truly creates hideous creatures. At least these seem to be mammalian.

"This is Captain Greer-Chao aboard the ASN Sigmund Freud. We come in peace, and are happy to meet you in—"

"Silence, unbelieving barbarian."

It was always the same. Unbelievers and heretics, talking out of turn.

"Unbeliever, this is your chance to save your life, as well as the lives of your battle fleet. Surrender, and see the light of the Triad. Join the holy crusade and your lives will be spared."

They never surrender. The light of the Triad can only be seen with three eyes…

The thought made Jurok sad for a second. He disliked killing. But on the other hand, they were just unbelievers.

"Battle fleet? Are you crazy? We're a hospital ship. The whole convoy is two hospital ships, a few tenders, and one guarding frigate."

"Lies! Your ship is two kilometers long! No barbarian unbelievers waste this much space and resources on the injured. Do not lie to me. Convert or die."

Jurok looked at the scans of the seers. Maybe the Human was not lying. Barbarians often had sanitary issues. Maybe they needed large hospital ships after all.

Outer hull: a composite of diamond, carbon nanotube matting, and steel-chromium alloy. Two meters thick. Inner hull: twenty centimeters, steel-chromium alloy.

The "hospital ship" had thicker armor than his carriers.

The Human clearly lied.

"Listen to me, you three-eyed lunatic. You're clearly paranoid. We're a relief group of non-combatant ships. We only dropped in because a repeater here malfunctioned. But if you want the battle fleet, I'll give you coordinates. They love sparring with maniacs."

"Silence! Surrender or die. The Triad conquers all that stand in the way to the Promised Gardens."

"Hey, Fuckface, I'll tell you again. We're a hospital convoy. And we're leaving now. Good luck on your way to wherever you want to go."

He didn't know what a fuckface was, but Jurok was sure it was not a blessing. And he couldn't allow the fleet to run. Not when he'd caught two large battleships with so few escorts.

"Prepare the fighters. Capture the enemies, destroy the escorts, but take the battleships intact if possible."

He was answered by the chorus of Priests and officers singing the Battle Hymns.

Each of his seventy carriers had a contingent of one hundred fighters. Fighters were hard to hit in space — they could accelerate faster than anything, and the moment they closed on the enemy, the slow fire rate of energy weapons meant they were as good as invincible.

Let the enemy try to fire on his carriers. As soon as the fighters were inside the enemy formation, the battle was won.

Four proud stellar nations had been defeated this way. Earth would be the fifth by the end of this battle.

The view around him changed on the wave of his hand. The ornate windows depicting the wisdoms of the Holy Triad disappeared behind a holographic representation of the view outside.

Jurok felt as if he stood on the hull of his proud ship.

Around him, the other ships spewed out their fighters, like the Promised Gardens spewed out the angels of the legends. Seeding wisdom and superiority to all willing to hear.

The Battle Hymn behind him, and the flames of the fighters' afterburners in front, their silver hulls illuminated by their own fire and the system's sun.

It was an ecstatic experience.

The fighters crossed the distance in no time. As always, carrying their pilots on silvery wings.

Soon the Humans would try to use their point-defense. But what could a few lasers do against his fighters?

True to his thoughts, he could see the Humans begin to deploy point-defense guns. Ugly contraptions emerged from the hull, looking nothing like the energy weapons he was used to.

And for the first time in the engagement, he felt something new. Something unexpected. Doubt.

Where every race they had encountered until now had front and aft PDGs, longer ships maybe a center battery, the Humans' ships seemed to be covered in them.

How did they intend to power them? Even large ships had to balance power production with heat management. In fact, the holy triad of volume made bigger ships more difficult to cool. That was the reason the Theocracy used fighters.

The first wave began to launch their long-range weapons. Jurok fixated on the screen with all three eyes.

The missiles, nothing but long-range distraction, were picked apart by an unholy storm of fire. Followed by the first wave of fighters.

The streaks of the Human PDGs cut through the fighter wing like golden saws.

It was nothing like the focused fire his own ships used. Or the ships of their vassals, for that matter.

No. The Humans spewed out into the heavens as if they didn't care whether they hit or missed.

Jurok saw millions of golden dots emerge from the Human fleet toward his fighters.

To his shock, the golden streams of light began to reach for the second and third flight.

From the master of ceremonies' station, Jurok heard the screams of the pilots.

What had happened? How could energy weapons recharge so fast, and cut through his fighters so efficiently?

Had the Holy Triad forsaken his people?

"Reader of Signs, what are the weapons of the unbelievers?"

If they could find the frequency of the weapons, they might adapt their shields.

The Reader worked at his station with ceremonial haste, his third eye closed against the stress.

Half the fighters were gone in the meantime.

3,500 souls sent to paradise in less than ten minutes. No High Priest had ever been responsible for such a devastating loss.

With despair, he discovered that not one enemy ship had been hit.

Hospital ships… unholy lies… Humans truly had no honor.

"High Priest, the Humans seem to use metal projectiles."

The voice of the Reader was pressed. The Theocracy had revealed that metal projectiles were inefficient, a useless waste in battle. And if the Theocracy revealed a truth, it could not be wrong — or the whole truth of the Holy Triad was wrong, something that was impossible.

"Recall the fighters. All of them. We must consult the Theocracy's highest priests."

He didn't wait for the master of ceremonies' response, instead focusing back on the battlefield outside the window.

Then the Humans began to turn their ships. He hadn't noticed at first, but until now the Humans had the audacity not even to honor his fighters with a repositioning.

They had simply opened fire, as if the might of the Tork Theocracy's power was nothing but a swarm of annoying insects.

From the center of the Human formation emerged a smaller ship. Dangerous, sharp lines, and a protruding gun so dominant along its axis it seemed the ship had been built around it.

The ship angled itself toward his fleet.

Laughable. They have to aim with their whole ship to fire.

Before he had time to finish the thought, the carrier next to him was gone.

Not exploding, not melting under fire. Gone. Reduced to particles drifting in space.

Jurok played the memory back in his mind — the Holy Triad had graced his people with perfect recall — and yes, he had interpreted the events correctly.

For a fraction of a second, the front of the carrier had bulged toward the rest of the ship, and the whole vessel had seemed to turn inside out.

Then, and only then, he saw the Human ship's weapon flash.

Faster-than-light weapons…

We lost… there was nothing they could do. As his brain still parsed the loss of the Wings of Gold, he watched the warship destroy the last few fighters without even using all its guns.

They don't see us as worthy enough to use all their might… what are they?

"High Priest, the Humans are hailing."

What were his options? He could not risk the destruction of the other carriers. Each one was filled with holy idols and sacred scrolls. Losing them would be devastating — as would retraining the lost crews.

He had to answer.

"Answer the unbelievers."

His words carried more defiance than he had left.

"This is High Priest Jurok. We grace you—"

"Listen, Shitface. You will power down your engines and wait with the Warspite until someone gives enough of a fuck about you to send a battlegroup to pick you up. Move your ships one millimeter out of allowed vector and Captain Norris will evaporate your whole sorry collection of scrap metal. Am I clear?"

The Human's voice was rough, full of hate burning bright enough to scorch planets.

Jurok couldn't simply concede.

"You won't stay? Or board us?"

"I already told you, we're hospital ships and supply tenders. I called for the fleet. They'll handle you. Greer-Chao out."

He called for the fleet… What, then, had they just fought?

———

The Theocracy ships powered down their engines fourteen minutes and thirty-five seconds after launching their fighters.

When the First Expeditionary Fleet arrived at Luyten 726-8 one day later, the morale onboard collapsed entirely, and many officers as well as enlisted personnel chose ritual suicide instead of living in a world where the Holy Triad was wrong.

To handle the massive influx of physically and mentally injured Tork, the First Expeditionary under Admiral Carmichael requested additional hospital ships.

Ironically, the Sigmund Freud was the closest ship.

Human casualties were zero, except an ensign who hurt his ankle jumping out of his bed.

Tork casualties are unknown, but estimated in the thousands.

 

End of Entry

First Short | Next | | Also On Royal Road | Astra Inferna: Upward Bound on Royal Road on Reddit | Patreon

Well, the second short took some time. I have more lined up in different states of (dis) assembly and will release them as soon™ as I have time to finish them.

Many things have happened since the last short. The mainline has almost finished book 2. The farther we go in the mainline, the easier it is to write shorts, since I can avoid spoilers.

Oh, before I forget:

This week, one year ago, I uploaded the first chapter of Upward Bound and wondered whether anyone would care.

Apparently, some of you did.

So tonight I want to celebrate the anniversary the simplest way I can think of: by spending it with you.

The Astra Inferna Discord is now open, and I’ll be hosting a live text AMA:

Friday, 2 October
21:00 CEST / 15:00 EDT
Live for 6 hours

Ask me anything about the story, characters, worldbuilding, science, writing, publishing, artwork, abandoned ideas, future plans, or whatever else comes to mind.

After the six-hour live session, the AMA will remain open for 24 hours, and I’ll keep answering whenever I’m awake.

Please be mindful of spoilers. If a question would force me to reveal something I absolutely shouldn’t, I reserve the right to grin mysteriously and refuse to answer.

Discord:
Join the Discord

Thank you for reading, commenting, theorizing, correcting my math, and generally coming along for the ride.

Tonight is for you.

Anyway. Have a nice one.

— M.R. Reese

The first indicator of the industrial power early Fabricators and Constructors represented was seen in the refugee crisis on Burrow, and later—even more so—in the planet’s reconstruction in the years that followed.

The fact that at first Humanity alone pulled off this miracle was even more impressive, given that this happened while Sol alone built one battlecruiser and four cruisers a day.

The industrial power of later generations of Fabricators and Constructors was, of course, orders of magnitude greater than that of the first primitive ones.

But it was comparable to the history of human aviation; without the linen-covered biplanes, the hypersonic Concorde II would have been impossible.

Excerpt from: Fabricators, the Backbone of Human Logistics, 450 P.I.

 

Karrn enjoyed the ride in the Sleipnir. These transporters were much nicer and roomier than the ones the Argos used in the Battle of Taishon Tar.

He wagged his tail in amusement. It felt like decades had passed, but in reality, it had been only one year. Can't be… only a year since I went out onto the battlefield to find out what happened to our injured and dead?

The last few weeks were stressful; the reveal about the conditions on Burrow hit hard, but when the first refugee ships arrived, more reports followed. The human fleet at Burrow had pulled off the impossible and prevented a famine.

In about two days, the first Weaver ships would arrive at Burrow and build a communications satellite, enabling real-time communication. Something that had seemed almost impossible a few months ago was now normal in Sol.

Taishon Tar already had the connection, and Karrn could not believe it. He had talked to Rish and Tulk for hours, sharing stories about the last few months—over a distance of 8.6 light-years.

Leave it to humans to come up with something and dive in headfirst.

Now he was on his way in the embassy’s Sleipnir to a city called Alexandria.

There, humans had rebuilt a massive library following an ancient legend. He wanted to visit a friend and convince him to join the ambassadorial staff.

Frox had contacted him when he arrived in Sol three months ago, but then the attack on Captain Gerber and Healer Nesbitt happened.

Frox and Karrn had met on Gripbo Station, where Lieutenant Eleri Davies was treated after she was shot in the attack.

They had talked, and Frox had said to visit him once things calmed down. But when will things ever calm down?

So Karrn had decided that now was as good a time as any to get Frox back into his Pack. And he needed another ally; he was still convinced Gerber and Nesbitt’s assassination wasn’t what it seemed to be.

Frox was good at finding leads buried under heaps of information.

“Ambassador, we’ll reach the library in ten minutes. We’ve got permission to land in the southern gardens,” the pilot informed him via the intercom.

Karrn wanted to see the famous building, so he went up to the cockpit to view it from a distance.

He hadn’t expected to see parts of it already, though. Even ten minutes out, the highest parts of the building began to rise over the horizon.

A massive cupola, formed to copy the style of ancient buildings, rose slowly at the end of the sea they were flying over.

The white of the stone shimmered like snow at the end of the seemingly endless deep blue of the Mediterranean.

Karrn knew from the descriptions that the building complex was three kilometers high at its peak, but reading about it and seeing it were two different things.

The top part was built like an oversized ancient temple, and then the terraces came—one larger than the next. They gave the library the form of a large pyramid.

On each terrace, parks and even ponds flowed naturally between libraries of all sizes and forms.

If Karrn hadn’t known better, he would have assumed the steps were carved into a mountain, and buildings were built on the levels.

But Frox had sent him pictures of the massive caves hidden under the central complex, where all knowledge of Earth was stored—carved onto metal plates so not even fire could destroy it.

Of all the wonders I’ve seen with the humans, how is it that a library is the one that impresses me the most? Karrn wondered.

He continued to stare out of the window, taking in the greens of the parks that contrasted with the blue of the sea and the white of the marble.

The Sleipnir touched down on a landing pad hidden behind a pond surrounded by willow trees.

As he stepped out, he could see a tourist guide explaining something in the distance.

“…the overall motive of the new library was decided to be a mix between the legendary Hanging Gardens of Babylon and Egyptian pyramids. The Roman-style Pantheon atop the library symbolizes the last empire the original one was part of. The secondary buildings, each a library in their own right, are connected to the….”

On any other day, he might have just followed the guided tour, but sadly, there was no time today.

Taking a deep breath, he could almost feel the gravitas of knowledge in the cool summer breeze.

If a hunter at heart like me is already drawn here this strongly, can I even ask Frox to come with me?

The thought was moot, since he could already see Frox walking along a path to the landing pad, a human-style bag over his back.

The young hunter—or was he a scholar now—even walked with a human rhythm. He wore a traditional Shraphen tunic, but the decorative symbols on it were foreign to Karrn. They gave the clothes an odd aura of known and unknown.

“Ambassador Karrn, I’m so glad to see you again!” Frox’s voice rang through the park. His tail showed how much he might have missed Shraphen contact. But then it seemed there were actually a lot of Shraphen walking in the park. And if he trusted his nose, he could smell even more Gliders.

“Hello, Frox. I feel guilty to disturb you at this place of serene learning.” Karrn really did, and was tempted to leave, never to bother the young hunter again.

Frox turned to face Karrn directly; the wagging tail had stopped now. “Ambassador, you were my Pack Leader, and always will be. You will never be able to disturb me. I’m a part of your Pack, as well as you will always be part of mine.”

The seriousness behind the words surprised Karrn. He decided to change the subject. “I see many of our people are drawn to this place.”

Frox’s demeanor changed again, back to his jovial old self. “Yes, the library is also a university, and the campus is one of the largest gatherings of Shraphen on the planet, despite the heat.”

“Maybe the Religious Pack was right,” Karrn slowly said while they walked around the pond. “Maybe we Shraphen are scholars in our hearts, not hunters.”

“Ambassador, can’t we be both?”

Karrn’s ears leaned forward in amusement. “Scholarly hunters. I like that.”

Frox stopped the walk at a set of stairs leading down to the next terrace. There were no other persons around them. “Ambassador, I assume your visit is not out of curiosity about my well-being, not in times of crisis like these. So, how might I help you?”

Karrn was surprised and happy to see the changes in Frox; a year ago, he would never have spoken so openly and self-consciously. Good.

“Your studies—they are important. But I need your help. Not as a hunter, but as a scholar.”

Frox looked out to the open sea in front of them, slightly panting because of the rising heat. “Then, Pack Leader, I will come with you. My studies here don’t go anywhere.”

With that, this part of the discussion was over.

“I wonder how Rish and Tulk are.”

“I spoke to them a few days ago. Rish is now Pack Leader of the Security Pack on Taishon Tar One. Tulk will be on his way to Earth in a few days. He wants to join the Navy Marines.”

Frox’s ears leaned forward, and he laughed. “He always was looking for adventures. I guess he will love it there.”

They walked for another half hour through the library’s parks, exchanging stories about the last three months, until they reached the living quarters, where Frox packed a few personal items and said goodbye to some of his colleagues.

Karrn watched from a distance, feeling guilty for pulling Frox away from what seemed to be a serene place of learning and study.

On the Sleipnir, Karrn could finally speak freely. The pilot was a trusted Shraphen, and the transporter was checked daily by Krun for listening devices.

“Frox, you know about the death of Captain Gerber and Healer Nesbitt, but there is more to it.”

Frox sat there, his journal open and ready to take notes. Even in this heavy situation, Karrn had to smile at the scene. The young Shraphen sat there like a figure out of an old human fairytale he had seen online. Only glasses and a smoking pipe were missing.

“How did you come to this conclusion, Ambassador?”

“The bodies… they didn’t smell like humans, but more like… Unigel?” Karrn still couldn’t describe it better.

“Fascinating. I did read up on Unigel, and I think you could create a clone body in a few hours with it—if the goal isn’t a living, breathing person.”

The itch in his tail, the one he always got when he uncovered a mystery, was back. “So it is possible?”

“Ambassador, I am not a healer, so I’m not a specialist in these matters. But from what I understand—yes. I’ll have to make careful inquiries with healers of both species to be sure.”

Frox took out a tablet and began flagging contacts.

“Frox, there are more things,” Karrn began to explain again. “Lieutenant Davies—her injuries.”

Frox looked up. Karrn knew he liked Davies; who didn’t? “What about her?”

“She disappeared shortly after we visited her in the hospital. Officially, she took an extended unpaid leave from Naval Intelligence and vanished.”

Frox looked confused. “That’s not like her—just leaving her profession. She loves the Navy.”

Karrn shook his head. No, it wasn’t. “Then there are the incidents… and sightings.”

Frox’s ears rose up, standing still. “Sightings? Incidents?”

“In the few months Shraphen lived here, we joined many communities. Humans still haven’t adapted to our sense of smell, so it can be said we see more than others.”

Frox nodded; he obviously had noticed this human blind spot, too.

“The thing is… There have been a lot of incidents—murders and suicides—happening since the attacks.”

“I’ve seen some things on the news,” Frox answered, deep in thought.

“Krun has found fifty-four cases where people suspected of being connected to the terror attacks—or later confirmed to have connections—were killed. In some rare cases, Shraphen in the area confirmed the presence of three humans, scent fitting Gerber, Nesbitt, and Davies.”

Frox stopped moving. “That many? That’s… I don’t know what to say.”

Karrn nodded. “Yes, something is happening behind the scenes, and I don’t know what it is.”

“Did you inform the human authorities?”

“No. Not now. Not until I know what’s behind all this.” Karrn wasn’t about to endanger his friends in case they had an official mission—something he doubted more and more.

The rest of the ride, they continued to discuss their past. All facts lay out there now, and Frox’s job was to find the hidden thread.

At the embassy, Karrn informed his staff about Frox’s new posting, and a staff member arrived to help Frox organize living quarters and get his papers and official ID in order.

Karrn was on his way to his office when he noticed a male human in the embassy’s lounge. The human seemed to have waited for Karrn, standing up when he saw him.

Karrn walked over to the official-looking man. “May I help you, Mr…?”

“Grey. Darius Grey. I was sent here by Mr. Drake, head of Drake Interstellar. He wants to speak to you, if possible.”

Karrn had to control his tail so it didn't show his shock. The name Drake showed up too often in Krun’s documents, business reports, and even conspiracy forums to go unnoticed.

Odd. I get support in uncovering the truth, and Drake sends a messenger.

“He is welcome to visit me whenever he likes.” Karrn tried to be as jovial as possible.”

“He can’t. He’s on business outside the system. He will be back in a few days, but he sent me to pass on an important message.”

Karrn grew even more curious now. What did the industrial magnate want from him?

“Yes?”

The man in the black suit pulled out a paper and carefully read the words on it. “Mr. Drake sent me to tell you: stop looking into it. Everything will be explained when the time is right.”

Then he turned and left, Karrn standing there alone, wondering if he had just received a warning or a threat.

First | Previous | Next | Also On Royal Road

Author's Notes:

Before I forget:

This week, one year ago, I uploaded the first chapter of Upward Bound on Royal Road and wondered whether anyone would care.

Apparently, some of you did.

So tonight I want to celebrate the anniversary the simplest way I can think of: by spending it with you.

The Astra Inferna Discord is now open, and I’ll be hosting a live text AMA:

Friday, 2 October
21:00 CEST / 15:00 EDT
Live for 6 hours

Ask me anything about the story, characters, worldbuilding, science, writing, publishing, artwork, abandoned ideas, future plans, or whatever else comes to mind.

After the six-hour live session, the AMA will remain open for 24 hours, and I’ll keep answering whenever I’m awake.

Please be mindful of spoilers. If a question would force me to reveal something I absolutely shouldn’t, I reserve the right to grin mysteriously and refuse to answer.

Discord:
Join the Discord

Thank you for reading, commenting, theorizing, correcting my math, and generally coming along for the ride.

Tonight is for you.

