War on a Thousand Fronts Read online

  Mary shook her head. “Dad, seriously, you sent us halfway across known space with him. You must trust him.”

  “A quarter.”

  “You trust him a quarter?” Sera asked, raising an eyebrow as she finished selecting her food and turned to look for a table.

  “No, I sent Mary and Drew a quarter of the way across known space with Leeroy. Less, considering how far into the Perseus Arm the OFA has expanded.”

  “And the trust?” Mary asked, following Sera to a table a few meters away.

  Flaherty grunted. “I trust him to keep you safe. Do I trust him enough to raise your next child?” He didn’t bother answering his own question.

  “At least you know he’s honorable,” Sera said as she sat.

  “Maybe. Didn’t take her where he was supposed to.”

  “Dad,” Mary said flatly. “I’m a person, not cargo. I decide where I go. I wanted to be with you. I’ve spent most of my life wondering if you’re even still alive, I’m not doing that again.”

  A spear of guilt struck Sera as she realized that it was Flaherty’s promise to her that had taken him away from Mary for so many years. She’d known it intellectually, but seeing the impact it had made on this woman sitting across the table from her was a different thing entirely.

  Flaherty looked as though he was going to make an argument, but he glanced at Sera and, upon seeing the look in her eyes, nodded to Mary.

  “OK, you’re right.”

  “What?” Mary asked. “I’m right? This is a red letter day, if ever there was one.”

  Sera chuckled. “Yeah, he doesn’t dole that one out very often.”

  Sera took a bite of her sandwich, and a glob of sauce fell out and landed on her arm. She lifted it to her mouth and licked it off, noticing as she did that Mary was grinning.

  “Oh, right,” Sera chuckled. “Twenty years since I was a pirate, but I still haven’t let go of the manners—or rather, lack thereof.”

  “It’s OK,” Mary shrugged. “I was more wondering about your outfit. I’m a bit partial to skinsheaths; they’re nice and low maintenance. Where’d you get yours?”

  Flaherty grunted. “Pirates.”

  Mary’s eyes lit up. “Really?”

  “No,” Sera shook her head. “I got it from Bob, the Intrepid’s AI. Though it’s not an outfit, it’s my skin.”

  “But it doesn’t look like a skin job. There are creases at your elbows, and it looks like your breasts are covered.”

  Sera grinned at Mary. “I’m protecting poor Flaherty here from having to gaze upon my naked body.”

  “Plus everyone else around here,” Flaherty added.

  “So it’s a malleable sort of thing?” Mary asked.

  “Yeah. Sort of. Flaherty was right in that I first got the skin job when I was on a pirate base, but it was killing me, so Bob got me an upgrade. He declared that human epidermises were subpar when it came to keeping their bodies safe and made something better for me.”

  Sera held up her hand, and it took on the appearance of a thick glove, and then of slender fingers—albeit without any creases or prints. She even changed it to something approximating a normal skin color.

  “That’s amazing!” Mary exclaimed. “I’ve never seen anything so…effortless. And that’s on your whole body?”

  Sera nodded. “It’s also integrated with ISF Mark X Flow Armor, with moderate stealth capabilities. Not as good as the real stuff, but better than nothing.”

  As Sera spoke, her hand became invisible, and then she laid it on the table and grabbed her fork with her other hand, stabbing down with all her might.

  The impact jostled everything on the table, but to Mary’s visible amazement, the tines bent aside where they’d hit Sera’s invisible hand.

  “Stars burning in the core,” Mary whispered, shaking her head. “Why does anyone have normal skin if they can get what you have?”

  Sera glanced at Flaherty. “Why indeed. Do you want it, Mary?”

  “Stars yeah, that would be amazing. I’d be wearing my entire wardrobe all the time and be bulletproof. What more could a girl want?”

  “Flesh and blood?” Flaherty asked.

  Mary waved a hand. “Nonsense. It’s reversible, right?”

