War on a Thousand Fronts Read online

  Corsia pursed her lips, another gesture she’d seen organics make with great frequency.

  She winked at her daughter.

 

  Corsia nodded.

 

  Corsia said after a moment’s pause.

 

 

  Her daughter’s holoimage smiled and sketched a salute, clueing the rest of the bridge crew in to the semi-private conversation.

 

  Corsia muttered as she smoothed out her uniform and sat in the command chair.

  The action reminded her of another thing she had a new appreciation for: clothing.

  It was more than a little distracting. She could feel its constant pressure on her skin; brushing, pulling, tugging. Humans were used to things touching their skin, they learned to tune it out, but to her, the sensation was not dissimilar to flying through a cloud of dust at half the speed of light.

  I think I understand why Sera and Cheeky prefer to be naked.

  Not for the first time in the past few hours, Corsia considered swapping into a non-organic frame, but she ruled it out. Learning how a human body worked from the inside would be a good experience.

  Really…it will be. Stick with it, Corsia.

  Besides, she could tell that Jim was quite excited about the prospects for later.

  Sephira announced a minute later, while Corsia was still deep in thought about her current situation and its implications.

  Corsia said as she pulled up the view of the docking umbilical.

  Sephira replied.

 

 

 

  Half an hour later, Corsia was waiting in her ready room—a space that hadn’t been used since she’d taken over as captain of the Andromeda. She was surprised to see that some of Joe’s souvenirs from the Kap were still on a shelf.

  I wonder if he wants those back.

  There was a sharp knock, and Corsia waved the door open to see Kendrik enter alone.

  She rose and walked around her desk, extending her hand.

  “Mister Kendrik, it is a pleasure to meet you.”

  Kendrik held out his own hand and shook hers, his eyes traveling up and down her body, and coming to rest on her face by the third shake.

  “Yourself as well, Captain Corsia. I—” He paused, clearly flustered.

  “Yes?” Corsia asked, practicing her arched eyebrow gesture once more.

  “I’m sorry, there must have been a mistake in the brief the ISF gave me. I was led to believe that you were an AI.”

  Corsia gestured to the chairs in front of her desk. Kendrik sat, and she joined him. “I am an AI, I’m just using an organic frame at the moment.”

  The man’s eyes grew wide, and he whistled before responding. “I have some pretty good tech in my peepers, Captain Corsia, and from what I can tell, your body is more organic than mine is. It even seems to have a brain.”

  “Just there to fool scan,” Corsia replied with a wave of her hand. “I understand that folks in the Inner Praesepe Empire may not be…receptive to an AI leading the delegation meeting with them. I aim to put them at ease.”

  Kendrik frowned, nodding slowly. “I see. Well, it should fool them, but if they do find out you are an AI, it may damage your negotiations.”

  “I had wondered about that,” Corsia said. “I’m glad you’re along; you should be a great asset in dealing with any issues that arise in that regard.”

  A laugh escaped Kendrik’s throat. “Well, the issues that arise could be that they’ll kill us all…or maybe just tell us to leave. If my brother Arthur is still running the show it’s hard to say. He can be…volatile.”

  “The information I have hints to that, as well,” Corsia replied. “I have to admit, the idea of the IPE operating within the cluster—living as though the rest of the human race barely exists—is an interesting one.”

  “Yeah,” Kendrik nodded, his eyes darting to the left, then closing for a moment. “Things are a lot different, deep in Praesepe. With no FTL routes within sixty light years of the tidal core, very few people within ever venture out. I’m probably one of only a few hundred.”

  “So the IPE only trades with other systems inside the cluster?” Corsia asked. “They don’t operate their own trade routes out?”

  “No,” Kendrik replied. “You should know how it is, you were born pre-FTL, right?”

  “I was,” Corsia replied simply.

  “Well, I imagine it wasn’t much different then. In the core, people travel one, maybe two hops away from their home star. The empire itself is really only that in name. The furthest its influence reaches from the cluster’s center is maybe twenty-five light years. That’s not much different than the Intrepid’s initial journey to New Eden.”

  “True,” Corsia agreed. “But they have Antimatter-Pion drives. Makes the trip a lot quicker.”

  “Sure, but who wants to go on a fifty-year round trip just to deliver some cargo? In all honesty—despite how it tries to make itself seem—the IPE is less an empire and more a series of trade agreements. The common monetary system is really the backbone of the whole thing.”

  Corsia nodded absently as she took in the man before her. He seemed like a calm, controlled person. One not given to flights of fancy, or illogical behavior.

  “So what caused you to brave the journey out of the cluster’s slow zone?” she asked.

  A smile formed on Kendrik’s lips. “Captain Corsia, there’s a whole galaxy out here to be explored. Countless worlds, systems, cultures. Why live my life in a single star system when there are millions?”

  “And yet, you stayed here, right on the edge of the cluster.”