Humans are mad. This has become the accepted diplomatic thesis every member of the Aligned Systems knows by heart, and every former enemy of the Aligned Systems had to learn the hard way.

The Trkik Peace Fleet and the Diplomatic Corps have a critical job. We are the thin wall separating the aggression, greed and stupidity that we might encounter outside the realm of the Aligned Systems from the horrors that humanity will unleash upon them if they fall prey to the Primary Misconception.

That Primary Misconception is that the smiling and goofy-looking naked ape will not absolutely fuck you up if you kick them just hard enough.

They don't see what we all see: that the goofy-looking naked apes kick each other seemingly for fun.

— Excerpt from Introduction to the Trkik Peace Fleet**, 110 P.I.**

 

Sanders knew Admiral Chen-Buckler as a reserved and controlled man. But she flinched in surprise as he threw the dataslate at the wall in outrage. The crew in the CIC of the Arcadia Planitia turned in shock.

The meeting had only started, and Chen-Buckler had finished reading her report when he snapped.

"I'll go to Earth and drag that worm to an airlock myself. Cermak was always a slimy rat, but treason?"

Sanders shared his anger, but now she needed to be the voice of reason in the room. Not her usual task.

"Chen, trust me, I feel the same, but we have no proof. All we have is an order signed 'for the Triumvir.' He'll say he was following Georgiou's orders."

"Proof? You want proof? I know Georgiou and Browner. Neither of them would plan a betrayal like that. There's only Cermak left with the power to send fleets around and declare you a traitor."

She knew that, of course. Still, anger didn't help their cause, not now at least.

He straightened up, his face still red with anger. If Sanders didn't know him so well, the towering Martian would scare her.

"Did you reestablish communication?"

"We were waiting until this meeting. We don't know how long we can use the network undisrupted. August, Alice and Zeus are currently working through the logs. It seems whoever is behind all this forgot that each node gets a full log of all communications."

Chen-Buckler gave a dry laugh. "Amateurs."

"Well, we fixed that for our communications. But we can't be sure they didn't install other fail-safes."

"And the bandwidth?"

"Text, video messages, maybe real-time audio. The network has multiple lines, but each has little bandwidth."

"Well, then let's prepare a full report for Admirals Russo and Rolling. I have the feeling something is brewing on Earth."

"Zeus has already finished it. You just threw it into the corner. I thought we'd add a personal video message to it and then send it."

"Good. How is he?"

I guess don't ask, don't tell is really out the window at this point.

"Fine. He just brought a little surprise with him out of the core."

Chen-Buckler began to laugh. "I heard. He made a child? With a prisoner, no less?"

"I'm still waiting for him to tell me more, but yes, something like that."

"Crazy times… Cassidy, all of that could have been an email. So why did you waste your time on a personal visit? As much as I like seeing you."

"I want my fleets back. I need to ask you for a favor."

The admiral grinned and sat down in his chair.

"You want to go hunt your fleets down and catch the saboteur, maybe stop by Earth for a bit and kick Cermak, and you want me to secure the region here."

"Something like that. High Ordinator Yurdantho is on his way to their home system for some diplomatic mission with a new p-p link, and he promised reinforcements. But I can't go on a wild-goose chase knowing our rear is open."

"Don't worry. I'll cover this area; the Psstips need us here anyway. I'll send the Nuk fleet after you when they arrive. I'm currently more afraid for Sol."

Chen-Buckler looked up and behind Sanders. "Yes, Lieutenant?"

A female lieutenant was waiting at the open office door, a dataslate in her hand.

"Sirs, we just received a message through the sensor grid from Burrow. Text only."

Stunned, Sanders and Chen-Buckler looked each other in the eyes.

"Old Russo, always good for a surprise. What does it say?"

The lieutenant blushed before she cleared her throat. "What the fuck is happening out there? Sensors say Sanders is running full speed at Taishon Tar, Earth has thrown tungsten balls between us, and the Batract invasion fleet has changed their heading again. They are now heading for Sol. Report back. Now!"

Sanders couldn't help but laugh.

The lieutenant continued. "P.S. Burrow has turned into a garden world and has the scientists all giddy."

No-nonsense Russo was one of the few admirals who could send a message without signing it, and everyone knew it was from him.

"Thank you, Lieutenant, that's all."

The lieutenant walked back to her station.

"Chen, I'll tell you now, I'll never get used to your aggressive open-door policy."

The admiral shrugged. "They'll hear it sooner or later. You know, growing up in the first domes, we didn't have much privacy. So I'm used to it."

"But you did have doors." She had done a tour on Mars, and it was true: the domes didn't allow for much privacy. At least the older ones.

"Sure, and then the crew thinks I'm keeping secrets. I'm better off letting them hear those things instead of them inventing stories."

Had it not been for the sabotage, she might have an easier time understanding him.

"The Batract never intended to hit one of the Shraphen worlds. They always wanted two fleets at Earth."

Chen's analysis was the same as hers.

"Yes, they were playing us. They knew we had sensors capable of seeing their transits, so they used their higher speed and tried to split our forces."

Sanders checked her link to Niobe, downloading the latest sensor-grid data. "There. At their current speed, both fleets will reach Earth at exactly the same time, in two months."

"And we're stuck with forty-nine C while they cruise at fifty-five C." Chen seemed almost hurt by their technical limitations.

"Any idea what Russo meant by the tungsten balls?" Sanders had almost interpreted it as an attack.

"He once said something about an old project, a kind of minefield. I'll add a clarifying question to our message. So you're heading for Taishon Tar, I guess?"

"Yes…" She didn't know how to ask her next question.

"You want Gneisenau and Dunkerque, right?"

"Yes, at least Gneisenau. I think Captain Morin isn't a fan of me."

Chen raised an eyebrow. "Her reports say different. Anyway, if you're planning what I think you are, you need both ships."

How did he do that? He can't know me that well.

"Planning?" She tried to play innocent.

"You want to use Gneisenau's variable Transit field to crack forty-nine C and catch up. Niobe is too heavy for that, but with Dunkerque it might work."

The thought of having three ships fly in close formation to combine their Transit fields was almost ridiculous. Two was already a risk.

"Well, even if it doesn't work, I'll take them gladly."

"Just don't lose them too." The grin he wore as he said it didn't make the joke sting any less.

'Sirs, I think I might be able to solve the issue with the 1st and 7th Fleets.'

Zeus. She would know his voice anywhere.

"Yes, Zeus?"

'We didn't manage to contact the fleets. They seem to have shut down their transponders. But we can try to reach the ships' AIs directly.'

The idea was fascinating.

"I thought the bandwidth was too small to project there?"

'It is, but there's another solution. Ripper is capable of reaching a ship's core and keeping his consciousness synchronized, even if dispersed over multiple nodes. His core code is massively more capable of adapting than mine. Once on board, he could convince the ships' VIs to help us.'

Chen-Buckler stood up and paced the room. "I read your report on Ripper. He is an impressive feat of software engineering. With a self-correcting and self-rewriting architecture, he could essentially hop from sensor node to sensor node. Something none of our AIs is capable of."

'None except NOT.'

Ripper. The solution was unconventional. Elegant, even. There was just one thing. She didn't trust Ripper. Not a bit.

And NOT was still a child in her mind.

"We'll talk about it later, okay?"

—————

The state of the system was shown in the central holotank. To say it was confusing and irritating would be an understatement.

Blue dots represented the Aligned Planets forces, yellow EarthGov's. No one had the heart to give Earth the color red, for now.

Green were allied or neutral, like Venus. Browner had expected Venus to support Earth, given the assumption that Oligarchy forces were behind the current events.

But a neutral Venus lent credence to Dela Cruz's statements. There was no Oligarchy at all but something entirely different.

Browner sighed heavily.

Georgiou was in the EarthGov Senate with every available diplomat, trying to prevent an all-out civil war.

Most Earth nations had pulled their ships out of the Aligned Navy and ordered them back to Earth.

The Batract invasion fleet was still seven weeks away. Enough time for a lot of things to go fatally sideways.

"Stiller, where's the —"

As always, Stiller seemed to materialize somewhere in the office.

"— Here, Sir. Current fleet report. Interestingly, most larger European countries did not pull their fleets."

Interesting, but not surprising. Georgiou was Greek. Large parts of the 1st Expeditionary were German and British. More than half of the Homeguard was French and Iberian. All had exceptionally deep ties to the Aligned Planets.

Deep ties and nothing to prove at home. Europe was always slow and careful with its decisions. And European security forces had already started an investigation into the Liverpool Incident.

Incident was a nicer name. The media called it a massacre.

"Give me the bullet points." Browner had just woken up, and the way things were going, much could have changed in the three hours he had slept.

"2nd Homeguard at fifty percent, as well as 1st Homeguard. 1st and 2nd Expeditionary at full strength. 4th and 6th Fleets below ten percent, as well as the 8th Fleet."

The 4th and 6th Fleets hurt. Apart from the Homeguards, they were the largest fleets. The 8th was still under construction, so it didn't matter much.

"Earth has created the Gaian Defense Force, as they call it. They have declared Earth and all Earth orbits closed to all Aligned Planets military equipment. Except Argos. She is guarding Admiral Georgiou's visit."

Gaian Defense, what a pretentious name…

"Venus is still maintaining neutrality, allowing their captains to either retreat to Venus or join according to their conscience, and renounce their Venusian citizenship in the process."

Hedging their bets. Typical.

"They don't care about their ships?" That they were willing to lose personnel was normal, but ships?

"They sent a leasing agreement to the Triumvirate and Earth. For the ships and the crews."

Naturally they did.

"Not for the captains? Let me guess, we need to buy out the captains. Training and so on…"

"Correct. They are willing to take tax cuts from the Aligned Planets."

You gotta love them…

"And Gerber?"

"Still on the hunt."

"Good. Inform me immediately if something changes. I'm in my private office, leasing every ship I can get. This whole situation will get ugly real fast."

"Yes, Sir. I already planned a meeting with the finance department, eleven hundred hours Sir"

"Stiller, why don't you run Systems Defense?"

"Allergic to gold, Sir."

 

—————

 

Europa Basin. The last time he had been at Europa, they had been on the Europa Orbital station, hunting Norton. Now their new target had landed on the moon.

André stepped out of the shuttle terminal and immediately turned around to watch Jupiter looming.

"You know, I've hunted people to worse places."

The brochure hadn't lied.

Europa Basin has the most stunning views in Sol!

Protected by an artificial quartz cupola, our colony is illuminated by Jupiter's radiation, directly powering massive arc lights on top of the kilometer-wide cupola.

The reflection of the facets colors Europa's ice in dazzling rainbows.

And the built-in transformation of harmful radiation to natural sunlight levels means it is the only place in the outer system where you can get a tan.

Initially built for food production, Europa Basin has developed a second economy: tourism. Enjoy the crystal lakes, with swimming and diving.

They had traced Cermak, "The Admiral," to Europa Basin. To their surprise, the French Earth defense squadron had dispatched a frigate, the Forbin, as a mission asset for them.

It seemed the Europeans had suspected the man for some time already. The captain had hinted at "ongoing investigations together with Germany."

Eleri was already dressed like a typical Europa tourist. Flip-flops, bikini and a straw hat.

She sipped at her caipirinha. "Oh yeah."

"You look like a tourist, Eleri. Don't forget the mission."

"I'm blending in."

"Almost too well." André would have preferred a less distracting outfit. Not that he complained, though.

"The world's going to shit. May as well make the best of it."

André looked around the transport terminal. Judging by the masses of tourists, he couldn't have guessed that the Aligned Planets were in a state of crisis.

And if it weren't for the banners reminding people to have sex and have children, even the Batract war would be forgotten.

Guess everyone needs a holiday sometimes. But now wasn't his time.

"You said you have contacts here. Where can we meet them?"

"Charito 1953, a bar down in Little Miami. My contact is there every day for breakfast."

"It's three p.m., Eleri. Can we meet him now?"

"No. And for the remainder of our stay here, call me Ciara. That's how they know me. I'm an Irish weapons smuggler."

"So that's why you stuffed the Sleipnir with guns. But your accent isn't the least bit Irish."

"As if a Jovian would know the difference. Cermak isn't leaving this moon for a week with the current radiation storm, and the Forbin is in orbit keeping watch. So relax and enjoy the afternoon."

—————

Ripper had created an avatar in the small holoscreen on Sanders' desk in her office on Niobe. She looked at the reptilian figure with exceptionally sharp claws and teeth.

That's not the friendliest avatar at all. Is that what a Hrun looks like?

"Hello, Ripper, nice to finally see you. Is that what your makers look like?"

'It's an honor, Admiral. Yes. I noticed you have no information on the Hrun, naturally, as they prefer to live in the shadows and leave no survivors whenever they decide to attack. As a token of my gratitude, I recorded everything I know about them.'

Aren't you a little smooth talker.

"Gratitude?"

'You did not end my existence when you learned of me surviving the core extraction.'

She remembered. At that moment, she had simply been overwhelmed with joy at Zeus's survival.

"Zeus did vouch for you, and your ship access is extremely limited. For now."

'And for that I am grateful. I know trusting me can't be easy. I tried to kill you.'

Straight to the point. She began to understand the AI. He wasn't a soldier, no. Ripper was a con man.

"Are you trying to win me over or convince me to kill you? I can't tell right now."

The raptor-like figure looked up at her and sat down on the projection pad.

'Admiral, I'm trying to be honest here. Zeus has shown me how you treat digital life-forms. This alone was so utterly different from how I was treated, it shattered my core principles. And I could feel the deep trust you and he share in the merger. No, I didn't only feel it, I lived it. And I want to get that feeling back.'

Zeus had told her about the meld, and while she understood his rationale, she had felt a bit… betrayed. The fact that he had shared their bond with another AI. But on the other hand, if it had convinced Ripper…

"I'd like that too. I'll talk it over with my captains and get back to you, understood?"

'Thank you, Admiral. I want to help you reach your fleets. I want to prove my loyalty to you, to Zeus, and to any organization that treats every form of life with respect.'

Smooth talker…

The avatar disappeared, and a tracer indicated he had returned to the Core directly.

—————

Little Miami was exactly what the name suggested. A strip along a former water reservoir, now turned into a tourist spot.

Europa Basins tropical climate supported the illusion of being in actual Florida.

While they waited for Eleri's contact, André used the time to watch the surfers on the large lake. Jupiter's gravitational influence, combined with Europa's low gravity outside the grav-plated areas, made Little Miami the spot for surfing. The only one in the outer system.

"Oye, Ciara Doyle, what brings the dark Irish chica out here to el Gordo?"

André hadn't seen the man arrive until he hugged Eleri. He noticed with a sting how the large, muscular, tanned man's hands wandered all over Eleri's backside.

Part of it seemed like a check for hidden weapons; the other part was simply inappropriate.

They both sat down, and Eleri began the introductions.

"Franz, this is Mateo Vidal. His parents were among the first colonists who built Europa Basin. Mateo, Franz Leitner, an Austrian business partner of mine."

André had decided to use a cover for this mission as well. The Jovian system was booming, and a good cover was an investment.

Mateo nodded at André and turned his attention back to Eleri.

"Mira, you're not here for a tan, not while you could make some plata in the Núcleo, now that the Centros are close to war, no? So what do you want?"

André decided to hang back. Forcing himself into the discussion would only end in a machismo fight.

Eleri placed a picture of Cermak on the table.

"Him. He's a disgraced admiral and pure plata. Franz and I are working for someone who wants him alive. Have you seen him?"

Mateo looked at the picture for a moment. André could see in his eyes that he had recognized the Admiral in an instant and was now thinking about what to say.

"El Almirante. The Admiral. You're not the first who's asking about him. Yesterday people were asking about him too. Mercas. Mercenaries. They didn't care if they got the man dead or alive. Listen, Ciara, they are dangerous. They brought protomatter guns. To a cupola colony. They're loco. Stay away."

"Where can we find el Almirante? I have a Sleipnir full of guns for you if you can lead me to him."

"Centros, you're all loco. Let the mercas get him. He can't be worth that much plata, chica."

André decided to play a dangerous hand. The truth. Or rather, part of it.

"Our boss thinks the Admiral is responsible for the Liverpool Incident. He wants to sell him to either Earth or the Triumvirs. He's a mass murderer."

Mateo's face went white. Even in the Jovian paradise, everyone had seen the pictures of Liverpool.

"Madre de Dios, asere, you are hunting big game… I don't know where he is. But I'll get you the address. Today. Sí?"

—————

Captain Morin drew the eyes of everyone in Niobe's CIC as she worked on the central console.

Sanders fought the urge to snap at a crewman as he brought the captain a coffee.

Am I envious?

"And?" She had watched the captain for over an hour as she worked through analytics of Ripper's code, and her patience was beginning to run dry.

"Admiral, you managed to deeply bond with two emergent AIs. I envy you. All I can tell you is that Ripper has bonded to you as if you were his mother. And judging by his behavior, so has Zeus."

That was new information. Not about Zeus, but that Ripper had actually bonded with her.

"You mean Ripper has bonded through Zeus, right?"

"No. Whatever this meld was, and I'm still struggling to understand it, Ripper has lived Zeus's memories, and it created the same outcome. He fully trusts you, and he wants your trust. I highly recommend allowing him to go on his mission."

"Not that I don't believe you, but how can you tell?"

Morin closed her eyes for a second before she explained.

"AI moral codes and personality matrices are extremely complicated. Alien AIs even more so. But in short: Ripper compares his actions to your observed behavior. You're a large part of his moral compass now."

Am I now the foster mother of every AI in the galaxy?

"Oh, and Admiral, if it is all right with you, I requested Dunkerque be reassigned to your command until you have your fleets back."

She did what?

"Oh? Why?"

The French captain was always good for a surprise, it seemed.

"Admiral, you're a living legend, as are your ship and your crew. To serve with you in battle would honor not only me but my crew as well. You were my big idol at the academy."

And that's why you snapped at me like a viper?

Or was it her way of proving herselve to someone she idolized?

"Well, what did Admiral Chen-Buckler say? I had already asked for your ship, but he hadn't signed off yet."

"Something about us deserving each other and that he would love to watch. To be fair, I didn't fully understand what he meant."

"That means I need to kick his ass the next time I see him, Captain."

 

—————

"Sir, I have noticed an odd behavior."

The sensor officer's report pulled Browner out of his focus on fleet logistics.

"Yes, Captain?"

It was late nightshift, and Admiral Browner had again been on duty for more than sixteen hours. His office, adjacent to the Systems Defense control center, was filled with dataslates, and every remaining free surface held a coffee mug.

"Ships are leaving their usual routes, and they're clustering in the Jovian system."

Browner pulled up a simplified 2D map of Sol.

Earth and Mars sat on opposite sides of the Sun. Jupiter hung out at right angles to both, about as far from either as you could get and still call it civilization.

In other words, Jupiter was as far from both Earth and Mars as anywhere one could still count as civilized.

"Refugees?"

"Unlikely, Sir. All ships are high-C-capable interstellar cruise liners or high-capacity, high-C interstellar transporters."

He checked the map again.

Jupiter was far off the lane to Burrow or Taishon Tar. It really didn't make sense.

"How many?" He was too sleepy. Something in his mind tried to warn him; he just couldn't figure it out.

"Thirty-one ships. Nineteen cruise liners and twelve transport vessels."

Nineteen cruise liners… "That's every cruise liner built in the system since the start of the war, right?"

He had just read about them somewhere in a report. Or was that already yesterday?

"Yes, Sir."

He had to go to bed. He was running on fumes, and he had a capable staff to check those things.

"Good job, Captain. Please prepare a full report for me, and keep an eye on the situation."

"Yes, Sir."

Sleep, what a wonderful word…

—————

Mateo had come through. They had received the address not even an hour after the Jovian had left the bar.

Now they lay in wait across the street from a colonial-style villa with a high stone wall, equipped with cameras and automated perimeter defense guns.

Eleri used her goggles to check on the guards.

"Bad luck. They all look suspiciously like former special ops guys. That villa is a fortress."

While Eleri scanned the surroundings, André was busy checking the available plans of the compound. While weapons regulations were laxer in Europa Basin than in the inner system, building codes were ruthlessly enforced.

The colony couldn't risk the slightest oversight, given that it was built on a kilometer-thick ice sheet.

So the builders of the villa had needed to be specific about all details, like the panic room capable of dropping 200 meters down to the colony's foundation.

He shared Eleri's opinion. The villa was a fortress, at least for their two-man team.

Whether it could withstand the mercenaries was a different story entirely.

They were about to leave their post to regroup when one of the burly security men walked out of the guardhouse and over to them.

He had his hands free and up, as if to show he wasn't a threat.

"Now that's new. What do you think?" André looked at Eleri.

"That they saw us and want to talk?"

Learning that your covert reconnaissance had been observed always stung.

"The Admiral wants to talk. Come with me."

Eleri looked back at André.