  Sera’s hand reappeared, and she held it in the air, wobbling it back and forth. “Ehhh…sorta. It’s not easy to undo; you’d have to have your entire epidermal nervous system replaced and reconnected in the new skin. It’s probably a few days’ work.”

  Mary nodded. “Right, I figured as much. So how do you ‘upgrade’ my epidermis?”

  Sera stroked her chin. “I’m not entirely certain. I did it once to someone in an elevator in a pinch, but that was back before I had the flow armor added in. It may need to be done more carefully. Why don’t I look into it before I possibly eviscerate you?”

  “That would be swell,” Flaherty grunted.

  Sera was about to show Mary some more things her skin could do, when Jen alerted her to an incoming message from the STC.

  Sera replied.

  the AI STC controller began.

  Sera asked.

 

  Sera closed the connection, and then her eyes.

  Jason Andrews.

  She had seen him a few times in the months following the Defense of Carthage—brief encounters all, and always in larger settings. If he was coming here, it would be to meet specifically with her.

  Sera opened her eyes and sighed. “Well, looks like an old flame has come for a visit.”

  “Jason?” Flaherty asked.

  “How’d you know?”

  Flaherty shrugged. “Not many of your old lovers are alive and not in prison. It’s a short list.”

  Sera groaned and threw a piece of lettuce at him—which he caught and ate. “You’re incorrigible.”

  “I’m truthful.”

  Mary shrugged. “He doesn’t have much choice.”

  “Yeah, well, he’s the one that opted for the alterations to ensure that,” Sera replied.

  Flaherty shook his head. “That would be an assumption, Madam President. You shouldn’t make—ow! Sera, kicking your aides under the table is very unbecoming of a woman in your station.”

  Sera drew her foot back. “I’ll do it again if you don’t stop talking like that.”

  Flaherty raised his hands and gave her a rare smile. “Just making sure my girl is still in there. You’re all Mrs. Serious Business these days.”

  “Your girl?” Mary arched an eyebrow.

  Flaherty wrapped an arm around his daughter and gave her a quick embrace. “Don’t worry, Mary. You’re the good daughter in this scenario. Sera’s the one that needs constant supervision. Be dead a hundred times without me around.”

  Sera flashed her own smile back at Flaherty. “Eighty-seven, by my count. You sure you can’t lie?”

  “I can use hyperbole when it’s obvious.”

  Sera and Mary locked gazes, both shaking their heads.

  “You OK sharing him with me?” Sera asked.

  Mary snorted. “Honestly? I’m kinda glad he spends so much time mothering over you. If he slathered all of it on me, I think I’d suffocate.”

  Flaherty groaned and took a sip of his coffee as he glared at the two women over its rim. “This is why I never talk.”

  DAMON SILAS

  STELLAR DATE: 08.28.8949 (Adjusted Years)

  LOCATION: Meela Station, Churka

  REGION: Gorham System, Vela Cluster, Transcend Interstellar Alliance

  Roxy glanced around at the other six members of her strike team and did her best not to think about how long they’d been crowded together inside the cramped shipping container.

  Her HUD wasn’t so forgiving, and the moment she thought
about how much time had passed since they’d entered the container, it flashed a helpful update: sixty-seven hours.

  Roxy resisted the urge to groan, while silently cursing Justin for sending her on this mission.

  Well, not for sending me on the mission, more for not coming along, she amended.

  The six former Hand agents that surrounded her in the container were all skilled operatives, and all fiercely loyal to Justin. Two of them, Sam and Harry, had even broken him out of prison.

  An act Roxy had been very grateful for, since Justin was the only one in the galaxy who had known where her stasis pod was.

  Thoughts about Justin caused no small amount of mental turmoil for Roxy. She’d been with him for centuries and had once loved him deeply, but she no longer knew if that was the case.

  The mere thought of questioning her adoration for Justin caused a wave of images and feelings to flow through her mind, reinforcements that were intended to cement her devotion to the man.

  The man who turned me into a machine…

  A feeling of surprise came over Roxy at the thought. That she was even able to consider her current state in the wake of the corrective imagery and emotion was surprising. Normally when the neural lace in her brain modified her thinking, it was impossible to do anything other than bask in her adoration of Justin.