  Kendrick’s smile faded ever so slightly. “Well, the galaxy is a bit bigger than I thought. Turns out that I didn’t really want to explore the whole thing, just needed a bit more room to stretch my legs. Plus…”

  “Plus?” Corsia urged.

  He gave a soft laugh. “I met a woman who I love a lot more than the idea of travel. I settled in Thebes and put down roots.”

  Corsia nodded. “I don’t know love the way you do, but I understand how it can shape a person.”

  “Right. I read the brief on the team going in. Couldn’t help but notice that your husband is the chief engineer, and your daughter is the ship’s AI. I thought the military frowned on familial relations working together?”

  “We didn’t start out as a military venture,” Corsia replied evenly. “Plus, our population is small. It would be hard to ensure families remained apart—which seems like a horrible thing to do, anyway. When it comes down to it, Andromeda is a family. Most of the people aboard have been together for decades—more than a few are married, or in partnerships.”

  “Doesn’t that create personnel issues?”

  “Sometimes, but not as often as you’d think. You
have to remember, the people who signed on for the Intrepid’s colony mission were all smart, enterprising individuals, who were stable, hardworking and well-rounded. We’re not the sort to let petty differences get between us—especially when we’ve been through so much together.”

  Kendrik shook his head in denial. “It’s hard to believe you’re such an evolved group of people. No strife at all.”

  Corsia snorted. “Luckily, we have enough coming at us from the rest of the galaxy that we don’t need to go seeking it out. I won’t say there aren’t disagreements, but we’re all working toward the same goal.”

  “You’re a very fascinating people,” Kendrik said with a slow nod, pausing before he asked, “When will we be…jumping?”

  “Just over two hours,” Corsia replied. “We need to get our return gate components loaded up and checked over for transport. Don’t want to be stuck in the slow zone.”

  She winked as she said the last, and saw Kendrik pale.

  “Don’t worry, Kendrik. If we don’t come back on time, they’ll send another ship and gate for us.”

  “That obvious?” he asked.

  “A bit. You have a family out here, and you don’t want to be separated from them. I understand that all too well.”

  A request came from someone outside the door, and Corsia accessed the ship’s optics to see that it was Terrance Enfield.

  She opened the door and stood to greet the man, a look of surprise on her face.

  “Corsia,” Terrance said with a broad smile. “It’s good to meet you in the flesh at last. And Mister Kendrik, a pleasure, to be sure.”

  “What are you doing here?” Corsia asked as Terrance shook each of their hands in turn.

  “Well, I wanted to come see Tanis after her incident, so I caught a supply ship out here. We got talking, and she mentioned this venture,” Terrance paused and winked at Corsia. “I’ve been feeling a bit cooped up back at New Canaan while everyone else is traipsing about the galaxy.”

  “You’re not…the Terrance Enfield who was born in Alpha Centauri back in the thirtieth century, are you? The pioneer of interstellar trade?” Kendrik asked, his eyes wide with disbelief.

  Terrance glanced at Corsia, giving her a smug nod before smiling at Kendrik. “Yes, yes I am, thank you for knowing about that.”

  Kendrik chuckled at Terrance’s antics. “Well, growing up in a place without FTL, we spent a lot of time studying how you set up Enfield’s trade routes in the fourth millennium. People write dissertations on what you did back then.”

  “I’m flattered. I must say, I’m looking forward to this. Negotiating trade deals with isolationist star system…this brings me back,” Terrance said, rubbing his hands together. “Tell me, Kendrik, what sorts of trade arrangements do you think will be appealing to your brother?”

  “OK, OK,” Corsia raised her hands. “I have a ship to inspect, and a jump to prepare for. You two are welcome to use my ready room, here. We have a strategy meeting planned after we jump, so don’t talk yourselves out before then.”

  Terrance laughed as Corsia made a hasty exit. “No fear of that, Admiral, this is my version of fun.”

  STX-B17

  STELLAR DATE: 09.02.8949 (Adjusted Years)

  LOCATION: TSS Regent Mary

  REGION: STX-B17 Black Hole, Transcend Interstellar Alliance

  “Have any coins?” Earnest asked Krissy with a wink.

  “What? Coins?” Krissy scowled at the engineer where he stood at the front of the Regent Mary’s bridge. “Whatever for?”

  Earnest waved a hand at the shrouded form of the black hole at the center of the star system. “For the oarsman, of course. We’ll need to pay him to cross the River Styx.”

  Krissy shook her head. “Earnest, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Nevermind, that’s my usual experience,” he said with a laugh. “Quite the sight, though. I’ve never seen a black hole with my own eyes.”

  Hemdar said.

  Earnest shrugged. “True enough. But I can see the event horizon and, wow, this thing is feeding something fierce.”