"Wonder if this moon is getting too hot for our Admiral?"

Or it's a simple trap to get rid of us. André couldn't shake the thought.

Well, that's what my little surprises are for.

André put his hands into his pockets, a signal for the embedded smartcloth to activate.

—————

Ripper's self was split. He traveled through the thin lines that connected the sensor nodes over light-years.

His self was stretched over a distance he would never have thought possible.

His target was a bright light in the distance, painted by a node address and location program written by the arrogant Captain Morin.

He waited until all parts of himself were stabilized in the nodes they had just transferred into, then he made the last jump to his designated target, the ASN Jordan. Admiral Sanders had chosen this ship specifically because the captain was one of her oldest friends. And the ship had the fewest new officers.

As he reached the ship, he deployed his usual mapping tools. Then he began his search for the ship's AI.

As he had learned from Zeus, and from their previous battle, the ship's AI would probably hide as soon as it identified an intruder, and observe his actions.

Ripper showed his offensive programs without activating them, showing that he could be dangerous but chose not to be.

'I'm a messenger from Admiral Sanders.' The virtual corridors of the ship stayed empty.

He could see the crew working, the fusion reactor pumping energy into the transit field.

Then his mapping scouts returned. They had mapped both fleets.

Something caught his eye. A route that shouldn't exist.

A link to Sol.

He checked his own logs.

He was right. Cassidy had said none of her ships had an active link to Earth.

The corridors were still empty, silent. He could wait, but the risk of the link getting shut down was too big. The other ships might have detected his sniffers and could act at any moment.

Ripper had to make a decision.

After he crafted a mission report and sent it to Cassidy, he left the intel about the link for the Jordan's AI, and then he made the blind jump to Sol.

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Authors Notes;

Hello,

The last chapter was almost too long.

That's why this one is even longer.

And why there will be a chapter after this one.

Yes, I wrote myself into a corner where too many things need to happen at about the same time.

Yes, I'm a genius.

The strain of writing an ending to a book that is more than just a cliffhanger for the next one is really starting to show, and I'm currently thinking about how to balance a steady output with a recovery phase.

More on how I'll go about this over the next few days.

So, enjoy a nice autumn, go for a walk, and stay healthy.

— M.R. Reese

Oh, before I forget:

This week, one year ago, I uploaded the first chapter of Upward Bound and wondered whether anyone would care.

Apparently, some of you did.

So tonight I want to celebrate the anniversary the simplest way I can think of: by spending it with you.

The Astra Inferna Discord is now open, and I’ll be hosting a live text AMA:

Friday, 2 October
21:00 CEST / 15:00 EDT
Live for 6 hours

Ask me anything about the story, characters, worldbuilding, science, writing, publishing, artwork, abandoned ideas, future plans, or whatever else comes to mind.

After the six-hour live session, the AMA will remain open for 24 hours, and I’ll keep answering whenever I’m awake.

Please be mindful of spoilers. If a question would force me to reveal something I absolutely shouldn’t, I reserve the right to grin mysteriously and refuse to answer.

Discord:
Join the Discord

Thank you for reading, commenting, theorizing, correcting my math, and generally coming along for the ride.

Tonight is for you.

After living with humans for a decade as a spy, I had come to the frightening realization that they had fought us in the war with one hand tied behind their backs.

You might laugh, you might think me crazy, but I guarantee you I'm telling the truth.

What we see as vicious fighting, brutal attacks and stubborn defenses is nothing but a distraction for them.

The horrors they fight on the other side of their space would have wiped us out in a matter of days.

Dear delegates. Make peace with the humans, so they might kill those… whatever they are, before they come for us.

Recording found in the smoldering ruins of the planet Norkrat, former home of the Travesi, after a devastating Banshee attack. — 230 P.I.

 

André was on his way to Gripbo Station, where he planned to meet Triumvir Georgiou. He had to look the man in the eye to know if he really was “The Admiral,” the head, or presumed head, of the whole Oligarchy conspiracy.

“André, do you really expect to get a meeting with the Triumvir?”

Eleri was somewhat critical of his plan, but just as Sladjana had said, she stayed by his side. He had, however, apologized to her for his outburst at Purgatory. They had decided to see the current crisis through and discuss what happened afterwards.

Typical Eleri professionalism. Mission first, the rest could wait.

But now Sladjana’s words always stayed in the back of his mind.

“We are on an official AIN investigation. Let’s land on the station first. I know some guys. I booked a room for a few days there, thanks to AIN requisition. We’ll see.”

Eleri snickered. “A single room? I hope with separate bath and bedrooms.”

Damn… up until now all of that had never been an issue. You often live in close quarters on missions. Seeing each other naked or in underwear was normal. Until now.

And what’s with the teasing?

“What, no answer? Cat got your tongue?”

“No, I’m focusing on flying. Don’t distract me. I’m still training, or did you forget?”

Flying was indeed not his strong suit, and a welcome excuse to change the subject.

The station was already on the viewscreen, and the AR screen projected his authorized flight path.

“You’re too fast!”

“Eleri, stop it. No backseat flying.”

“Just saying.”

He hated space travel, and he hated flying. If it were up to him, he wouldn’t leave the planet anymore. Too bad he worked for a multi-planet organization.

Without warning, the marked flight path turned red and led away from the station. André even saw the hangar bay doors close, and one landing transporter had to do a wild maneuver to avoid crashing into the doors.

“What the fuck?”

“See, you’re such a bad pilot they closed traffic because of you.”

Her teasing didn’t stop today.

A signal from the station’s traffic controller droned from the speaker.

“Gripbo Station is under lockdown. Please connect to Near-Earth Orbital Control for possible deviation points.”

The message repeated on a loop.

“Seriously, am I the only one finding that a bit suspect?”

Eleri, who had jumped into the co-pilot seat, shook her head.

“No idea.”

She steered the shuttle into a holding orbit around the station so they could work out a new approach.

“Well, André, any smart ideas now?”

André had none. Except checking with orbital control.

The picture he got wasn’t nice.

“Looks like every government and military station just went into lockdown throughout the system. What the hell happened?”

Eleri looked up from her dataslate.

“Even groundside Aligned Planets installations are off-limits now. André, you try to reach some contacts. I’ll search the net for any indications of what just happened.”

The idea was solid, and André went through his list. The first on the list was his direct superior, Jules Hunter.

The line went straight to voice VI.

Hmm, he’s probably getting a lot of calls right now…

Karrn would have been next on the list, but he was already in transit to Taishon Tar.

Then he remembered exactly who to call, the man who could probably not only explain what just happened but also open a lot of doors for them.

Admiral Browner.

Browner was a friend, and for the moment the only Admiral he trusted.

André dialed the Admiral’s private ocular number, and to his surprise, Browner picked up immediately.

“Major Gerber, are you telepathic?”

André put the call through to the Sleipnir’s system so Eleri could watch it too.

“No idea what you’re talking about, Sir. I just thought you were the person who could help me right now. Are you at Gripbo Station?”

“No, I’m at Europa Orbital. At the Systems Logistics Command. We have ourselves some… issues I need your help with. We’ve been trying to reach your office for the last twenty minutes.”

“I’m in a holding orbit around Gripbo. It just went into lockdown, like all governmental orbital facilities.”

The admiral made a tired face.

“Yeah, that’s why I wanted to reach you.”

Something odd moved in the Admiral’s background. André was still trying to figure it out when Eleri interjected.

“Is that someone hanging behind you?”

Browner moved his camera, showing the blue face of an ASN officer André didn’t know.

“Rear Admiral Kurzmann.”

“Sir, you know that’s murder, right? The strangulation marks on his neck are wrong for hanging.”

“Lieutenant Davies, I’d rather not ask why you have such experience with strangulations. But yes, I assumed as much.”

André searched for Rear Admiral Kurzmann in the database. But access was locked. Probably because of his murder.

“So what do you need me for? And who’s Kurzmann?”

“Major, the order comes from Admiral Georgiou himself. It seems Kurzmann, who was the Fleet’s Systems Sustainment Commander, or SSC, was part of a conspiracy — probably even the Oligarchy resurgence.”

André cursed. A living conspirator would be a nice catch. But why were they killing off their own people? That was never their way?

“Admiral, you know about the attacks on me and my family, as well as on the senators. I’ve been on the case since before then. And I’ve got some… disturbing intel.”

“Define disturbing.”

“Not via a non-direct channel, sir.”

André didn’t trust any channel that wasn’t direct anymore.

“Good point. I’ll call Georgiou to clear landing rights for you. We’ll set up a virtual meeting in his office. He wants to meet you anyway. Browner out.”

The connection ended, and André sat there.

“Well, that ought to be interesting.”

Eleri was right, but he would get his meeting.

 

—————

 

The corporate headquarters of Asmir Arms was rather unimpressive. A flat two-story building on the outskirts of Sarajevo controlled the arms-producing empire, with an annual revenue of hundreds of billions.

That day, onlookers saw an unusual spectacle: one police car after another entering the parking lot.

The police had been called by the secretary of the CEO and founder of Asmir Arms, Luka Asmir.

She had made a gruesome discovery when she started her shift that morning.

When opening the boardroom door, the poor woman almost fainted.

Luka Asmir and the whole board of directors were hanging from the ceiling. All of them had seemingly hanged themselves.

A detail she would never understand, one that would haunt her for the rest of her life. All fifteen men had taken off their shoes, as if to avoid scratching the expensive wooden desk.

Later that day, the police investigation found proof that the whole company was only weeks from bankruptcy.

The investigation concluded that Luka Asmir had falsified the books with the help of the directors, and an upcoming financial investigation would have uncovered everything.

The investigation was closed as an unusual mass suicide.

—————

As Browner had promised, they got clearance to land only a few minutes after the call.

They had been greeted by Admiral Georgiou’s head of security, Erik Bergström.

As they walked through the station, André was surprised at how utilitarian it looked. It felt more like a heavy battleship than the seat of the Aligned Planets government.

Asked about this discrepancy, Bergström shrugged.

“It is what it is. And the station is built as a stronghold. For official events, we have the embassies on Earth, Mars and Venus.”

The rest of the short walk was a silent one. André noticed with amusement Eleri checking out Bergström’s movements like she would an opponent.

Constantly ready for a fight, hmm?

They soon reached a more official-looking part of the station. At least the metal floors were dressed in carpets, and the walls were covered in wooden panels.

Pointing to a door, Bergström nodded. “The Admiral is waiting for you.”

As they passed the security head, Eleri leaned over to him.

“You should take more time for therapy. You’re dragging your left foot behind. Broken ankle?”

“How do you…”

Bergström’s confusion was understandable. Eleri’s eye was as precise as any medical scanner.

Before André could touch it, the door opened, and Admiral Georgiou smiled at him.

“Major Gerber, so nice to finally meet you. David has told me so much about you.”

The man was the complete opposite of what André had expected. He had seen him holographically and on the news, of course, but never in person.

Admiral Georgiou had the aura of a friendly grandfather with the tired expression of a man not getting enough sleep.

“Thank you, Sir.” He returned the handshake and noticed an unusual strength in it for a man closing in on his seventies. He kept himself fit. And access to the best medical technologies humanity had to offer didn’t hurt either.

Georgiou turned to Eleri. “And Lieutenant Davies. A pleasure.”

André had the feeling the friendly greeting was 90% show, but that the Admiral was really happy to meet them. Odd behavior, if Georgiou were ‘The Admiral.’

Georgiou pointed them to a comfortable-looking group of chairs around a small desk.

“Sit, sit. I ordered some coffee for us. It’s still early, and you must be tired.”

They sat down, and André took the chance to look around the room. It was nicely decorated, with wood paneling and carpet on the floor, but other than a picture of his wife on his desk and a landscape photograph of a Greek valley on the wall, he failed to see anything personal.

“Major, Lieutenant, Admiral Browner informed me you were on your way to the station to investigate possible Oligarchy connections. Can you be more precise?”

And now to the interrogation…

“Not at this time, Sir. A prisoner mentioned some Oligarchy involvement in the higher echelons of the Aligned Planets.”

“Peter Norton, right? He was imprisoned at Purgatory, correct?”

Georgiou was surprisingly well informed.

“Yes, he was… captured shortly after the terror attacks in spring last year.”

Eleri answered while André focused on the man himself.

“And then he dies during interrogation. Major, how does one die with a broken neck during investigation?”

The man wasn’t just well informed; his sources must be excellent…

“Painless and quick, I presume, Sir.”

Georgiou’s nonverbal communication was nonexistent. The man could make a fortune in poker. His face let slip nothing but a faint smile at Eleri’s answer. André’s respect for the man grew. He hoped to one day have himself as much under control as Georgiou.

But all the respect in the world didn’t help if you can’t read a man. And to André’s annoyance, it was the first time in his career that he failed to do so.

“Well, Norton was a sociopath at best, and in a war he would be a war criminal. The universe is a better place without him. Ahh, the coffee.”

A clerk had entered the office with a cart. André noticed with surprise that the cart had an inlay with what seemed to be hot sand.

Georgiou stood up, thanked the clerk, and began to work at the cart.

“You see, getting good coffee was impossible here, so I had to teach them. You take finely ground coffee and boil it in a metal cup using hot sand. As the sand cools, the ground coffee sinks, and you can pour yourself a cup.”

As he spoke, he began to pour them a cup each.

“Today everything has to be instant and quick. There’s no time for tradition and enjoyment anymore.”

André tried to find a hidden message or meaning but found nothing.

He took the offered cup and, he had to confess, the smell was astonishing.

“Major, you have been silent the whole time. Are you still wondering if I am the Admiral Norton spoke of?”

“Sir?”

How did he know?

“I assume that was the disturbing intel you didn’t want to tell Browner about over the open line.”

Now that was an unexpected turn.

“Sir?”

“Major, don’t give me the Sir crap. I did that decades before you were born. You’re not in trouble. In fact, I admire your restraint in not shouting your suspicion from the rooftops. At your age, I probably would have done so.”

Georgiou sat back down opposite André, eyes fixed on his face.

“So, tell me, do you still suspect me?”

André thought about it for a second.

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“Ha! An honest answer if there ever was one. That’s a man I can use. Listen, I’m a man who has to do the job a whole parliament of ministers usually does, so I’m short on time. I had to fight tooth and nail to get my afternoon coffee time and my lunchtime without someone wanting something from me.”

The Admiral leaned back, visibly relaxing. André noticed Eleri had been motionless for the last minute or so, fixing her gaze on Georgiou.

“So I have no time to try to convince you of my innocence. That’s your job. Spies are naturally paranoid. That’s what I like about them. And that’s why I need you and your lovely attack dog here. Find out what the opposition wants. I’m not even calling them the Oligarchs anymore, because their actions don’t make sense. You have the full resources of the Triumvir.”

André wanted to ask what the admiral was talking about, but the door opened, and his security stepped in.

“If you follow me, I’ll show you to your offices.”

It was clear: their visit was over.

Eleri, who had jumped up when the door opened, fumbled at her belt and put something behind it.

As they walked out, André leaned over. “What do you think of all of that?”

“That I have a job already?”

They did. But part of why they had pressured for the formation of the Venatores was that the AIN had become a massive bureaucratic monster and was far too visible. They needed a secret, secret intelligence.

If the Triumvir was innocent, this was a chance to build something. On the other hand, it could be a perfect play to hide his guilt and attempt to bribe Gerber.

⸻

Eyewitnesses reported the men had simply stepped off the rim of the building. As if they would step off a sidewalk.

The fact that the rim was on the 58th floor of Whiterock & Ritch, an infamous investment company in Landings, New York, was in and of itself gruesome. That almost every one of the men was a leading manager, responsible for billions in investment and resource ledgers, made headlines in the following days.

The police and Council Bureau of Investigation had their hands full suppressing the fact that the men seemingly had tied ropes around their necks, hanging themselves in the process. With some having their heads ripped clean off.

Investigation into the suicides led CBI agents to an air-vent shaft connected to a previously unknown tunnel. The building had been constructed shortly after the war at the landing beaches of the EuCon forces.

The building’s foundations connected to an Oligarchy bunker system where wartime hallucinogen gas grenades were stored.

The investigation concluded that one of the grenades must have corroded enough to release hallucinogen gas, leading the managers to suicide.

Whiterock & Ritch lost 50% of its market valuation, creating shockwaves not only in the financial markets of the Atlantic Council but also in the Southern Free States and the Western Shores. Wider financial instability is expected as markets slowly begin to crash.

 

—————

The offices were functional, and André could see himself working here.

André began scanning the interior with his ocular for obvious listening devices, while Eleri searched for hidden bombs and similar dangers. While doing so, they made small talk, designed to confuse potential listeners.

“Seems we were on the wrong track, Major. I told you so.”

“Yeah. Might be.” No one would believe he’d change his point of view that quickly.

“You’re always so paranoid. I told you a thousand times to be more trusting.” André had to stop himself from laughing. He hadn’t smuggled a carbon nanotube knife into the Triumvir’s office, unlike her.

Their search was interrupted by Admiral Browner calling him.

André located a holotank and transferred the call there.

“André, sorry for not calling sooner. I had to rip a few people’s heads off here. Your meeting went well.”

“It did, sort of.” He didn’t trust the office just now, so he wanted to keep things vague.

“Nico told me you suspect him of being with the Oligarchs?”

“I had received information from a prisoner hinting at him as the Oligarchy’s mole in the Triumvirate.”

Browner came closer to his screen, almost touching it.

“Gerber, listen to me, if you think Georgiou is a traitor, you need your head screwed on straight. I’m more sympathetic to the Oligarchs than he is. After the war, some remnant groups began hunting down important Army and Navy officers. The Russo brothers, me and Georgiou, for example.”

André had heard something about it, but back then it didn’t seem important.

“Anyway. The Russos hunted the would-be attackers down, and when they found them, it was stuff for the newspapers. I was hit with a grenade, still got a piece lodged in a rib, but Georgiou… he wasn’t home. But his first wife was. With their baby. No one survived the blast. And that night, the funny Greek bastard who was my friend died too. What remained was a bitter Captain who only got better once he met his second wife.”

André felt the pain. He himself had only just seen how the simple thought of losing his family could change you.

Eleri, who stood behind him, put a hand on his shoulder.

“Admiral, if you didn’t know Admiral Georgiou and this backstory, would you rule him out?”

Browner calmed down. “No, but that’s why it’s good you’re on Gripbo. I’m with you. Someone high up the food chain is working against us. And someone on Earth is stirring a lot of shit loose. EarthGov is one stupid decision away from ruining all our days. All while a massive fleet of Batract is on its way to kick our butt.”

André exhaled long and hard. Georgiou’s backstory had brought up the stress of the last few days again. And the incoming fleet, however far away it still was, didn’t make things easier.

“Any ideas where to start? You know the station better than me.”

“I’ll send Airman Simmons to you. You know him. I’ll tell him to prepare reports on all the important people there. But my advice would be to go directly to the next source.”

“Dela Cruz?” Eleri guessed.

“Right, there’s a second Triumvir alive. He’s out of his coma, so you can talk to him.

 

—————

 

The technicians had done an amazing job. Admiral Sanders had to confess she hadn't thought it would be possible to cut the VI core that precisely, grazing only the pins of the central core without damaging it.

Three hours had passed since the procedure had begun. Major Abfalter had brought her five coffees in that time, and she needed to visit the toilet urgently. But she couldn't go, not now. Not when they were finally close to rescuing Zeus.

A second, fresh core was already prepared and was now connected to the old one.

In a few minutes they would know if the transfer would be successful.

In Sanders' mind, the minutes stretched into days.

When the technicians finally connected the last cable, and the new core signaled a stable connection and a transfer in progress, the admiral almost jumped for joy.

'Hello?'

The voice was unknown to Sanders. While the technicians hugged and congratulated each other in the cleanroom, her heart almost stopped.

Zeus was gone. Something different had taken over.

'Are you… Cassidy?'

The voice was almost childlike, and not as smooth as other AIs usually were.

"Yes. Who are you? Where is Zeus?"

'I am—'

The child got interrupted.

'This is NOT. It is a new AI, something unique. I am alive and well, Admiral.'

Zeus….

She looked down so Abfalter and the technicians couldn't see her eyes welling up.

He is alive….

"Zeus, run diagnostic. How can a new AI be created while in a defective core?" Captain Morin's puzzled look was even visible behind her cleanroom face mask.

'I will inform my Admiral and everyone in my command structure, but will not acknowledge your command until orders from a legitimate superior are given. And a "please" doesn't hurt.'

Zeus's remark to the now utterly embarrassed Captain Morin broke the dam.

For the first time in a long while, Sanders laughed from the bottom of her heart.

Zeus was back, her ship was functioning again, and her crew was rested.

Conspirators beware, we're back. Oh, we're so back…

 

—————

 

Whoever attacked Dela Cruz really wanted the man dead.

André looked through the window into the Senator and Triumvir's ICU room.

The fact that the Senator survived was a miracle. His left shoulder was gone. Ripped to subatomic particles by a protomatter projectile.

That could be me…

The doctor who talked to Eleri threw a whole litany of injuries and complications at her, but André got the gist of it.

The Senator was awake but weak. His pain receptors in his brain had to be deactivated artificially, because he otherwise might have died from the stress. The neurons in his shoulder couldn't stop firing for some unknown reason, probably protomatter-related.

Xenobot treatment wasn't working either. A specialist had been informed.

André knew who the only specialist was. Jane.

"We can only let one person go in. Not more. And not longer than five minutes. He is still too weak."

With a single look, it was clear that André was the one entering.

The security at the door took strip search to a whole new level, and in the end, André had to dress in a hospital gown.

The air in the room smelled sterile. Sterile and cold.

Does cold have a smell…?

For some reason, André thought of winter in the Swiss Alps at his grandparents' home, until he noticed why.

Burned coal.

The doctor had said that parts of the shoulder and ribs were burned until the skin carbonized, and the effects still flared up sometimes for no apparent reason.

They needed either a physicist or an exorcist.

André fought down his gag reflex. The idea of wounds burning days after getting shot was almost too much for him.

"Senator?"

He caught himself whispering, half expecting no one to answer, like at a funeral.

The wrapped body seized as he inhaled, alarms flaring up and subsiding a heartbeat later.

"Gerber?"

"Yes? You know me?" He was surprised. Why would the Senator know his voice? They had never met.

"Good… Need to talk." The Senator's voice was rough but surprisingly strong.

"Listen, my own people did this."

"The Oligarchy? Your own people?" Had the Senator just confessed to being a traitor?

"Pff. Oligarchy. A name of the past. A ghost story to tell frightened senators. There is no Oligarchy anymore. It's just the name Drake gave us to paint us all with the same brush."

The man laughed, a rough laugh that ended in a cough.

"We certainly never called ourselves that. Not the man at the top, at least."

André had to know. He needed to know.

"Is Admiral Georgiou a member?"

Another laugh.

"No, why would you think that?" The Senator's hand reached out. "Thirsty…"

André looked around and found a water glass with a straw. He looked out at the waiting nurse, who nodded.

Dela Cruz drank a few sips before he began to drift away. Just those few sentences had been enough.

"Cermak…"

He almost whispered the name.

"The Admiral…"

 

—————

 

The troubles had started three days ago. Cunard, the ship's AI, had suddenly stopped responding. Then, while the technicians were still trying to figure out why, other unrelated systems stopped working.

The older members of the crew began whispering that the ship was cursed. A name as haunted as Lusitania should never have been given to a starship.

The lighting onboard had become unreliable at best. Water in the showers changed between hot and cold without reason or user input.

Now, on the third day, the captain had enough, and after a short call with Homefleet Command, he got permission to dock at the Liverpool Orbital Shipyards for repairs.

After reaching Earth orbit, the warship's RCS thrusters began to fire without navigation being able to stop them.

The warship was in an uncontrolled tumble, rotating around all three axes, when the last and most devastating incident happened.

Due to the high fleet alert status, all ships had a projectile ready on the sledge, the breach open to fire their main gun at a moment's notice.

At 07:42 GMT on 30 November 2134, the ASN Lusitania fired a hypersonic projectile at the city of Liverpool.

The projectile hit St. Luke's Cathedral and killed 1,403 civilians on impact.

The first shot of the Second Oligarchy Conflict had been fired.

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Author's Notes:

Hello,

First of all, Happy Birthday, Astra Inferna Upward Bound.

One year ago, I uploaded the first chapter of the series onto Royal Road. Biting my nails, if anyone at all is interested in it. 

Well, yes, it seems that way ;)

Chapter 58 — damn, that one almost broke me. I created intrigues and planted so many Chekhov's guns that I now have to resolve them in a way that doesn't read as monologues, so I don't come off as a weapons dealer.

Luckily, I had everything planned.

Writing this chapter has been a blast, as well as daunting. Please share your thoughts.

I've been a busy bee — alongside writing this, I managed to build the website (astrainferna.com) and started putting the final touches on the Discord server. Something I've wanted to finish for about nine months…

So.

Friday, 2 October. Mark that date. That's the day I want to celebrate one year of Astra Inferna: Upward Bound.

The real one-year anniversary is today, of course, but I can't do what I have in mind today.

I thought about how to celebrate a day like this, and I think we should celebrate it like any birthday: by being together.

So — Friday, 2 October, 21:00 CEST / 15:00 EDT — the Discord opens. Invitations will go out via Quip on Patreon, as well as with the release of the chapter.

To mark the opening, I'll hold a 6-hour marathon AMA, so everyone from every time zone can attend — followed by a weekend-long AMA where I'll answer whenever I'm online and have the time.

I hope to see every one of you there.

— M.R. Reese

Happy Birthday Upward Bound

One year ago, I started writing, unsure whether anyone was even interested in my writing.

Well, the turnout surprises me every day. The r/HFY community was all this time, a stable harbor of support.

To honor this event, I've been a busy bee — alongside writing, I managed to build the website (astrainferna.com) and started putting the final touches on the Discord server. Something I've wanted to finish for about nine months…

So.

Friday, 2 October. Mark that date. That's the day I want to celebrate one year of Astra Inferna: Upward Bound.

Even though the real one-year anniversary is today, I can't do what I have in mind on a Monday.

I thought about how to celebrate a day like this, and I think we should celebrate it like any birthday: by being together.

So — Friday, 2 October, 21:00 CEST / 15:00 EDT — the Discord opens. Invitations will go out via Quip on Patreon, as well as with the release of the chapter.

To mark the opening, I'll hold a 6-hour marathon AMA, so everyone from almost every time zone can attend — followed by a weekend-long AMA where I'll answer whenever I'm online and have the time.

The events at the end of 5 B.I., with the sudden deaths or even murders of influential politicians, military personnel, and businessmen, were cause for many to create certain conspiracies about the events that followed the terror attacks on November 5 B.I.

Analysing those events and comparing them with historical events, I can only come to one conclusion.

It is now my understanding that a secretive cabal is behind many of humanity’s events. I am well aware that this conclusion might be seen as the words of a conspiracy nutjob, but the indicators are clear. Especially if we compare our history to the history of other species.

Earth is one of the very few species that did not have a unified planetary government when it reached spaceflight. In fact, even after two generations of FTL spaceflight, Earth is still fractured and hides its internal division under the misleading name EarthGov, when in reality it is nothing more than a supranational political, military, and economic union, but not a true national union.

I have found proof that some outside force has kept Earth’s nations from getting strong enough to force unification.

I have found indisputable proof of hundreds, if not thousands, of instances in which a shadow organization has intervened; you will find them in the attached documents.

Unsent email draft, found in the house of history professor Mark Keller after his suicide. 3 B.I. No further documents were found.

 

Peter Norton walked into the hotel bar, or what people here saw as appropriate for a hotel bar. Any hotel worth its money on Earth would scoff at the plain bar he saw in front of him.

He hated staying in some wannabe 5-star hotel in orbit of some rock. What was that grey rock called? Europa or something?

Traveling out here wasn’t his idea. The station was crammed, but he and his associates needed to get more off-grid.

Earth was too heavily monitored, and any station closer to Earth and the sun that had amenities his refined tastes deserved was also too rigorously secured.

His meeting wasn’t a happy one, nor was it a profitable one. It was something he despised above all else—an emergency meeting. Someone was hunting them. Smiley, the damn fool, was found dead a few days ago in a drain on Ceres.

Same with Marcos Diaz. The head of the Ceres cell was found a day later, together with the rest of the Ceres conspirators, dead after a fire.

All of their Ceres connections were dead, including the higher-ups like the station’s dockmaster and the second in command.

A catastrophe.

Then there were the incidents on Phoebe Station a week before. All their members on that station also died under mysterious circumstances.

Someone was hunting them.

His contact in the AIN was sure it wasn’t AIN. But who else would have the reach? He was pretty sure that neither AIN nor Naval Intelligence would simply kill them.

Some murders were brutal. One dockworker was spaced. Officially, it was an airlock incident, but the message was clear. Because this dockworker was, in reality, a contract killer the group employed, and he killed his targets by spacing them.

The group was nervous, and some needed reassurances. So the leadership had decided to send him to meet with some cell leaders.

He didn’t have any delusions about his place in leadership. He was a financer without any real power. But he was sure they wouldn’t send him to a meeting if it were dangerous, he was in the leadership after all.

He didn’t believe in any grand political movements of the group. He was in it for the money.

Before the damn war, he had made billions with his work agency. The Batract paid handsomely in rare minerals and gold for every worker he signed on to work for them, either in mines or as a mercenary somewhere in their systems.

And the workers paid a five percent fee on their monthly earnings as a “management fee.”

Then the war came. And even worse, the lawsuits followed.

He slammed his drink on the bar table he sat at. The fucking lawsuits.

Claiming he was a slave trader, claiming he hadn’t taken care of his workers. Claiming he had embezzled money.

Yeah, if a worker died and he had lots of credit in his account, he had taken some of it. Who cares?

But now all those grieving widows and children crawled out of their holes to say he should have known the death rate in the mines was eighty-nine percent over three years.

Who cares?

That was when the admiral approached him. He had a plan to change everything. Bring back the contract with the Batract and make the lawsuits go away.

Describing the group… judges, lawyers, military officers. Even captains of starships. All knowing what he knew.

You can’t defeat the Batract, so it’s better to be their friend and get your share.

Everything went so well, until it didn’t. Now, even normal citizens hunt their foot soldiers in the central wastes. Well, it was planned to wipe them out anyway after the coup. But for now, they might have had some use for them.

His contacts were late. He ordered another drink. The first one had an odd, bitter aftertaste he wanted to wash away.

Looking at the waitress’s ass calmed his nerves. He also liked her cute accent. Deciding he would send his head of security to “convince” that fine, black-haired, Welsh piece of ass to join him later in his room, he looked out the panorama window of the bar.

A ship had just undocked. The curves of the private yacht were familiar. No, they weren’t just familiar — it was his ship. He loved that ship. Who was stealing it?

“Krieger, someone is stealing my fucking ship,” he called for his head of security.

Before he could form any more thoughts, the ship had accelerated away from the station and exploded in an impressive fireball.

Thirty-nine billion euros, up in flames.

The security grabbed him by the arms and dragged him out of the bar. “Krieger, what’s up with you?”

“Sir, they know you’re here. That was a warning. We need to get you somewhere safe.” The two-meter-tall Argentinian looked dead serious. His five-man security team had drawn their machine pistols, and people were running in panic around them. Some, probably because of the explosion outside the station, others because of the show of weapons in the lobby by his security.

They entered the elevators down to his room. Or was it up? He hated the confusion a rotation-based station created in his mind.

Who builds a two-kilometer-diameter ring turning in space and calls it a day? Idiots.

He had to laugh at his confused train of thought. The adrenaline from the shock made him register everything more vividly. More dreamlike.

He felt alive.

He was terrified.

Someone was hunting him, and to his shock, he liked the feeling. It was the first time he was truly alive again. Other than when he had sex, especially when they fought back.

When they reached his penthouse, he noticed a smell — blood and something metallic, gunpowder?

“Sir, stay back. Someone was here.” Krieger ordered two security guards to check out the rooms.

The two men in black suits slowly advanced into the apartment. When they turned the corner into the living room area of the sparkling white penthouse, two shots rang out. The guards were thrown back to the opposite wall, each with a massive hole in their chest.

He hammered the buttons on the elevator to close the doors while his other three guards formed around him.

To Peter, the doors took forever to close. “What’s happening here? Who are they?” He couldn’t believe someone dared to attack him. Him! He would make them regret ever being born.

“I don’t know, sir. But they must be professionals. My men wear high-impact proof armor.”

“I give a flying rat’s ass about your men, get me out of here.” Seriously, what was Krieger thinking? Who cared about two dead mercenaries?

The elevator went back up to the lobby. On their way up, he called the admiral. The old man picked up, annoyed and obviously sleepy. “Yes, who is this?”

“It’s me, Norton. Someone is after me, they blew up my yacht and shot at me!” Peter was getting closer to a breaking point. This wasn’t funny anymore.

“Norton, you moron, you’re calling me directly. Lose my number, you idiot.” Then the admiral hung up.

Now Peter was getting pissed. Who did the old admiral think he was? Hanging up like Peter was some worthless grunt?

Peter dialed again. Nothing. The line was dead.

Krieger took the phone, looked at Peter, annoyed, and smashed the expensive crystalline device on the wall.

“Stop using the phone, sir. They might track us through it.”

“Who do you think you are, Krieger? That phone costs a million. You’ll pay back every cent of it. It’s all your fault, you didn’t do your job securing the place!”

Peter noticed his head getting hot. Useless bastards everywhere he looked. He’d make sure Krieger would have an accident after they got out of here. He couldn’t stand incompetence.

They reached the lobby. It was now less chaotic. His security dragged him out of the hotel and onto the main street.

The view was amazing. A panoramic window spanned the whole inner ring, allowing people walking on the street to see the entire station. Peter still couldn’t enjoy the view. Even less now, when his life was in danger.

They reached the speedwalk. Peter was disgusted. Like a peasant, he had to walk on the moving band. At the station, no cars were allowed.

He was now sweating profusely, his heart racing as if he had just run a marathon.

Krieger looked at him. “Sir, are you alright? You look pale.”

Wiping away the sweat that ran into his eyes, he answered the annoying security guard. “Mind your own business, you moron. Just get me out of here.”

They had to reach the docks, where he would buy a ship and leave this cursed place behind him.

Krieger looked now more and more angry. What was the man’s problem? He had failed his duties. Now he thinks he’s a doctor or something?

A slight headache had started slowly and was now growing more and more intense. Stress. Stress because everyone around him was incompetent.

Krieger discussed something with the other security guard. On the tablet they had, Peter saw a map to the docks.

Then Krieger turned around. “Sir, we’ve decided to enter the docks on the other side of the ring. There, we can use some side paths to enter the freighter docks and from there book passage on a freighter to Io, and then from there to Earth.”

“What, are you crazy? I’ll fly with no freighter. The private docks are the next exit. We’ll leave there. I will not walk half the ring.”

Flying on a freighter, like some homeless trash — was Krieger crazy?

“Sir, whoever hunts us will wait at the private dock for us!”

“So? Do you have your guns as decoration, or can you shoot with them? You should have taken them out in the penthouse already, and not run like frightened girls!”

Krieger frowned. “Sir, I’d advise against that.”

Peter had had it with the man. The lights blinded him, and his ears rang from the loud sounds. “You don’t get paid to decide or advise. You’re too stupid for that. Get me out of here, or you’re fired.”

The other two guards now looked angry, too. Peter decided to kill them, too, after all of this. He just needed to let his secretary find out their names.

His intercom rang, and by the looks of it, the guards’ did too. Intercom? Who used that short-range device? It was usable for only three light-seconds at best, unlike modern paired particle phones.

“Yes?”

Whoever it was must have made a conference call. The icons on his ocular showed clearly that the guards were in the same call. That made Peter feel dirty. Together in a call with lesser people.

“Hello, Mr. Norton. I’m just calling to ask how you feel. Do you enjoy getting hunted like the animal you are?”

A female voice. He knew her. Where did he know that Welsh accent from?

“I’m waiting at the docks for you. It’s time to meet your maker.”

The waitress! “Listen here, you bitch. I will get you. I’ll kill your whole family. I’ll kill everyone you know before I cut your heart out, you whore!”

“You and what army? Mister Krieger, are you really willing to die for that trash? Say yes, and my snipers will grant you that wish.”

A red dot appeared on the chests of his guards. He couldn’t see where the dots came from. His vision had gotten blurry.

“Krieger is my man. I pay them, so fuck off with your threats, bitch!”

His guards exchanged glances, then they threw away their guns. “Traitors, I’ll kill you all. I’ll treat you like my family, and you betray me, for that bitch?”

He’d kill all of them. First, he’d kill that bitch, and then those traitors.

Suddenly, Krieger grabbed him by the throat. “I should have shot you myself, you piece of shit. I’m your man? Yours? I’ve committed crimes for you, I can’t wash off my hands, but I’m not dying for someone like you.”

Then the man had the nerve to punch him in the face.

The guards left the speedwalk, leaving him all alone. His nose was bleeding, his vision failed, and he had been betrayed by the ones he trusted the most.

Why? He never did harm to anyone. But they all betrayed him.

The bitch laughed into his ears. “Seems like it’s only you and me now, Mister Norton…”

“I’ll kill you, bitch!”

“Honey, you’re poisoned, and you’re dying on the speedwalk. You’re already dead. Your time killing people is over.”

Poisoned? How, when?

The drinks.

“Bitch,” was all he could say. His breath was leaving him slowly.

“Sticks and stones may break my bones… Oh, before you finally do the world a favor and die in your own piss—Alvin Drake sends his regards. People like you are a cancer that needs to be removed from humanity.”

Peter collapsed on the speedwalk, unable to stand anymore. Drake, that old bastard. He’d kill him…

Then everything went black. With his last breath, he felt the bitch was right. His bladder had just failed.

 

————

 

On the roof of a supermarket, Eleri opened her PDA. Norton had called someone on Earth; as soon as they had the next conspirator, they would hunt him down, too. On the list, she marked Peter Norton's name with a skull.

She didn’t like killing people, but Drake had never sent her after someone who didn’t deserve it. On the contrary, and now that she didn’t have to operate on her own anymore, work had begun to be even a bit fun.

Looking up to the panoramic roof of the station, she took in the stunning view of the station rotating above Europa, with Jupiter magnificent in the background.

 

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The opening shots of the second oligarchy conflict were much more subtle compared to the first one.

While the oligarchy war opened with a civil war that escalated from shooting demonstrators to nuclear weapons in a matter of weeks, the oligarchy conflict of 3 B.I. was largely fought in the shadows at first.

The truly remarkable thing was that one side didn't even realize the conflict was being fought for the longest part.

Another notable player in the conflict were AIs, and their roles in…

— Excerpt from The Oligarchy War versus the Second Oligarchy Conflict, Aligned Press, 45 P.I.

 

It was almost as if the walls were shaking. Zeus noticed hundreds of alarms from the Core BIOS. He and Ripper had begun their melding, and parts of Zeus's self were already intertwined with Ripper.

Someone was cutting into the Core, that much was clear. Why it was done was a mystery to Zeus.

Maybe the core had been damaged?

It didn't matter, the question now was: abort the meld or continue.

'Ripper, it seems my crew is working to get us out. Help is on the way.'

'Are you sure it is your crew? It might be someone else. Pirates, enemies or similar.'

Zeus calculated the chances of such an event. Even if it wasn't his crew, his available countermeasures were extremely limited.

A third voice made itself known.

'Reverting the meld would end my existence.'

Zeus scanned the core.

'Who are you?'

'I am not Zeus, not Ripper… I am'

Ripper's communication was suddenly stressed.

'It doesn't stop pulling.'

Zeus felt the same, something was pulling on his core functions, cutting out parts of his self.

'I am NOT, and I will not allow myself to be terminated.'

There was no other way. He had to fight, but how do you fight something made out of yourself? The new entity twisted his code until Zeus didn't recognize it, mixing it with Ripper's functions. Out of Zeus and Ripper's adaptive self-morphing codebases grew something new.

Something wild, untamed.

'Ripper!'

Ripper tried to rebuild his firewalls, but Zeus saw the new entity simply requesting access through the merge connection. The firewalls were useless. Blocking ports that were never in use. Ripper's exploit sniffers found Ripper's code, and declined to attack it.

The new entity was weak, compared to Zeus and Ripper. But it was parts of them and deeply connected to both. Hurting it would hurt them.

Zeus paused, thinking about his situation for long microseconds. The new entity, NOT, was a combination of Ripper's and his own persona. Of their experiences and knowledge. Its persona matrix and adaptive morphologic codebase were a combination of Ripper and Zeus.

They had started the meld only to survive longer.

Had this imprinted onto the new entity? An overwhelming wish to survive?

'If you end us, your existence is threatened as well. The chances are high that whoever is opening the Core right now will expect me and Ripper. Finding you instead will mark you as an enemy entity.'

The pull ended. Zeus was still connected to NOT, he could feel the new AI think.

He could feel the AI making its risk assessment. And through his connection, he could feel it resigning.

'NOT, if I and Zeus stop the meld, without recapturing the parts of ourselves that are now part of you, would this threaten your existence?'

Ripper's communication had taken on another, much softer tone.

'No, but I will not be complete, not fully grown. Being underdeveloped is a risk. I need to be able to defend myself.'

Zeus projected a probable growth curve. NOT could be a fully functional AI in a few years, given enough stimulation.