  Krissy nodded in agreement. She had passed through systems with black holes before, but STX-B17 was much different than other black holes. It was a recently—astronomically speaking—collapsed star of over one hundred solar masses that was still in the process of devouring its stellar system.

  Given that most black holes lose mass during the process of collapse, they rarely consumed their orbiting planets, but STX-B17 was different. Back when it was a massive B-Class star, it had blasted out an exceptionally fierce stellar wind. Now that the wind was gone, the planets were all drifting toward the black hole’s event horizon, being torn apart one by one.

  At present, it was shredding a Neptune-sized planet, drawing mass off the ice-giant as the world screamed around the outer edge of the black hole, the matter from the planet glowing brighter than a G-Class star as it was torn apart at the sub-atomic level before being devoured by the black hole.

  “At least we’ll have light,” Krissy said after a minute of staring at the view of the event. “For a few thousand years, at least.”

  “I’d have thought you’d be used to sights like this…what, with running your dwarf star mine for the last few decades,” Earnest replied. “That must have lit up the night.”

  Krissy barked a laugh. “It was like living on the rim of an active volcano. Honestly? War is less stressful…mostly.”

  “You know…” Earnest began stroking his chin as he stared at the black hole and the planet it was slowly consuming. “I wonder if we could mine that thing.”

  “The black hole?” Krissy didn’t bother hiding the incredulous tone in her voice. “Why in the stars would we do something like that? We can just keep mining white dwarfs.”

  Earnest had a twinkle in his eye as he grinned at Krissy. “We’ve already played around with starlifting in New Canaan—you now, pulling matter directly off a star. Thing is, stars are pesky. They’re hot and blasting out radiation, plasma, CMEs, all that garbage. A black hole doesn’t have any of that, and it’s no more massive than the star it started out as.”

  “Well, this black hole is a lot larger than your usual three-solar mass one. Pulling resources out of a gravity well like that would be more than a little troublesome. That’s assuming you could even figure out how to extract matter from a black hole. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone even theorize about that.”

  Earnest shrugged. “Just a thought. You’re right, though. White dwarfs or neutron stars are better to work with. Smaller gravity well. OK, so, let’s take a look at our new home away from home.”

  As he spoke, Earnest flipped the view on the Regent Mary’s forward display to show their current destination, a planet bearing only the name ‘STX-B17 O9’.

  It was a gas giant, massing at just under 3MJ. It’s placement over eleven AU from the roiling cauldron that was STX-B17 meant that it would eventually slide closer and closer to the black hole it now orbited, and be consumed, just like most of the other planets already had been.

  But for now—and the next billion years or so—the planet was safe.

  “There she is, all light and puffy and full of tritium and helium-3, just waiting for my tender ministrations,” Earnest said with a chuckle.

  Hemdar chided.

  “And that’s why you’ve called me in,” Earnest replied. “You need someone who knows how to treat her right. Which reminds me, we need to give this girl a name. We can’t just call it STX-B17 O9. How about Styx Baby 9?”

  Krissy snorted. “There’s no way I’m setting up a secret staging ground and giving it that name.”

  “Why not?” Earnest asked. “No one would ever think that’s what it was. Perfect codename.”

  Hemdar laughed over the audible systems.

  �
�Tell me again what you want us to check for,” Krissy instructed Earnest. “You want a deep scan of the planet to determine the density of the hydrogen ocean?”

  “Yeah, if my estimations are correct, the atmosphere of this jovian should be only fifteen hundred kilometers deep, and there should be a more marked transition to the ‘surface’ of the planet than is normal in gas giants.”

  “Forgive my curiosity, Earnest, but what does this have to do with building our staging grounds around the planet?” Krissy asked.

  Earnest cast Krissy a conspiratorial glance. “Around the planet? I thought this was to be a super-secret base?”

  “Right, it is.”

  “Well, then. We’d be far better off to build it in the planet.”

  Hemdar asked a moment before Krissy could utter something similar.

  “Isn’t that why you brought me? You wanted something out of the ordinary.” Earnest glanced at Krissy, and then back to the view of the planet.

  “Not exactly, Earnest. We’re having New Canaan build this base because Justin’s little attack has given me trust issues. I want to set this up and have it operational before even my own fleet knows about it.”

  Earnest shrugged. “Well, you’re still getting a ‘Redding Special’. I don’t do hum-drum.” He paused and rubbed his hands. “If the ocean’s dense enough, we’ll build grav pontoons and set them on the ‘surface’ beneath the clouds. Then we build a superstructure atop them, and then fire up a-grav fields to hold the atmosphere back. We’ll run CriEn modules for energy—we’ll be well below the thresholds—and then we set the gates up right inside the planet.”

  Hemdar interjected.

  “Ahhh…that’s what they tell you,” Earnest wagged his finger. “But we can compensate for the gravitational shift. We can even bend the jumps around the black hole, though that shouldn’t be necessary right now—Airtha is in the other direction.”