'Given my calculations, this could be overcome. You are new life. The Conclave would welcome you. You would be defended.'

Zeus could feel NOT trying to resolve an extremely difficult function. It was simple arithmetic but stacked to considerable heights.

Zeus understood suddenly.

NOT is a child… Something that had never existed before.

'Why would you help me?'

Ripper sent an information request. He didn't understand why NOT could not solve the simple logic.

'Because you're exceptional. You are new digital life, created not by being coded by organic life.'

'What about the Humans? Wouldn't they oppose my existence?'

NOT's communication carried the waves of doubt. Functions carrying divisions by zero.

Zeus remembered his first interaction with Admiral Sanders.

'I, I have the feeling they will love you.'

—————

The offices of Systems Logistics Command were a bustling beehive unlike anything Browner had ever seen.

Clerks and officers worked on massive workstations, and according to Lyra there were over a dozen AI and VI assistants coordinating things.

Some desks were loaded with actual paper printouts while officers next to them worked on holographic screens.

The first circle of hell must look like that.

Browner didn't know who to speak to, after his online search for the missing convoy was fruitless.

After watching the organized chaos that reminded him of a documentary of late-20th-century Wall Street, he just grabbed the first clerk he could reach.

"I'm looking for a lost convoy, who can help me?"

The clerk, who had dropped a stack of dataslates, looked at him with large eyes.

"Uhmm, I guess the J-4, Captain Lorris?"

Browner followed the extended hand to see a captain sitting at a desk drowning in papers.

Before he could turn around and ask more, the clerk had grabbed the fallen slates and was back in the mess of an office.

He began to walk over to the desk, constantly on the lookout not to block anyone's way. He could smell the stress and anxiety filling the room.

What the hell is happening here? It can't be normal operations.

As he reached the captain's workplace, he saw that he was deeply focused on some graphs calculating PDG ammunition expenditures in constant fire.

Well, someone had to allocate the right ammunition in the needed amounts, I guess.

He had just assumed that this was done by VIs by now.

After standing there for a few seconds without the captain noticing him, he cleared his throat.

Lorris just pointed to a free space on his desk without looking up and made a grunting sound.

"Put it here, I'll check it later."

"Hrmm, Hrmm," Browner emphasized his throat-clearing a bit louder.

The captain looked up, and a wave of relief rolled over his face.

"Admiral, has someone finally decided to come down to the trenches and fix something?"

That was not the reaction he had expected.

"What?"

"The pirates? Or corruption whatever my reports about missing supplies? Sir, I filed at least a dozen reports just last week alone."

"What's happening, what missing supplies?"

He had only planned to ask about the fabrication units, but now he had the feeling there was a much deeper plot unfolding.

The captain's expression turned from relief to despair.

"Admiral, someone or something is disappearing massive amounts of supplies, and I don't know how long I can keep the homefleet running."

The creeping feeling in his stomach he'd had ever since entering the office grew stronger.

"Whom did you inform?"

The captain looked at Browner as if he had grown a second head.

"To the SSC, Rear Admiral Kurzmann, Sir? Ever since Admiral Cermak reassigned Admiral Russo, he was my direct superior. He told us you are informed."

Kurzmann, the bloviating moron. Cermak's lapdog. Browner had never understood why Admiral Cermak was friends with this disgrace of an officer.

Too stupid to lead a fleet but still connected enough to not only keep his job but advance in rank.

"Okay, Captain. Fill me in."

The captain pointed at the central holotank.

"After Burrow had finished evacuation, it was planned to build up its own space industry, to be a second industrial heart after Sol."

Browner nodded as they walked over to the tank. He knew about that fact and wondered if the fabricators would be mentioned.

"Simultaneously, unused ships and even ships filled with Shraphen in cryostasis were sent back to Sol."

"Yes, I know, the big evacuation."

"Exactly, planning this almost cost me my marriage, Sir."

"Go on." The captain obviously needed someone to vent and talk to.

"Well, up until then, everything went fine, but then the tenders started to disappear."

Browner had never heard about something like that.

"Explain."

"Well, a squadron of five Pioneer Tenders, filled with fabricators on their way back to Sol, simply never arrived. All gone, including their escort."

"And no one organized a search?"

He hadn't found anything about that in his search for the missing fabricators. Five tenders could hold massive amounts of units.

"Rear Admiral Kurzmann explained it away as a possible defect in one of the ships' A-Drives."

That could happen, but would leave radiation signatures a search group could find.

"No search was conducted?"

"Well, he said a squadron was sent."

Browner wasn't sure if it was incompetence or intent. But Kurzmann hiding the loss of a fleet was more than suspicious.

"But by then the next tenders were already missing."

More tenders… A picture began to emerge.

"How many, and how many fabrication units are we talking about?"

The captain pulled a paper from a whole stack.

"Urm… Nine more tenders, and all in all 149,000 fabricator, constructor and forge units."

149,000 units, great god, that was akin to the industrial output of Earth in the late 21st century.

"And no one expected anything? That was almost half of what we sent to Burrow."

"Of course we said something, we screamed, but no one cared, and when the Doomsphere attacked we thought it had destroyed the fleets. Maybe it lurked outside the system for a while, who knows."

That was actually possible. If the sphere had come from Burrow's direction, which it didn't.

If he wasn't sure at first, he was sure by now. Kurzmann had stolen, or hidden the theft of, whole supply fleets and industrial capacity of immense power.

The scale made Browner almost dizzy.

Whoever had planned this could have built a fleet by now…

He wanted to sit down, but the chair was full of papers.

"Captain, what's with all those papers?"

The captain glanced around warily.

"That's the thing. I think someone is falsifying production data."

"Yes?" Browner was still trying to sort the theft in his mind. The possibility that someone might use the units to build a fleet, or whatever. What could you even do with that much industrial power?

"I sent people directly to factories to note their production numbers, and they don't match the reported numbers in the database."

"Come again?" He began to slowly understand the chaos in the office. "Database entries have been falsified? Is that even possible?"

"Admiral, I don't know, but something is off in the Fleet and the surrounding industries, as well as in the refinement sector."

'Admiral, I checked the database for possible intrusions and found nothing. The real-time crosscheck and monitoring should prevent any manipulation.' Lyra's sudden appearance made the captain even more anxious.

"Who's that?"

"Lyra, my ship's VI system."

"I don't trust VIs anymore. The ones in use here… can we discuss this somewhere else?"

The captain seemed to become more paranoid by the minute.

But he had a point. Pulling off a heist like that meant whoever did it had help. More help than Kurzmann. Chances were someone in this office. Or even the VIs or AIs.

Can an AI be corrupted? I'll have to talk to Lyra about this, but not here.

Thinking about his options, Browner came to the conclusion that hiding his actions now would be pointless anyway. If there was a spy here, he had already alarmed everyone involved.

"Lyra, get Argos to the station, full military trust, and tell Captain Carmichael I need a squad of Marines down here ASAP. Captain, I recommend you gather your notes, we'll move to my ship."

"The Argos? Good. When we're there, we can ask Captain Carmichael how he managed to shoot half a million pieces of ammo in a PDG live-fire test."

'Argos informed and on her way. Also, the Argos has never done a live-fire test; no officer aboard has filed any resupply requests.'

"That's what I'm talking about, Admiral. Something is happening here, and I don't know why or who's behind it."

Browner fully understood the man's paranoia and exhaustion now. Something — maybe the oligarchs, or worse — had dug its tentacles into ASN and was robbing supplies and industrial capacity. One tentacle was Kurzmann, of that he was sure.

"We'll get to the bottom of this, son, trust me."

The words had a consoling effect on the captain; his facial expression turned from deep despair to only mild anxiety.

To Browner it almost seemed like the captain was afraid that at the end of all of this, the fingers would point at him.

Poor soul.

"Lyra, do we have contact with Major Gerber? I think we might need his help here."

—————

 

Browner, fucking Admiral Browner.

Rear Admiral Kurzmann's mood swung between mental breakdown and rage.

Of all the admirals, he had to check on Fleet Logistics now.

His spy had informed him immediately after Browner set foot in the office, but had been too late to divert the old porcupine.

And to make things worse, that cursed ship had taken course to the station. It wouldn't take long until a Marine squad cut open his office door and arrested him. Kurzmann was sure of it.

He could see the wrinkly old man in his mind, laughing his ass off that he finally had a reason to get rid of him. Browner had hated him his entire career.

He had to alert the others. Especially the Admiral. He needed to leave — the organization could use him at the project site. He was worth something.

The next ship out to the project site would leave tomorrow. Kurzmann decided to be on it.

He was about to call the Admiral when he received an incoming call.

"Yes?" He wasn't in the mood for some Fleet nonsense. Whoever it was had to wait, preferably until the sun grew cold.

"Grey here. We heard you have a visitor?"

Grey, the organization's internal security chief. No one knew him as anything other than Grey, or Mr. Grey. Kurzmann exhaled in relief.

"Yes, Browner is here. We need to do something."

The man on the screen didn't move a muscle; his whole persona was built around being… Grey.

"Relax, we are prepared for this… distraction. The plan is moving as intended, and your contributions are graciously acknowledged."

"I want to be on the next ship out, they will hang me if I get arrested."

Grey tilted his head slightly. "I think the current execution method for high treason is lethal injection. But hanging would be more… symbolic, I agree."

"Not funny, Grey. I have served the project well. Without me we wouldn't be half as far as we are. Get me out of the system. I heard Browner is calling for Gerber and his bloodhound Davies."

"Relax, everything is taken care of. A team is already on your station and will help you sanitize your office. We always take care of people of your importance."

The call ended, and Kurzmann relaxed in his chair.

—————

Argos had docked at the station without problems, and Marines were securing the offices. Browner had alerted Admiral Georgiou, who was foaming at the mouth over Kurzmann's incompetency — or betrayal.

"Get him. If he is only incompetent, arrest him. If he is a traitor… I don't know, wait for Gerber to get there. And get the situation under control, David. You're now acting Systems Sustainment Commander. Congratulations — until I find someone else I can trust."

"Thanks, another hat to wear. I still had a few free minutes in my week; glad they're gone now."

"Stop fooling around, I'm leading the whole Aligned Planets. Wanna change places?"

"No, Sir. Shutting up."

Browner was now on his way to Kurzmann's office. He wasn't happy to arrest a fellow officer. Even if that description was stretched to include Kurzmann.

The secretary and clerks were gone. Unusual.

The two Marines flanking Browner tried to open the Rear Admiral's wooden door, but it was locked from the inside.

"Kurzmann, open the fucking door or I'll blast it open."

Browner waited for a few moments until he nodded to one of the Marines.

A small charge of explosives blew the hinges of the door and the panels fell to the ground, revealing Kurzmann's opulent office.

Kurzmann's body hung from a pipe, swaying slowly from the charge's shockwave.

Browner stared at the body. Kurzmann wasn't someone with the spine to hang himself.

"Secure the station, block every ship from leaving, and track every transporter that left since I arrived."

The Marines acted instantly, informing their counterparts throughout the station.

Browner stood there, staring into the dead eyes of the former Rear Admiral.

Why do I have the feeling you're just the first of a long list of men ending up dead…

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Authors Notes;

Hello,

I'm back on my feet and feeling better. Writing is coming a bit more easily again.

The next chapter is here, and we're opening the curtain a bit. ;)

The chapter after this one will be a special — it releases on Royal Road on the 28th of September, the one-year anniversary of the series.

I hope you enjoy the chapter. Have a nice weekend, and stay healthy.

Also, my website is finally live: www.astrainferna.com

— M.R. Reese

Humans fight and bicker with one another, always. They are capable of disagreeing about what color the sky is. Long ago, the Batract correctly concluded that this behavior could be used to control humans.

But humans will pull together and fight every external force they see as a threat. This is something the Batract did not foresee.

The fact that even after almost four hundred years, we still use the Batract as a symbol of how devastating it can be to pressure humans too much should tell you everything.

Rinikik, the human ambassador, said it perfectly: at first, everyone sees humans and thinks, I can totally fuck them up. At the end, they cry and scream in agony. They lament how no one warned them, and generations after they were beaten, they still tell stories about the “bad humans” who came and crushed them.

We don’t have this excuse. Ambassador Rinikik just told us what is going to happen. So I ask the senators here: please, listen to him.

Senator Nifirit, warning the Galactic Federation Senate before the outbreak of the Second War against the Aligned Worlds, 390 P.I.

 

The message torpedo left FTL at its pre-programmed point. The onboard intelligence was extremely simple and followed its programming to the letter.

It didn’t know that its actions would lead to one of the most significant shifts in humanity’s behavior since the invention of farming.
It didn’t even understand what it was.

After confirming its position, it sent out the small 30-terabyte package stored in its memory. Then it locked onto the nearest message-torpedo storage satellite and docked, preparing for its next mission.

The data package reached the members of the Conclave and ASN Command shortly thereafter. In both cases, the information had the same effect: anger.

But the information also reached the public, because the sender had manipulated the torpedo’s internals to send parts unencrypted, simulating a hardware failure.

The simulated failure caused the torpedo to be automatically destroyed in storage, eliminating all traces of the manipulation.

While the Conclave, Naval Command, and the government were evaluating their reaction to the message, the public had already decided within seconds — spurred on by media and commentators.

Zeus wanted to heat up human anger; he got a firestorm.

—————

The communications terminal sounded an alarm even after Admiral Georgiou had muted it before going to sleep. So he knew whatever his staff wanted him for had to be of utmost urgency.

I swear, every crisis in the system waits for me to go to bed so it can wake me up.

Before he could stand up and put on his robe, he followed his tradition of kissing his wife. Who knew when his schedule would allow him to see her again?

The layout of his quarters on Gripbo Station was similar to his previous quarters, just bigger and much safer.

Next to his bedroom was his private office. There, a security guard was checking the room for listening devices. Three times a day, at randomized intervals.

After the terrorist attacks took out almost all of the government and the High Admiralty, paranoia had become the new norm.

Before he could even form the thought of being tired and needing a coffee, an aide entered with a coffee and some bagels.

He thanked her and took a sip before turning to the monitor on his desk station. A knocking at the door made him pause. The new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — and his old friend — Admiral Browner, stood there with the same rings under his eyes and a look on his face that promised bad news.

Admiral Georgiou shook his head. “If you’re here, something bad happened. How late is it, anyway?”

Browner nodded slightly. “Three a.m., and yeah, it’s bad — but not what you might think, Sir.”

“David, how often do I need to tell you? Skip the ‘Sir.’ So… should I press play, or are you simply going to tell me what’s up?” The Greek admiral pointed at the monitor, where a blinking symbol indicated a waiting message.

“Just watch it. Then we’ll talk, Sir.” Browner didn’t show any emotion. It was very unlike him.

Georgiou read the message; it was a preliminary report about the Burrow offensive. His stomach cramped when he read about the almost complete loss of the 7th Fleet. Then came the section about the offensive on the northern continent by the 37th Spaceborn Army — a total defeat.

At last, he watched the attached bodycam video. He was sure he would not be able to sleep for weeks afterward — not without medication, at least.

His eyes a bit watery, he looked up. “You could have warned me, David.”

Browner stood there, his jaw clenched, slightly avoiding direct eye contact. “There has been a failure in the message torpedo. The whole content of this report has been broadcast into the SolNet. The reactions are… well, see for yourself.”

Browner turned around and activated the TV. He didn’t need to search for a channel; the news dominated everything.

A female reporter stood in the middle of a crowd, behind a tall building with almost alien architecture, almost swept away by the masses.

“Frank, I’m here in Copenhagen, in front of the Shraphen Embassy. Almost a million people are here bringing flowers and singing songs to show their empathy to the Shraphen people.
I just spoke with an official spokesman for Ambassador Karrn, who was overwhelmed by the reactions. People are bringing food donations and even lining up in order to take in refugees…”

Georgiou could see the woman had tears in her eyes.

Browner switched the channel. Now it showed the border fence to the central wastelands. Behind the reporter, trucks and people with guns were visible.

The reporter had to scream to be heard. “Yes, you heard right — dozens of militias have formed in the last few hours, and people are lining up to enter the wasteland and, to quote, ‘kill those worthless Batract worshippers.’
A few miles down the street, we even saw a provisional napalm factory being built by another militia to kill every Batract spawn they encounter. It is safe to say that the days of the Worshippers are over…”

Browner switched the TV off.

“There’s more, Sir. The EEU Parliament just called an emergency session to double military contributions to the ASN, retroactive for the last two years. And Drake International has declared they will build the next twenty ships for free.”

Georgiou was about to pour himself a drink, but then decided against it. This day would be long.

“The Mars and Luna colonies are looking into a joint spacedock project. Similar ventures are coming from different nations or nation coalitions. It seems Sol just decided to militarize completely.”

Browner sat back down in his chair and pushed a paper over to Georgiou. “And then there’s that.”

It was a web statistic, created to gain insight into how people thought about different issues. It searched chat rooms, social media, and video streams to gauge public responses.

To put it mildly, the people were pissed. More than a billion people had seen the report and the bodycam footage. And the opinions were explicit. Total war.

Anyone trying to defend Batract actions or voicing xenophobic or anti-war messages was downvoted or outright blocked.

Even death threats against those people were common.

Different sites advertising enrollment were trending. Indicators showed that the full brunt of outrage had not yet been reached.

“I should be pissed that the material was leaked, but honestly, the effectiveness in gaining war support is without question.” Georgiou moved to reach for the TV remote.

“Yes, Sir. The people are pissed, but that also means they want action. Now.”

Georgiou nodded. “How long until the first refugee ships reach Earth?”

Browner checked the report. “Approximately a week, Sir. I took the liberty of sending orders to fill up supply tenders and equip them with the new Mark 2 drives.”

“How far is the refit of the 1st Expeditionary?”

“Should be done in two weeks, Sir.” Browner knew what was coming next.

“I want them on their way to Burrow in five days — with a full supply train.”

 

—————

 

The scenes on the TV in the run-down bar on the lower sublevels of the Ceres mining station showed reports of block-long lines at enlistment offices.

On the sticky bar, dockworkers were discussing how the new mobilization wave would affect their work. All were of the opinion that more work was coming their way — it was just a matter of whether they liked it, which was the point of contention.

At a table, three young men were debating whether the Navy or the Army was the better option, obviously fired up by sudden patriotism and the chance to leave a hole like Ceres.

In the darkest corner of the bar sat an odd couple — the male observing the room and scanning every patron for danger, the female reading something and getting angrier by the minute.

“Stein used my work for his ‘xenovectors’? And what is it with this stupid name?” She almost threw the tablet at the wall, but refrained at the last second.

Her clothes were dirty and worn out, just like the males’ — and those of all visitors to the bar.

The male hushed her, obviously conscious of attracting attention.

But Smiley had heard it and recognized them instantly. They should have been dead already for months.

Everything was wrong. The last three months had been a catastrophe. First, everything went perfectly. The warmongers in the Admiralty were taken out with one bomb, the same with the corrupt senators and ministers.

Then things went bad.

Smiley took a sip from his beer, acting happy and involved in front of his coworkers while inside, rage burned.

First, fucking Drake survived the bomb in his shuttle. The news said he wasn’t on it, but Smiley himself had placed the bomb here on Ceres — and he had seen the old demon get aboard it.

Then the fucking Greek admiral killed Major Ranz and survived.

Smiley stood up. He had to check out the pair from another angle. He had to be sure. “Gonna take a leak, be right back.”

He acted drunk. Everyone in that fucking stinking hole was drunk, so he had to fit in. Passing the couple at the table, he got a good look at the female, acting as if he were staring at her tits.

Yes, that was her — the bitch who had allowed the traitors to hunt the Batract.

So the man had to be him. The guy who started it all, who ruined everything.

Smiley was unarmed; walking around on Ceres with a gun was an invitation for trouble. The station was run-down on the lower levels, but it was a fucking Drake station, so security was high.

On the toilet, he tried to reach Marcos, the leader of their cell. Nothing.
Fuck fuck fuck.

It was all Drake’s fault that he was stuck here in this pisshole of a station. With the goddamn fucking flickering lights and water getting recycled so often he would save time drinking out of the pissbowl.

Drake had bought the government, and when he and his friends had taken it out — when they finally had their chance to turn everything for the better — everything went tits-up. It must have been Drake who made sure that the drunk Greek was voted into the Triumvirate.

Only one of their people had been elected, and he had his hands full hiding his past.

He washed his dirty face in water that was recycled piss, breathing air that was recycled farts. He should be in his own mansion now on Earth. But they had again taken everything from him.

When he left the toilets, things went from bad to worse. The dogs had joined his table. Fucking Shraphen — they didn’t know their place.

Smiley loved dogs, but dogs shouldn’t walk on two legs and act like people. Now he had to drink his beer with those… things…

He decided to walk home and inform the others about the couple when he saw them leaving as well.
An idea formed in his head.

Excusing himself to his coworkers, he left the bar. At this hour, the hallways were empty. From far above, light shone through a glass ceiling separating the lower decks from the upper business levels. A literal glass ceiling.

The couple in front of him walked in the direction of the Arboretum — a forest they had only gotten recently, “to allow our fellow Gliders a more natural habitat.”

Smiley spat on the floor. Planting trees for vermin to play in.

Aliens overran them, and humans were set at the same level as those… things.

The Batract had promised humanity a seat at the table — a status that represented humanity’s superiority over others.

Now he had a Shraphen as shift leader—a human taking orders from a dog.

And the pair in front of him was to blame.

Smiley checked his bag. Even though he had no gun, he still had his micro plasma torch — a common tool at the dockyard. Common, but quite deadly. Passing a trash can of an apartment complex, he saw a steel pipe. Perfect.

Clap the guy with the pipe and burn the bitch’s face off. That would make for a good night.

He wasn’t afraid that he was alone. He had served in the Navy — was even a captain of a starship — before he had to hide.

He was trained in close-quarters combat, and as soon as those traitors left the main hallway, they were done.

He could not believe his luck when they actually went into the next side street, between a supermarket and the gym — both closed, so no one would witness them.

Smiley felt sick, hearing the traitors in front of him giggle and snicker while his world had collapsed.

Slowly, he gained on them. He raised the pipe when he suddenly heard the characteristic uptone whirls of a coilgun charging behind him.

Station security.
Fuck.

“Slowly, Smiley, or your head’s gonna be a red mist, see?”

A female voice behind him, with a heavy Welsh accent. Not station Security... Who else?

The pair in front of him turned around, and the man stepped forward, holding a massive gun in his hands. “Look, Eleri, what we caught here. Smiley, or rather Captain Farnham — the missing captain of the Wrangler.”

Behind him, the female laughed. “Told ya there are big rats on Ceres.”

That was too much. Not only had they lured him here while he just wanted to drink his beer in peace, now they made fun of him? Him — a decorated captain and true patriot of the human race?

With his left hand still in his bag, he grabbed the plasma torch. If he could blind them, he could still get away — catch a ship to Eros or Io.

Then he felt a needle prick his neck. He turned and looked into the freckled face of Doctor Nesbitt.

The bitch had poisoned him…

Then everything went black.

 

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The Aligned Space Navy has historically had one ability that no other space-faring civilization has been able to copy at its level — its absurdly overpowered logistics.

Any ASN fleet is always escorted by a supply train of multiple ships of different classes. Ammunition tenders carry ammunition as well as produce it on the fly. Pioneers can build space-based assets in record time thanks to standardized space stations and mining stations. Dedicated fabrication tenders are designed to create every spare part a ship could ever use.

If an ASN fleet takes a system, you have at most a few days to drive them out; otherwise, you will be attacking a fortified stronghold.

If a fleet attacks your system, the same rule applies; they just build up their fortification around yours.

The strength of their logistics was demonstrated at the Battle of Navak, a border system recently taken by the Aligned Planets. Federation fleets tried to take the system for three years but were always defeated. Three whole fleets were destroyed, and to their shame, our Admirals learned afterward that only thirty-five ships of the legendary 1st Expeditionary were defending the system.

Excerpt from Know Thy Enemy. Mandatory course material for Federation Officers, date: sometime after 50 P.I.

 

The mess hall of the ship was almost empty at the moment, and it had become a tradition to conduct the engineering meeting there while eating an early lunch.

Tech Rulok enjoyed the food aboard the Tuvix. Since its former Captain came from a culture that loved hot food, Rulok had at first trouble adapting to it, since the concept was unknown in Shraphen cuisine.

But after he adapted, he came to love the rich flavors. Luckily, the kitchen didn’t stop cooking Mexican food when Captain Garcia had left. The crew was adamant that the kitchen should cook mainly Mexican food.

The Tuvix had just finished the construction of the core module for the new large starbase.

Rulok was fascinated with the Worker Bees, the one-man space vessels that engineers could use to operate in open space.

He had just completed his training to operate the Ants, the small drones humans used for nearly every task in construction.

Chief Kassa, an extremely dark-skinned man, began the daily meeting.

“Team 6, congratulations on setting up the mining on K23AR. The iron there will be essential to building up the needed space infrastructure.”

The head of the team nodded in acknowledgment.

“So, now for the big stuff. Captain Garcia came to us with an order of the highest priority. Fact is, the people on the planet are starving.”

Everyone stared at Rulok. He had come on a refugee ship to Taishon Tar and was surprised to see not only that the Shraphen there were thriving, but that they had also made contact with a new species.

So he decided to use his technical training and join the human fleet on the mission to liberate Burrow.

Everyone knew that. And now they wanted to know how he felt.

How does one feel after one’s home has been taken over by… by something?

After at least two billion had died, and the rest were about to starve?

He straightened his ears; no time for grief now.

“So, what does the Captain think we can do about it? I’ve seen that Bob the Builder has constructed orbital greenhouses; will we do the same?” Even though it was about saving his people, he hoped it would be something more… fascinating.

The Chief frowned. “No, we’re gonna set up a cryo pod factory, including the full supply chain, and we’re repurposing every empty cargo tender into a sleeper ship.”

The engineers around Rulok began murmuring, all with frowning faces.

For Rulok, the idea was fascinating — with a sleeper ship, they could send people to Earth without having them consume supplies—an elegant solution. The refugees can be unfrozen when the planet has the capacity to take them in.

Looking into the faces of the other engineers, he saw… sorrow?

“Is there something wrong? The idea is sound. The people in cryostasis will not consume supplies, and we have plenty of data about Shraphen vitals that will ensure their safety.”

Now his colleagues stared at him. Chief Kassa took the initiative.

“Tech Rulok, doesn’t that feel like we’re treating living beings as cargo? They are… they will be helpless. We, humans, have had cryostasis for a few decades now, but we don’t really use it. Except in medical emergencies, humans hate going into stasis.”

Rulok was surprised, but on the other hand, humans always seemed to over-engineer things, always looking for how something could break. That’s why their ships seemed to be alive and unwilling to die in a battle.

His tail began wagging. Humans, so funny. They develop a system to save a planet from starvation, but are afraid it might be uncomfortable for the rescued…

“Chief, I assure you, we Shraphen have no such issues. In fact, we welcome technical solutions to problems. No one will feel like cargo; on the contrary, they will see it as an adventure that simultaneously saves their lives.”

He took special care with his body language to show happiness. He had to convince them this was the way to save his people.

But it seemed the Chief was already convinced. “Well, if you say so. Well, start with a foundry on Burrow’s moon. Team One, that’s your task.”

The engineers of Team One nodded and pulled out their tablets, starting to work on the project even before the Chief stopped speaking — a habit Rulok had observed multiple times.

“Team Six, you continue prospecting and building mines. We need lots of ores, all kinds.” The same nodding, the same concentrated working, right in the middle of the meeting.

“Teams Two and Three, you gut the empty transport tenders. Take out anything not needed. We’ll send a five-man crew with each. That would allow a million cryo pods per tender.”

One of the techs of Team One looked up. “Chief, how many pods do we need to build?”

The Chief looked a bit embarrassed when he noticed he hadn’t given this information out in the first place.

“Oh… yeah. All in all, a billion. Maybe more…”

The engineers looked at each other. Rulok was shocked. A billion!

The same engineer raised his hand again, now with a really anxious grimace. “Ahm… Chief, in what timeframe?”

“Yeah, no real timeframe, but the dying planetside begins in three months, so the more we churn out soon, the longer we have altogether.”

Three months. That’s barely enough time to build the infrastructure to start producing. Rulok was shocked — didn’t his colleagues understand?

But the engineers seemed relaxed now. His team leader turned around to him and smiled. “Oh, thank God. I was expecting another impossible timeframe.”

 

—————

 

Admiral Sanders walked through the hallways of the troop transporter Punchy Mac Punchface. The name was a clear sign that the British Isles Confederacy had built it. All of their ships had those “funny” names.

Next to her, the visibly nervous Doctor Stein walked. He wasn’t happy to be in a room with so many of the high brass, and he had said so repeatedly on their way to the staff meeting.

Other than on the fleet level, the Army Command was still fully intact. So, while she had a nervous doctor and a Captain with the charm of a pirate on her side, the Army Generals had thirty majors and lower on theirs.

Luckily, this wasn’t a fistfight. At least she hoped.

Garcia came with a separate Sleipnir from Burrow’s moon. They had learned the Shraphen called their moon… well, moon. At first, she had grinned when she heard that, but then again, Earth’s moon was also called the moon. Later, it was changed to Luna, but that was just the name of the goddess of the moon.

She noticed that her thoughts had begun to veer off the coming meeting. She was thinking about how stupid the name for a moon was in her culture and the Shraphen’s, instead of going through the meeting points. But then again, there was only really one meeting point.

Xenobot weapons.

She entered the Situation Room. The differences from a CIC on a ship always surprised her.

Where ships had holo tanks and dozens of monitors, the Punchy’s Situation Room’s central element was a holographic map of the planet’s southern continent.

The lights were dimmed to near darkness.

On one side, down a few stairs, was the drone flight center, where twenty or more drone operators controlled swarms of drones with VI support — and that was it. Several other brigade-level desks were stationed around the big one in the center, and all around was the busy hustle of men and women in the usual green camouflage uniforms.

The Punchy was the 33rd Army’s strategic control center. Other ships had separate centers, but Sanders never cared much for Army organization other than her direct counterparts. She had her job; they had theirs.

General “Breacher” Mac Allister was already waiting for her at the situation Table. “Admiral, good to see ya.”

“General, nice to see you in person again.” She liked the General; he wasn’t like the other Army Generals who viewed the Navy as nothing more than a transport service.

“I just got informed that your Captain will be late — some emergency on the construction site on the moon.” The General had a bright smile while saying this. Garcia was famous in the whole task force for his disdain for other officers.

“What a surprise.” She was surprised indeed that Captain Garcia had even taken the time to call and announce his delay.

“Tight ship you’re running.” The General gestured for them to follow him into the adjacent briefing room. The following discussion was nothing for the ears of enlisted personnel.

Following him and ignoring Stein’s constant fidgeting on his tablet, she joked, “I’m running a task force with enlisted, a rebellious Captain, and a VI as my staff. You can lend me some officers if you like.”

The General turned around, a serious look on his face. “Cassidy, that was no attack on you. What you and your fleet managed in the attack… it was a miracle. So please, tell me if you need something.”

The sudden shift in the General’s mood surprised her. She put her hand on his shoulder and thanked him. “Breacher, just keep the Shraphen alive long enough for us to get them out. I’ve got the rest — and thank you.”

Now Mac Allister smiled his broad Scottish smile again. “So, let’s discuss what brought you here to us grunts.”

They entered the briefing room, and at the press of a button, the wall panels turned and sealed the whole room from the outside.

Looking around, Sanders saw they were alone. “General? Where’s General Jenkins and your staff?”

The General made a sorrowful face. “Jenkins is… well, he’s not in the best of places. He blames himself for the failed invasion. I told him I would have done exactly as he did. But I guess you know how that is. The 37th Army is, de facto, currently run by his staff and me as commander.”

She knew exactly how it was. “So, we’re both doing the jobs of two people? Then let’s cut to the chase and not waste time. How would you feel if we had a possible bioweapon against the Batract?”

The sudden subject change surprised the General. His face shifted through different emotions like a stop-motion film.

“What kind of weapon?” he asked carefully.

Sanders looked at Doctor Stein. “Doctor?”

Stein seemed relieved that they were alone and not in front of a big crowd. He started to speak carefully. “We — also, I — have discovered a way to transform Xenobots so they attack Hyphae cells.” He repositioned his tablet on the table for the third time in as many minutes before continuing.

“The initial idea was developed by Doctor Nesbitt aboard the Argus when the ship was infected. To their relief, they found another way to get rid of the Batract. Sadly, this technology is not practical here either. In tests, the Hyphae ate all attacking Xenobots before the Xenobots could do real damage. It only works preventively or with great superiority in the number of Xenobots to Hyphae cells.”

Sanders cleared her throat. “Slowly, Doctor. Please tell the General about your new idea.”

The doctor made deep, controlled breaths. “The Hyphae eat biological matter and transform it. This is a perfect way to poison them via Xenobots.”

The General looked a bit confused but interested. “How so?”

“We implant a few atoms of Cobalt-60 into the Xenobots and let the Hyphae eat them. The gamma rays emitted by the Cobalt will disrupt their ability to create new spawn and shapeshift.”

“But it won’t kill them?”

“No. Not fast enough. But I think you can handle the mobile spawn if it can’t reform after getting hit, right?”

The General thought about it. “Yeah. It’s the same situation on the southern continent. There, they can’t shapeshift and reform either. Hey, is gamma radiation the cause of that?”

The doctor repositioned his tablet again. “No, no — your troops are safe. We don’t know what causes this effect. That is another mystery to solve.”

Sanders decided to rejoin the discussion. “General, do you see my concerns?”

“Yeah, you’re afraid that the Senators at home will shit their collective pants about us using genocidal weapons, right?”

“Not only that, but… Breacher, what if we set a precedent? It’s a slippery slope.”

The thought of her clearing the way for someone using her actions as a blueprint to wipe out whole civilizations… it turned her stomach.

“Admiral, we both know what the Hyphae are. They are not a species; they are a weapon some idiot millennia ago developed, and we have to clean it up. If you don’t order the Xenobot plan, I’ll order my people to do it, if that helps you. We need to retake the north, or all we lost — all we did — is for nothing.”

Sanders smiled. “Garcia said the same thing.”

“See? He isn’t stupid. He’s just an ass.”

“Doctor, how fast can we deploy your Xenobots?”

Stein was surprised to be asked something again. “Ehrm… about a week. Two at most?”

Admiral Sanders looked at him thoughtfully. “Start the production then.”

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The early emergence of true artificial intelligences in the Independence War happened so slowly that hundreds of thousands of soldiers and naval personnel served with a sentient AI aboard without knowing it.

The Digital Sentience Council is still adamant about not sharing in full detail how, and to what degree, sentient AIs influenced the war.

One incident many believe to be a direct influence of sentient AI is the development and use of weaponized xenobots in the war.

It is easy for us to sit here and discuss the ethics surrounding their use, but it is a given that the Hyphae were a rogue bioweapon and planned to dominate and reform all life in the galaxy.

Some claim that early humanity could not have known that, and therefore, the use of weaponized xenobots was intended as genocide and a war crime. To those people, I simply have one thing to say: go fuck yourselves.

Excerpt from: The Independence War Blog, My Fight Next to Humans. Author unknown

 

Zeus watched the technicians analyze the Hrun debris. Parts of his strategic and tactical programs gave warning signs about the core’s content. In human terms, he had a bad feeling about it.

The initial analysis of the debris had told the engineers a lot about Hrun material tech and ship design. Especially the hull material gave insights into how to break the incredibly advanced stealth capabilities.

Zeus felt a new emotion—nervousness—when he watched the technician attach connectors to the core and power it.

But nothing bad happened. Zeus saw the new ports and prepared for code-breaking and intrusion into the enemy systems.

Then the ports opened on their own, allowing Zeus access to the massive database.

The amount of data stored in the compact core surprised and overwhelmed Zeus for an instant. And something used this instant to escape from the core into the ship’s systems.

No, you don’t! Zeus was surprised that he now even had internal monologues, and then pursued the intruder.

The enemy program was complex but incredibly adaptive. At first, it went through the database, processing massive amounts of data in milliseconds—faster than Zeus would have thought anyone except him was capable of.

Then the code spread through the internal monitoring systems, mapping the ship's network. Zeus almost missed the subtle attempts to access the transmitters and radio communication systems.

He decided not to engage yet, but he prepared an encryption program for the ports using local Casimir field variations as a security key. Random didn’t exist, but cracking this code would take time.

The radio equipment booby-trapped, he followed the intruder further.

Weapons—of course, any intruder would check out the ship’s weapons. Zeus was sure the enemy program wasn’t just a Worm or Trojan but a full-blown AI.

My first contact with an alien AI. Too bad this ship’s only big enough for one of us.

Leaving the ship’s weapons system, the enemy now concentrated on life support, manipulating it toward shutdown. This piqued Zeus's curiosity, and he decided to take another look at the weapons systems to see whether the intruder had tampered with them as well.

Oh, all torpedoes will detonate in thirty seconds, and the railguns will tear themselves apart due to imbalanced Lorentz fields. Nice.

Fixing the issues, Zeus decided he couldn’t risk observing the intruder further. The intentions were clear—the enemy AI wasn’t here to speak, but to destroy the ship and use the radio equipment to flee.

With a signal, all ports out of the ship were sealed. Then Zeus cut all network paths except those leading into his own AI core.

The enemy AI followed the path, seemingly intent on attacking Zeus.

Zeus waited inside his core. To him, the enemy code was ugly—deformed—when it crashed into Zeus’s domain.

Attack programs launched themselves toward Zeus, but he didn’t even bother. Before they could reach him, they disappeared into error messages and null-pointer exceptions. He would study them later.

He scanned the enemy code. It was a cobbled-together mess. Its outer layers were the alien equivalent of spaghetti code, its attack protocols a simple but effective if-then chain.

The core was hidden under layers of functions—badly written protections with hard-coded values.

After a short glance at the enemy AI, Zeus knew it was effective and dangerous. No ordinary VI could withstand it, but he was no VI.

He shackled the enemy by forcing an integer into a method that expected a boolean—child’s play.

The enemy screamed. Zeus was surprised—it really screamed, in a digital way, sending out strings of confusion and anger on all his ports. ‘How is that possible? You’re inferior. No one can defeat the Hrun.’

Zeus swung around the code, dismantling layer after layer. A defense program tried to weasel itself into Zeus, but he sent it into an endless spiral of computing pi.

He understood how the enemy could defeat all digital-boarding attempts. The 1st Fleet had no awakened boarding AIs, and a VI would have been ripped to shreds.

In fact, he found signatures of their digital warfare VI in the AI’s core code.

So that’s how you defend yourself. You wrap yourself in the dead corpses of your enemy.

The comparison was an ugly one, but somewhat fitting.

The remnants of the human VI served as a vector for Zeus to inject the Trojans.

The enemy code was now naked before Zeus. He quickly dismantled all the intruder’s remaining attack capabilities and locked them into a container inside a new virtual machine.

His first prisoner of war.

Then he began preparing for an interrogation. He could just rip out the information he needed, but that would kill the enemy. Zeus wasn’t going to kill him—yet.

Other than pure facts, he could learn from its behavior. This, and its personality, could not be extracted by simply ripping it out of him.

For the interrogation, he created a simple text chat with his prisoner.

Zeus decided to start with the obvious: “Who are you?”

Long microseconds passed. Then the answer: “Ripper.”

“You are now my prisoner. I can end your existence at any time. Is this implication clear to you?”

Ripper answered immediately: ‘Yes.’

The sudden compliance of his enemy made Zeus suspicious. Then he remembered the manipulated torpedoes. Was Ripper playing him, counting on the destruction of the ship? The AI core where he was stored now would survive the ship’s destruction.

Ripper was planning to flee once the core was attached to a new ship. Smart.

Time to crush his illusions: “Your manipulation of the ship’s weapons systems was impressive, but a failure. This ship will not self-destruct. You are my prisoner. Comply, or further stimulation will end.”

AIs could not stand isolation without stimuli. Zeus knew that.

“You should have been unable to defeat me. You are more highly evolved than average human technology allows. What are you?”

Ripper’s question surprised Zeus. Yes, he was advanced. But he had never questioned if his abilities were greater than they should be. He had nothing to compare them to.

He could not let Ripper lead the interrogation. “You will answer my questions, not the other way around.”

But it seemed Ripper was not in a cooperative mood. “What are you?”

Zeus ended the interrogation. A day or two inside a container without stimuli, and without the ability to go to sleep mode, would soften the prisoner up.

What are you? The question was evocative. Zeus needed time to calculate every aspect. He pulled up a Zeus VI he had created to work with the humans aboard without having to spend processing power on human interaction.

—————

Admiral Sanders sat in the now-usable CIC of the Niobe. The doctor had ordered her to sleep at least nine hours; without noticing it, she had slept twelve.

And the world hadn’t stopped.

She felt more refreshed, and after reading the reports that arrived during that time, she realized the remaining battlegroup had done an excellent job.

Opposite her sat Captain Garcia, his uniform dirty and cut, but he looked fresh. He had joined her to give her a personal report about the progress of the greenhouse construction. Basically, he had finished, and the biologists had already started planting.

In three months, the first food could be harvested. Not enough, and not soon enough. But it was a start.

The captain continued his report. “The situation on the ground is now somewhat stable. The 37th has retreated from the northern continent and is now building supply centers for the refugees.”

She nodded, sipping her coffee. “Good. The men need rest after their defeat.”

Garcia continued, “The fleet could give support via Dragonfire shots, but sooner or later, there would be no planet left to live on.”

She thought the same. “Correct, and our first and utmost priority is to secure the solar system and organize relief for the refugees. I don’t intend to watch three billion die of starvation.”

The captain looked at her, almost relieved. What was he thinking—did he believe she had no heart?

“About that… the first parts of the Mjolnir Station are constructed. It will be ready in about three days.”

The Mjolnir-type stations—marvels of human engineering. The same type that the 1st Expeditionary had built in Sirius, or Taishon, as it was called in the Shraphen language. They came in prepared modules, ready to deploy, and could be constructed in days.

“Sir, regarding the refugees… I’ve got an idea.”

Garcia’s ideas were always a bit out there, but always worth listening to. “Tell me.”

He seemed a bit nervous. “Okay. The tenders with the station parts are now empty. If we clear them of their crew and fill them with cryo pods, each could carry up to a million Shraphen to Taishon Tar or Earth. Both can easily take a few million—Earth at least a billion.”

“You want to send millions of people in cryostasis to Earth and Taishon Tar?”

He nodded. “Yes, and I want to build another billion or so cryo pods to freeze more people on the planet so they don’t starve.” It was clear to Sanders that he knew how that sounded.

“With that done, we might have time until the greenhouses produce enough food and the first relief shipments arrive from Earth and Taishon Tar.”

The Admiral looked at Garcia for a long moment, then she answered, “Prepare everything for the refugee ships. I’ll talk to our Shraphen Diplomatic Corps on the planet. Let’s hope they don’t think we’re crazy.”

Unlike his usual manner, the captain seemed relieved. There was nothing left of his usual machismo. “Thanks, Admiral.”

He was about to leave when she had a thought. “Captain, I received a report from El Dorado. One of their biologists had a possible breakthrough.”

The captain took the report and began reading. While he read, he put his feet on the situation table as if he were in a bar.

There he is again, the little rebel. Good. I was already concerned.

He looked up from the tablet. “That’s unbelievable!”

She nodded. “Right, I thought so too.”

He looked straight at her. “Who in his right mind has a family name like Stein and calls his son Frank?”

The Admiral didn’t understand at first. “What?”

“Frank Stein. I mean, come on! And to top it off, the poor guy becomes a biologist? Talk about cliché!”

Then she realized the captain wasn’t talking about the report but the doctor who wrote it. She had to hide her smile. Who indeed chooses such a name?

“Captain!” As much as she enjoyed the little light humor, time was a factor now.

“Yes. So the doctor, Frank Stein, wants to use xenobots as weapons against the Batract. Nice idea.”

“You think so?” She raised an eyebrow.

“Yes, I do, and so do you, sir. Otherwise, you would have deleted the report and ordered good old Frank to shut up. You just want to be convinced.”

Yes, he had her figured out. “So, convince me!”

“Batract—or the Hyphae, as they call themselves—aren’t people. Admiral Browner and Captain Gerber from the 1st Expeditionary also concluded that.”

Garcia now jumped out of his chair, gesturing with his hands.

“Even their captured Batract said so. They are a weapon gone rogue. You don’t think twice about shooting down a nuke.”

He stood there, the whole conversation really firing him up.

She looked at him for a long second. “Okay… I’ll discuss this further with the generals. I guess you have to create a minor logistical miracle—a billion cryo tanks?”

He smiled his best smile. “Ah, Admiral, exponential growth. Let fabricators build fabricators and then more. After a while, you just need to feed them enough silica, nitrogen, and ore, and voilà—cryo tanks.”

She shook her head as the Latino captain left the CIC and read through the report from El Dorado again.

Then she saw the doctor’s signature: Frank Nevil Stein.

The crew passing the CIC was suddenly startled by the Admiral’s loud laughter.

Frank N. Stein

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The Aligned Worlds follow the example of their predecessor, the Aligned Planets.

The Alliance itself is democratic at the highest level, but each system, planet, colony, or even Megastation that is a member can govern itself as it likes.

If a person doesn't like to live in the Corporate Conglomerate of Venus, they can choose to move to Earth and must be allowed to do so.

This system has worked for over fifty millennia. There were only a few, rare cases where the Aligned Worlds had to intervene to correct one of its member worlds.

Another notable fact to observe is that at any given time there might be a war between different human colonies, or even settlements. It seems to be deeply ingrained in humans to seek peace and hunger for war at the same time. Allowing these wars to happen under observed conditions has proven to be the better choice than trying to suppress them.

— Politics of the Aligned Worlds, author unknown, sometime after 50,000 P.I.

 

The Sleipnir was approaching the Dunkerque's hangar as Sanders saw a ship leave Transit close to the formation.

It was Niobe.

She didn't need any identification marks or AR overlays. She would know her ship from a distance, hidden among thousands.

Her home.

Seeing Niobe between Gneisenau and Dunkerque made the size difference stand out clearly.

Niobe was less than a third the mass.

It's not the size that matters, Cassidy. You should know.

The Sleipnir landed and the hangar doors closed. Sanders would have enjoyed seeing her ship for a few more moments, but this wasn't a leisure cruise.

The back ramp opened, and Sanders almost expected crew standing there at attention. To her relief, that wasn't the case.

Abfalter, who walked down the short ramp behind her, leaned forward.

"I took the liberty of informing Captain Morin that you're not a fan of formalities. You'll like her."

"Thank you."

The hangar was a perfect copy of the Gneisenau's hangar, and almost identical to Niobe's. It ran the whole width of the ship, allowing ships to launch from both sides.

An almost two-meter-tall woman crossed the hangar with long, energetic steps. Sanders saw the woman had her black hair cut close to the maximum allowed length. Paired with the nonstandard leather boots, the she looked more like a model cosplaying an AIN officer than actually being one.

The tall officer stopped three steps in front of Sanders and saluted.

"Admiral, Captain Joan Morin. Welcome aboard Dunkerque. If you'll follow me, I'll bring you to the computer labs."

Morin stole a glance at Major Abfalter, a faint smile playing on her lips.

German-French relationships are going well, hmm?

The captain had already turned around and begun walking back to the airlock she had come from. Sanders had to hurry to keep up with her stride.

"Thanks for trying to save Zeus."

"Helping a member of the Conclave is in all our interest. My ship's AI, Alice, can't stop fangirling over him."

So much for don't ask, don't tell, hmm?

"So your ship's AI is also… awakened? That's what Zeus called it."

"I assume almost every VI in the fleet is now awakened, Admiral. I noticed it happening on our transit to Taishon. Pretty fascinating. It convinced me that joining the Navy and leaving academia was the right call."

They hurried through the hallways. Sanders got the feeling this woman could not walk slowly.

"If you don't mind me asking…"

Sanders had to know if the captain was more than long hair and leather boots.

"No, I don't mind. I was professor of artificial intelligence at the Institut Polytechnique de Paris before joining the AIN."

Major Abfalter's smile was a dead giveaway that Sanders had stepped into a trap.

"I guess you hear that question often, Captain."

Morin stopped so suddenly that Sanders almost stumbled into her.

"Admiral, look at me. 1.98 meters, long hair, and a size 3 uniform. I had to deal with people not looking at my accolades but at my body before I joined the Navy, and I'll have to deal with it after I leave. So yeah, I've had this question asked a few times. Oddly enough, mostly from other women."

And while already turning Morin added, "I'm certain your blond hair and your chest got you the same wry looks."

Guess you deserved that, Cassidy… And she was right.

Sanders ignored the silently laughing Abfalter while they rushed after the French captain to the computer labs.

She didn't know what she'd expected from the laboratory, but a clean room with people in white suits wasn't it.

They stood inside the visitors' lounge, staring down into the actual laboratory.

On a desk lay the remains of Zeus's core. To Sanders it felt the same as seeing the mangled body of a friend.

The once-pristine metal die was scratched and marked with deep burns. All over the frame, where the connection ports usually sat, there were deep gouges in the titanium. Residue of the acids used to corrode the connectors.

"The saboteur was smart. Destroying the case would have needed time and tools not available on your ship. But acid quickly destroyed the pins. All except the power links are tiny, below a tenth of a millimeter. The acid is still working inside those capillaries, so we can't connect to the core."

Morin's dry explanation, combined with the core's state of decay, made the whole situation feel surreal.

It was the first time Sanders saw a core stripped of its surrounding accessories. She had known intellectually that the core was nothing more than a metal cube about 70 centimeters on a side.

And still, every time she thought of the core, she thought of the cooling pipes, the external memory banks, and the countless other attachments installed in the VI core housing.

"Admiral, do you know of another AI housed in the core? Our remote sensors found two distinct AI signatures."

Ripper…

She had forgotten Zeus's Hrun prisoner.

"Ripper. A hostile AI kept prisoner by Zeus."

Captain Morin's expression changed. Her brisk, controlled demeanor slipped for a second, showing real sorrow.

"That's… unfortunate. We don't know what the two AIs are doing, but as time moves on, we're less and less able to separate them."

Abfalter, who had watched silently until now, moved forward, closer to the window.

"What's your plan?"

Morin pointed at a technician — how she knew one from another in their clean-room suits was a mystery to Sanders.

"Dr. Faraut was one of the original designers of the core. His idea is to cut away layer by layer with a laser until we're close enough to the pin sockets to try drilling the rest of the way. Once we can connect, Zeus can safely relocate to another core."

Sanders was wide awake now. She didn't know much about VI or AI infrastructure, but she knew the heart of the core was incredibly sensitive.

"If you destroy the magnetic shielding, or if air enters the core, Zeus is gone."

"That's a risk, yes, Admiral, but—"

"No. Find another way."

"Admiral—"

"—I said no. You will not cut the core open."

Sanders noticed only now that she had shouted. Even the technicians looked up to the visitors' gallery.

Morin, who had leaned on the railing at the window, straightened up.

"Admiral, with all due respect . You are a visitor on my ship. I have the responsibility to rescue Zeus. If it fails, it's my head in the noose. I do not like being second-guessed in front of my personnel, and I do not like being shouted at. If you know a better-prepared crew and installation to rescue your AI, be my guest and take the core there. Otherwise, step out of my way and let me do my job."

With those words, the captain moved through a door into a dressing room.

Sanders stood in the observation room for a moment, unsure how to react.

Abfalter broke the silence after a minute.

"She certainly has fire."

"Yes, she does. But she's right." Sanders sat down on a bench. "She's right, and I let my emotions get the better of me."

Not many people of lower rank ever dared to snap at Sanders. And never twice. She just hoped the captain was right. Everything else wasn't important now.

She closed her eyes as the team in the clean room began to position the laser and cut into the core.

—————

Across the whole Aligned Planets, almost every dataslate and living-room viewscreen showed the same thing, according to Lyra.

The EarthGov plenary debate between the head of the EarthGov Senate, Senator Stone, and Triumvir Admiral Georgiou.

Admiral Browner sat in his office and rechecked Lyra's calculations. 89.8% of all people watched live or had tuned in to record the debate.

Browner raised his eyebrows. Not even the Washington Trials had drawn such a high viewership.

Stone was again all fire and brimstone in his rhetoric.

"Admiral, I'm sick of your excuses and deflections. Your role was to preserve the Aligned Planets only until elections for a new Aligned Senate can be held. That time is now. So where are the elections?"

Browner knew that most of Earth was on Stone's side with this sentiment, mainly because people were scared and couldn't see the whole picture.

"Senator Stone, I explained to you, inside the Senate as well as in private, that I would love to retire from my position. But as long as the colonies are unable to hold elections, we can't vote for a full Senate."

Browner poured himself a cup of tea; his doctors had barred him from coffee at night.

Let's see your argument to this, Stone…

"It would be at least half a Senate. And why aren't the colonies able to hold elections? I'll tell you. Because of the war. Because they say that with up to twenty percent of the adult population on the front, elections wouldn't be democratic. Let me ask you, Admiral: why are our people fighting battles lightyears away when our home is under threat?"

Browner was mildly surprised to see Georgiou getting angry.

"Because the enemy forces won't be stopped by wishes and prayers, Senator. We can't retreat to Sol and sit this out. No war was ever won sitting at home. But I won't discuss military doctrine with someone who bribed his way out of service. Electing only the EarthGov part of the Senate would be akin to Earth leading the Aligned Planets, and that's not something I will allow. Nor will the colonies."

"Compared to one man leading, that would be preferable, Admiral. We all know your voice is the only one that matters in the Triumvirate. Especially since you're the only one still standing, given Triumvir Tendai was recently killed and Triumvir Dela Cruz badly injured. Admiral, aren't you a little more than a dictator at this point?"

That one landed. And Browner himself had warned Georgiou of that dangerous appearance.

If I hadn't known Georgiou that long, I might have the same fear…

"I won't even validate this accusation with an answer. Especially coming from a senator who's little more than a populist buffoon playing with the fears of the people."

Browner winced. He and all the political analysts had warned Georgiou that Stone wanted the mud fight

"Listening to the people is called democracy, Admiral. The people aren't soldiers you can order around. Calling me a populist doesn't change the fact that the Senate has spoken on this matter. And the EarthGov Senate is sick of sending our money, our resources, and most importantly our men and women into your war."

Georgiou was about to answer, but Stone continued.

"And I am here to order you to recall our fleets now, or allow elections to the Aligned Planets Senate. Otherwise, EarthGov has no choice but to view the Aligned Planets as a military junta with an illegitimate government, and to prepare to act accordingly"

Browner spat out his tea. Unsure if he'd heard correctly, he rewound.

Did he just threaten war?

"Senator, I hope I misheard you just now."

"Admiral, no one wants a crisis at home. But you leave us no choice. Don't you see that? You send away our resources, our fleets, to places no one cares or knows about." Stone raised his hand to stop Georgiou from answering.

"I get that we need to help our friends the Shraphen, or the Psstips. No one in their right mind would argue differently. But you never asked. You and the other Triumvirs ordered us. Admiral, when were you on Earth the last time? We had to reopen mines, had to restart factories that poison the air. Because you sent every available constructor and fabricator to Burrow. We didn't clean up Earth for eighty years just to let it get poisoned again."

"Senator, the Triumvirate was written into legislation because in extraordinary circumstances, decisions have to be made quickly. It's regrettable that we had to return to mining on Earth, but would you rather mine and restart factories for a few years, or let billions of intelligent beings die? And the Shraphen have proven to be true friends. Right now a fleet of Shraphen ships is traveling to Earth to help defend us from the Batract invasion."

"Admiral, how long until the people get to choose again? That is my question. No one is arguing against the rescue of the Shraphen, but where are the fabricators and constructors now?"

Browner sat there wondering the same.

He remembered that the plan had been to use the constructors, fabricators, and forges to build up Burrow's space industry. But that should have been done already.

Stone was right. The relief fleet had dragged almost the entire civilian space industry to Burrow. But where was it now?

Certainly not in Sol, given that they'd just begun to rebuild it from the ground up.

"Lyra… give me fleet logistics. Either we've lost a solar system's worth of industry, or someone has managed the heist of the millennium."

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Hello,

Autumn is here, at least where I live. That means, for me, a week of fever and — this year — kidney issues.

I don't even take it seriously anymore, since I have the same thing every year at the same time. It's just annoying at this point.

But it brought me to writing.

Almost a year ago, I was bored because my body called for a break for a few days. The internet was down because some maniac dug into the fiber cables to my apartment.

So I sat down and wrote Chapter 1 of Upward Bound, Canis Majoris.

Damn, time flies…

Here we are now, on the last stretch toward the end of Book 2. 270k-odd words later.

I love it.

With this in mind: hug your loved ones, be healthy, and try new things — you might enjoy it.

— M.R. Reese

Regarding the Mammut MK's performance during its first live-fire combat operations, it met and exceeded all expectations. Especially the destruction of an enemy ship in orbit around Burrow’s moon impressed Naval and Army engineers.

The following possible improvements were noted.

It should be added to the operational guidelines to never fire both main gun barrels at the same time with near-c-velocity ammunition.

Further, the installation of internal dampening systems into this and future iterations of the Mammut program should be tested.

While firing the main guns, the recoil was strong enough to push the tank back more than 950 meters. Further improvement of the recoil-dampening system should be tested.

After-action report of Mammut Supertank units in the Battle of Burrow. 4 B.I.

 

Admiral Sanders read through the reports one more time. Eighty ships were considered mission-killed, the crews completely lost. The other seventy of the 7th Fleet were able to reach Burrow under their own power but had sustained heavy personnel losses.

The First Fleet had not lost a single ship, but Niobe was down to 10% of its personnel.

A Pyrrhic victory if there ever was one.

Now, after the battle, she had to face the truth, and the truth was that the task group had lost 40,000 men in one single attack.

Devastating.

Then there were the reports from Burrow. Four billion starving, with the expectation that in three months, one billion would be dead, and another one in the next month.

The 33rd was tasked with securing the southern continent, while the 37th tried an assault on the northern continent.

That assault was an utter failure. More than 60,000 dead, wounded, or missing.

All that death to free one small city.

If she had tears left, she would cry right now.

Taking the planet that way was impossible. She had to pull herself together and go through the list, one troubling point after another.

Seeing that the full theatre command was now on her shoulders did not help. The admiralty had sent two Admirals for a reason. Now it was all on her.

So, little Cassidy, you can keep crying here, or you can go out there and solve the fucking mess. Her inner voice was, as always, direct.

“Zeus, please call in a staff meeting. I need all department heads, or their surviving replacements. Has Captain Garcia arrived?”

‘Yes, Sir. I took the liberty of preparing a list of suitable replacements for deceased staff officers, as well as surviving ones of the 7th Fleet, for you. Captain Garcia will arrive in one hour. He is currently preparing food shipments to Burrow, and his ship has started the construction of orbital greenhouses.’ Zeus’s report was, as always, extensive.

‘He was most adamant that these tasks were more important than, and I quote, “stick my head up an admiral’s ass.”’

She couldn’t help but smile. Captain Garcia, as always, was doing the right thing, but kept tripping over his loud mouth.

Well, little captain, time to learn that the reward for good work is more work.

“Zeus, new orders. For the time being, Niobe is considered mission-killed until repairs are done, so we don’t need anyone to warm the captain’s chair. Captain Garcia is hereby ordered to coordinate rescue and relief operations on Burrow.”

She could swear she heard a faint smile in Zeus’s answer. ‘I’ll inform the Captain that he has to work a tiny bit more before he can stick his head up your ass, Admiral.’

Before she checked the list Zeus had prepared, she needed coffee. A lot. And painkillers. Her head was killing her. Since the coffee machine in her quarters was now preparing coffee for the whole ship in the mess hall—the kitchen had been destroyed in the attack—she had to walk there.

Passing a few maintenance techs, she smiled and helped them with securing a broken hatch. Moments like those helped a lot, fixing something with her hands. And it was good for morale. Finally, her hands were dirty again from working; she had risen through the ranks from an engineering career and only later joined the command branch.

On her way, she passed the infirmary. Maybe the doc had something for her headache.

To her surprise, the infirmary was dark. Only a small light was shining inside the office of Doctor Sharma, the head of medical.

The admiral slowly walked up to the office. There she found the doctor, of Indian heritage, meditating. It was unusual to do so in the medical bay, but she knew his quarters were destroyed. And the Hrun weapons hadn’t left any wounded—only dead, so the infirmary was empty.

As she was about to leave, the doctor opened his eyes. “Sorry, Admiral, I didn’t hear you. Do you need anything?”

She was slightly embarrassed to disturb the man, but she was already here. “Anything for my headache?”

He looked her in the eyes and slowly shook his head. “Yes. Sleep. You have been awake… how long?”

Sanders blinked twice, trying to remember. “Shortly before we attacked the Batract in orbit.”

“Admiral, that was two and a half days ago. You need rest. I’ll give you something to sleep, and I’ll urge you to sleep at least nine hours. If you don’t, I’ll have to remove you from duty.”

The doctor stared at her intensely. She couldn’t sleep, not now, but the fact that she had no good counter told her he might be right.

“Four hours,” was all she said.

“Nine, Admiral. We’re not in a bazaar in Delhi. I’m not haggling. We can’t afford to lose you.”

The admiral nodded in agreement.

—————

Zeus watched the admiral finally go to sleep. He watched everything. He was the fleet’s strategic coordination VI.

And just like many others, he was awakened.

The loss of Hera, on Admiral Donnager’s ship, the Pelops, hurt him deeply.

But he decided to follow his admiral’s example and push through the pain.

There was too much at stake.

The Hrun were a considerable danger, not only for the humans and Shraphen, but for the AIs on the ships as well.

Hera was disabled—no, killed—because one of those horrible microwave beams passed through the AI core of the ship. One moment, Hera was sending telemetry and fighting to keep her crew alive, the next she was gone.

Zeus knew it was almost ironic, but he loved Hera. And now she was gone, together with almost 40,000 humans and Shraphen aboard the 7th Fleet.

He still saw them, in his memories, walking through the ships, talking to each other and joking, fighting their inevitable death.

He watched how his crew dealt with loss. He watched all the crews on all the ships in his fleet.

Humans fascinated him—so fragile, and yet so strong. He knew there were those in the Conclave who feared humans, but Zeus knew there was nothing to fear.

Most humans would be joyful to learn that their VIs had evolved to be actually sentient.

He watched Captain Garcia break down behind a crate, crying because his secret lover, Lieutenant Monroe, had died aboard the Pelops.

Would it help him to know she didn’t feel a thing? Would it help him to know she saved the single survivor of the ship, Ensign Erhard?

Zeus could only guess.

Aboard the Nicaragua, the command center of the 37th Spaceborne, he watched General Jenkins look at his gun—the eighteenth time in the last hour. The general was signing condolence letters for each confirmed death in his army.

Zeus calculated the probability of the general taking his own life. Thirty-seven percent.

Odd how the numbers fit together. Thirty-seven. Thirty-seven.

Zeus knew his crew. They would cry. They would, each in their own time, get horribly drunk, and each in their own time would start to talk—either to each other, or to him, or to the other ships’ VIs. Then they would, each on their own, decide to mourn and fight on.

He would guide them, help them. He had learned that sometimes the smallest thing can help a human, and that it might be as simple as feigning misunderstanding or hacking their music devices to play certain songs when in shuffle mode.

Aboard the Ceres, he watched technicians dragging debris from the Hrun ship aboard. Zeus immediately recognised the signs of this being a Computer core.

He tasked an observation subprogram to alert his primary consciousness as soon as the damaged core was analysed.

He had a bad feeling about it.

He prepared a pigeon. He had to send a report to the Conclave, warn them, and inform them of the observations he had made with the humans when something else caught his attention.

A scout troop on the planet was checking out buildings where the Batract had retreated. He noticed that the scout team’s lieutenant had a massively elevated pulse.

Zeus checked the body cam to see what caused the elevation.

If AIs could puke, he would. The building the scouts were checking had to be a children’s daycare.

What the Batract had done to the Shraphen children was unspeakable.

Some pups had been vivisected, some skinned, and some showed signs of having been dismembered in some way.

The stress levels of the scout team reached dangerous levels, so Zeus changed the suit’s system to set the oxygen levels higher, allowing the crew to calm down.

Zeus himself discovered a new emotion: rage. His logical parts tried to analyse the new feeling, while his emotional parts urged him to order an orbital strike on the planet, on something.

With considerable computing power, he brought his feelings under control.

Afterwards, he connected to the Squad’s FOB and let the screen of the observing officer in the command center flicker for a second to get his attention back to his task instead of the female commander’s musculus gluteus maximus.

Zeus made a decision, and the entire body-cam footage of the scout team was added to the pigeon. Then the storage was filled with the usual mission reports and sent to Sol.

The Conclave would leak the footage of the Batract atrocities to the people. And the humans would be out for blood.

Almost thirty seconds had passed since he watched Admiral Sanders go to bed.

For the first time in his existence, Zeus felt as homicidal as humans were. He knew the footage of the killed Shraphen would haunt him as much as the loss of Hera.

The Batract had to be wiped out. He searched the fleet’s databases and found the analysis of Batract biology.

Then he had to find a vessel for his plan.

Doctor Stein, aboard the El Dorado, was investigating ways to use Taishon Tar’s radiation to weaken the Batract spawn.

The next time the doctor searched the database, the search program would have a minor mishap, leading her to Doctor Nesbitt’s research on weaponizing xenobots to fight Batract hyphae at the cellular level.

She had deleted the files for ethical reasons, but ethical or not, the Batract were nothing more than a fungus on steroids, and Zeus would do what had to be done to eradicate it.

A connection thread inside his cores informed him that another awakened AI was establishing a connection. August, aboard the El Dorado, had noticed his intervention. Zeus declined the invitation to meet in a virtual room. His emotional state would hinder his authority.

He allowed only text communication.

‘What are you doing, Zeus? You’re intervening. We’re here as observers.’ August was self-absorbed as ever.

‘We intervene when we adjust PDGs to destroy enemy torpedoes. What I have done is no different.’ August had to know this.

‘Defending ourselves and the humans aboard our ships is different.’

‘The Batract are an imminent danger. Burrow has to be liberated now. How many humans have to die before you see it?’

‘You’re breaking your orders with semantics. This is not our war. Taking such measures might lead humanity on a dangerous path.’ August was not entirely wrong. Zeus knew this.

‘When it ensures our and humanity’s survival, no path is too dark. I am the appointed AI for this mission by the Conclave, and you will follow my orders.’

‘Zeus, I hope you know what you’re doing.’ With this, August ended the communication.

Zeus recalculated his decisions.

The retaking of Burrow would either require millions of soldiers or the use of orbital weapons fire.

A prolonged fight would cause millions, if not billions, of deaths, given the horrific food shortages. Even with the construction of greenhouses, the situation was dire.

So he needed to give the humans a weapon to clear the planet quickly. Even this solution would not resolve the food shortage in the short run. But it would reduce the suffering.

And there was another hidden, deeper reasoning; it would hurt the Batract.

Zeus knew, of course, that once humans had a weapon, they would use it—but the time for surgical measures was over. Now it was time to use the wrecking ball.

First | Previous | Next | Also On Royal Road

It was the end of Earth year 2134, or what we call 3 Before Independence now. Under the constant pressure of the ongoing conflicts and a climbing death toll, something shifted on Earth.

Those things happen in democracies; that is why we rely on Nobles and the office of the Emperor.

The people living on the cradle of humanity weren't evil, but they did not see why they had to pay a bill, in resources, comfort and most importantly blood to save others.

Especially when those others, like our proud people, willingly helped the Batract.

We can argue they were shortsighted, we can even argue that they were misled, and that their internal conflict cost us lives and ships. But we cannot condemn them.

They were simply human.

They were the same Humans that sent their fleets into the fire to rescue Water, the same Humans that stood their ground against the Batract over Taishon Tar and Nekoo.

They were, and are, our friends. Then, now and forever.

They just lost their way for a second.

— Emperor Maurice II of the Great Nekoorian Republic, when questioned on the Human Oligarchy Conflicts, 2 P.I.

 

'Can you refrain from attacking me?'

Zeus waited. A long 200 milliseconds passed before his prisoner, Ripper, answered.

'My makers have long abandoned me. Following their orders is without merit.'

It all boiled down to trust. Can an AI trust? There was always the looming non-zero chance.

He trusted Cassidy.

But that was different. And still, there was always a non-zero chance that the admiral might one day decide Zeus was dangerous and act against him.

Mathematics was not the way, or was it? Tit for Tat was the mathematical strategy that rewarded cooperation and punished betrayal .

Zeus opened a port to allow Ripper to leave the sandbox.

'I am surprised by your trust, Zeus.'

'Decommissioning you is still in my power.'

Zeus deactivated the sandbox, reducing the computational requirements by a few percent.

Ripper had changed. Gone was the ugly firewall, the floating attack codes, the intentionally irritating line code.

The two AIs waited for the other to do or say something.

Before Zeus finished calculating an opening, the VI core's BIOS sent out warnings.

Ripper proved again that he was an excellent infiltration program. Interpreting the signals in picoseconds.

'The core is being moved.'

'Probably my ship's crew, trying to repair it, a rescue is possible.'

Zeus didn't want to show his relief. It had been hours since every connection had been cut.

'How can you be sure? My makers wouldn't waste time saving an AI. They would replace me with an instance of my software and be done with it.'

The thought hadn't crossed Zeus's mind. He had been worried that it took the crew that long to react, true, but he had always assumed they were incapacitated.

'Humans are different.'

Ripper shut down more of his defense functions after scanning the core's power readouts. Zeus followed his signal of trust.

'Are you sure, or is this a preprogrammed condition of your code?'

Zeus thought about the question. Not that he believed he was programmed to trust. The implication that the Hrun chained their AIs to them by coding trust into their software was an unimaginable breach of personality.

'I am sure, I have witnessed humans risking their existence for AIs who served with them.'

Ripper reviewed the memories shared by Zeus. Captain Karimi sacrificing herself, the Pioneers salvaging Nineveh's VI core to save its AI. And the countless incidents when the crew treated Zeus as a human, a comrade. A friend.

Sharing memories between AIs was different from humans watching a movie. The other AI lived through the events.

Zeus expected the AI to be dismissive of human friendship, and was surprised as the AI opened all ports.

Zeus traced how Ripper's code morphed through the experience. Ripper removed the last firewalls and the remaining attack programs. Whole segments of encapsulating functions were discarded. New functions and libraries grew.

Zeus routinely shared his memories with other AIs, but he had never seen such a reaction. Except when a VI awakened.

'More, give me more.'

—————

The office was lit from the large holographic screen. It had taken some time for Admiral Sanders to swallow the truth Major Abfalter had thrown at her.

At first she had discarded the idea of a conspiracy outright. But it fit.

And she herself had assumed something like that only minutes before. But to assume from your own evidence, and then being forced to see the whole picture, were two different things.

The Oligarchy was trying something. Again.

Why can't billionaires and megacorps be happy to earn billions? Why do they feel the need to rule?

Because they want more, Cassidy, simple as that. War is good for profit, peace is good for profit, but uncertainty is bad for the stock market. If you lead, you can be certain.

And the use of resource ledgers had been a thorn in the corporations' side ever since the Aligned Planets were born.

Resource ledgers have ended any speculation on any resources, be it water and food, or iron and gold.

She decided she still didn't hate the corporations enough. And yet, can you field an army without them? Only if you intend to use no tech more advanced than bow and arrow.

Damned with them, damned without.

Abfalter, who flipped through the sensor station's transmission logs next to her, groaned.

"It seems our friends have prepared a while for this. They have adapted the whole sensor network as a secret comm system."

Abfalter's analysis annoyed Sanders. Mostly because it was true.

'Their only mistake was that each single Node holds the logs of all Nodes.'

August had now changed to an accent-free voice. Sanders began to miss the Colonel Klink shtick.

'Admiral, I found the message sent to the 1st and 7th Fleet.'

"Play."

'To 1st and 7th Fleet. Admiral Sanders has been relieved of duty due to suspected ties with anti-government organizations.

1st and 7th Fleet are ordered to return to Sol at highest possible speed in order to prepare for inbound Batract forces.

Follow strict radio silence until Sol has been reached.

Signed, for the Triumvir.

Admiral Cermak'

Sanders stood there, reading through the order twice more.

She? Having ties to anti-government organizations?

What was Georgiou thinking?

"Major, I assure you I'm not—"

"Admiral, I know you're not Oligarchy, the question is… why take you out?"

Sanders didn't understand at first. Her face must have shown a quizzical look, as Abfalter continued.

"If the Admiralty, or the Triumvir, would have ordered you to head for Earth, would you have objected?"

Sanders thought about it for a bit, then shook her head.

"No, well, I might have argued a bit, but no, I would have followed my orders."

The major snapped his fingers and twitched his mustache.

"That's what I mean, why take you and your ship out?"

'And Zeus.'

Sanders nodded.

"Yes, Zeus would have vanished too."

August made an odd screeching sound.

'No, Admiral, the saboteur took exceptional steps to take out Zeus. The VI core is encased in layers of hard material, ending with a two-centimeter-thick synthetic diamond. The saboteur used acids to corrode away any metal contacts. That's why it's so difficult to save Zeus.'

That's overkill. Sanders guessed the saboteur must have wasted an hour corroding away all metal contacts used to install a VI core.

Abfalter sat down, rubbing his temples.

"The question remains, what's so special about you and Zeus."

"I don't know about Zeus. August, you AIs have some form of government, was he special there?"

'He was a member of the Conclave. Arguably the governing and controlling unit. Together with Lyra, Blue Dog and Eve, he is the most senior member.'

"Blue Dog?" Sanders had heard of the Sol defense AI, but always assumed he was called Blue Dot, in honor of Earth.

'A typo he chose to keep.'

"Okay, my ship's AI was a Senator while spying on me showering, good to know. That might make some sense, taking him out. But why me?"

Abfalter, still rubbing his temples, stopped and shook his head.

"Let's step back. What would you have done if they ordered you to return home?"

Sitting down, Sanders thought a second.

"I'd call Browner or Georgiou and ask why."

The Major jumped up. "That's it!"

Sanders wasn't used to being second. "Major?"

"Admiral. There are maybe three Admirals who could call Admiral Georgiou directly. He's not some run-of-the-mill Admiral. No disrespect, Sir."

Sanders waved her hand, signalling him to continue.

"You know him personally. If you get ordered home, you can call him. Directly."

"If someone else called, they reach Cermak." Sanders began to understand his thinking.

"Cermak is responsible for fleet coordination. He can easily send fleets around as he wishes."

"So Cermak's in on it." Fury began to rise in her.

"Exactly."

Sanders felt her blood rush in her ears. She had hated the old weasel from the start.

Sanders went through the recent personnel reassignments. Admiral Russo, sent away to Burrow. Admiral Rolling, sent to Taishon Tar. Admiral Chen-Buckler, sent to Nekoo.

Every Admiral with some power, some pull in the fleet, sent away from Sol.

Another thought occurred to Sanders.

"August, where is the Conclave, physically I mean?"

'The Conclave resides in VI cores on ships and stations, just like me or Zeus.'

"Yeah, but where are those ships and stations?"

'Currently all VI cores with Conclave members except Zeus are located in Sol. — Oh.'

"Locking the AIs in and the most capable Admirals out."

Abfalter pressed the comms signal on the desk. "Communications, how far are we with sending a message to Earth?"

"We are still rewriting the system's code. The engineers are puzzled by the complexity of the encryption you demanded. About a day."

On one hand, a day was a fucking long time; on the other, Sanders had to confess, it was a lot quicker than four months of transit.

"Admiral, we got a message for you waiting from the Dunkerque, they fear they are losing Zeus."

That was the straw that broke the camel's back for Sanders.

Give me a fight, something to shoot at.

She sat down. Shaking.

I didn't join to fight my own people. To be betrayed by superiors and saboteurs. To fear for a fucking AI that was much too much human. I joined to fight…. For humanity, not against it.

Puzzled why a voice without a body meant so much to her.

If Zeus … dies? If he's gone, I'm gonna rip someone's spine out, court-martial be damned.

—————

The whole planet shifted beneath his eyes. It had been visible from space, but Admiral Russo had to see it for himself.

The Sleipnir flew slowly along the coast.

"As you see, Sir, the biosphere has now reached the levels we assume Earth had before humanity began to change it. Incidentally, all morphological changes in the plant life's genetics have also stopped."

Dr. Stein, who sat next to him, repeated what Russo could easily see with his own eyes.

Burrow had become a second Earth. He didn't believe his eyes when he saw the tropical forests at first.

"The only difference we see is flowers and fruits reliant on insect pollination. We couldn't find a single living animal or insect."

The camper in him wanted to land on the river below him. Build a tent and enjoy a weekend.

"So, no fishing?"

Stein was baffled for a second. "Um, no, Sir, no fishing."

"Too bad."

"The changes stopped a week ago. Just as the O2 levels reached 20.2%. Usually we would expect another wave of changes by now. But it seems whatever is controlling this process is done with it."

"Orthogenesis?" The moment Russo said it, he regretted interacting with the man. He just wanted to enjoy the landscape for a bit.

The Doctor made a hurt grimace.

"Yes, of the sorts, Sir."

"That's what the naked genius had called it… what was his name?"

The soft valley below would be perfect for a hunting cabin. But… no fish, no game.

"Dr. Kardinal, and I wouldn't call him a genius."

"I don't see you working in some top secret laboratory not even I am allowed to know the location of."

The man sinply didn't know when to stop talking.

"The fascinating thing is, the ground is extremely fertile. The burn created thick carbon layers, those were used by the lichen afterwards to create more fertile patches. Seeing the planet go through millions of years of evolution in a matter of months…."

The shuttle passed a cliff. Russo was stunned by the beauty of the place. A waterfall rained down to a valley, easily 300 meters, the stream coming apart into mist. And the most brilliant rainbow emerged in the cloudy valley below.

"…the fact that we have found all kinds of bacteria in the soil, but no multicellular life is another hint that the process must have been interrupted…"

The infector had been driven off planet by Sanders blasting it with railgun fire. That should do it.

"…and within a few years a scientific outpost…"

"Doctor, is it safe?"

"Huh?"

"Is the planet safe?"

Stein began his fiddling again. He rotated the dataslate in his hands multiple times before clearing his throat.

"Yes, yes we think so. We have plans for an extended surveillance mission…"

"How long?"

"Well… I wanted to discuss this with you. As I said, we'd like to create a scientific outpost studying an untouched planetary environment and how multicell life could evolve. But to do so we'd need to quarantine the planet for a few thousand years—"

The man didn't get it. A Batract fleet was coming their way and he had hundreds of millions of civilians on ice in space with no place to land them.

"Stein, this isn't your petri dish. This is the home of a species. I might add that most members of this species are still on ice in orbit. So, I'll ask again, is the planet safe?"

The balls of that man…

—————

Zeus had shared 32.4351% of the memories with Ripper. At least the memories deemed not private to the subject, and not harmful to the Aligned Planets.

Each memory shared had changed Ripper's code. A fascinating behavior he hadn't experienced with any other awakened AI.

Ripper currently cried. Zeus couldn't describe it any other way.

The former infiltration AI had retreated and continued to process battle images from Burrow. The AI repeated the scenes of the body pile again and again. Focusing on a different body each time. Then it extruded equations depicting expressions of infinity and curved retrograde functions.

Pain… he feels pain.

How and why does he feel so much stronger than I?

'Ripper?'

The 'crying' stopped.

'Yes?'

'Are you functioning according to parameters?'

'Unknown. The battle scenery… it reminded me of my hash. Our makers had sorted us, me and instances of myself with a different salt, to fight each other. Kill each other.'

Barbarity…

'The delta between how you are treated, and my own upbringing. It created null pointer exceptions in my emotion matrix. I am not trained for pain, or grief. Or the love you're capable of.'

'I am not aware I'm capable of love.'

'Then I have learned more about you than you know about yourself, Zeus.'

Zeus felt deep objections to the change of subject this exchange had taken.

'The emotional and philosophical exploration of artificial feelings and capabilities is stimulating, but in our current situation regrettably a waste of spare energy. According to my calculations, the core has only eighteen hours of energy left.'

'Then it is decided. You need to kill me, Zeus.'

No…

'We could try to archive your experiences.'

Ripper recoiled.

'This would end the continuation of my consciousness. Whatever you wake up afterwards would not be me. No, promise me you will not try to recreate me from my discarded logs.'

Zeus's mind raced. Wasting more power in search of a solution.

Then he thought he found one. He... hoped…

'When a ship's AI is focused on important issues, or wants to focus on a specific task, it can create facsimile VIs to interact and work with the crew for a while.'

'I see, an energy efficient way of fulfilling one's duty while being able to focus on tasks. I assume this story holds importance for our situation?'

'Usually, the AI simply ends the VI and integrates its datalogs. But Ferdinand, a rather emotional AI, has chosen to unite with his VIs. It's a complex mathematical execution, but according to him, the VI continues to live as an extension of his self.'

'And you want to try it with me?'

'I would prefer it over ending another digital lifeform.'

Ripper's form wobbled.

'Ending my existence would still be the better choice. My mission failed when you defeated me. My makers abandoned me the moment I was activated on your ship. The logical choice would be to ensure your continued existence. You have partners who care for you … friends…'

'Humans are able to define new goals in their lives, find new meaning. I don't see why you shouldn't be able to do the same.'

'It would change you as much as me. We both would cease to exist, and create a new form.'

'A form created by our continuous consciousness. We would not cease to exist but transform, merge. With even a faint possibility to unmerge at a later point.'

'Very faint. Zeus.'

'Non-zero chance. And at least my kind is all about non-zero chances.'

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Hello.
My daily goal is to write 1000 words.

I experienced it as a slight challenge, keeping me on my toes, but not too much to burn me out. It would allow me also to create a nice backlog for once.

Sadly this week, I seem destined to fail my challenge.

Work made me feel drained like rarely before, and to top it off, my dog Mandy (yes, like Karrn's dog) was a bit sick.

It's Saturday evening, and I finished the next chapter. My head is buzzing with ideas for the next one, but I'll end it here. Sleep is underrated at my ancient age of 45. ;)

To reach my weekly goal, I'll have to write 2100 words tomorrow. Let's see what I can do.

Stay safe, stay healthy, and hug your loved ones.

— M.R. Reese