  But this time, she was still able to think critically.

  He stole my body…made me into this thing.

  Roxy looked down at herself, her sapphire skin gleaming even in the dim lights within the shipping container. Soon she’d don her combat armor and cover it, but Justin had instilled in her a compulsion to show off her skin whenever possible.

  It was one of the delights he took—reminding her how he’d made her into both an elite assassin, and his favorite art display.

  How dare he do this to—

  Roxy’s mind went blank, a feeling of euphoria overcoming her. The euphoria was linked to her thoughts and memories of Justin, and she basked in the drug-like haze, dreaming of the time spent with the man she loved, yearning to get back to him.

  How long have we been in here, anyway? She wondered, and her HUD obliged with the answer: sixty-seven hours.

  * * * * *

  An hour later, Roxy reached behind her and activated the transceiver built into the shipping container’s wall.

  The container itself was heavily EM shielded to conceal the seven people within, but every few hours—on an irregular schedule—Roxy activated the device and listened for any news from their operative on the outside.

  Thus far, the message had always been, ‘Stay in position’.

  That ‘position’, at least presently, was a cargo hold on Meela Station, in orbit of Churka, a small, terrestrial world in the Gorham System.

  Justin had chosen Gorham because it was frequented by individual ships from Admiral Krissy’s fleet. Sometimes they came in pairs, but half the time, only a single destroyer would enter Gorham—more often than not, escorting cargo convoys that were gathering supplies for the war effort.

  If the TSF held to their current schedule, a convoy should already have come past Meela station—a facility they often stopped at for resupply—but thus far, none had arrived.

  In another two days, the strike team would be out of supplies, and would need to exit the container regardless of whether or not their prey had come by.

  And so, with more than a little anticipation, Roxy sent out her ping, waiting for the response to tell her to sit tight once more.

 

  Roxy sent an acknowledgement blip, then disabled the transceiver. Before the transfer time, she’d reactivate it four more times on the pre-arranged schedule.

  “OK, team,” she kept her voice low and soft. “We’re t-minus one-ninety-mikes. Our target is the Damon Silas. It’s a Caparsi Class destroyer. We don’t have the specifics of that particular ship in our databases, but it should conform to the standards. Review those, plus the common variances. We don’t know our destination within the ship, but Caparsi destroyers only have two cargo bays capable of holding containers this size.”

  The team nodded. The four women and two men organized their equipment, their eyes appearing sharp and focused on their tasks, even while reviewing internal data.

  Roxy approved of their abilities, Hand agents were the best of the best at hiding everything they did under layers and layers of misdirection. Whenever they appeared to be doing one thing, you could be certain they were up to something else.

  She wondered if they were talking to one another about her over the Link. They’d spoken very little in general, but that was also normal for Hand agents. They spent the vast majority of their time operating on their own—often years of travel away from their handlers and any backup.

  To have this many working together on one objective was almost unheard of.

  But, for all intents and purposes, Hand agents were near-vanilla humans. They had to be, to blend in better on their operations in the Inner Stars—unless the job required them to get modded.

  For a moment, Roxy wondered what would have happened if she’d entered the Hand while Director Sera was in charge. Sera was also known for her unconventional—at least, by Airthan standards—predilections, but she wasn’t prone to modifying her own underlings for her pleasure.

  Granted, Justin had kept Roxy hidden from the public eye—and disassociated from himself—so it was entirely possible that Sera had done the same to some poor soul.

  To hear Andrea talk, one would think that Sera had orgies every night, and slept with every creature she laid eyes on.

  Not that Andrea was innocent of such behaviors. Though she was more known for her general volatility, her appetites were not any great secret.

  Standing slowly, Roxy ran a check on her limbs, moving them through their full range of motion, ensuring that she’d be at peak performance when the mission began.

  “You really can twist about,” Harry said, unabashedly watching her as she went through her routine. “You almost look like a candy cane, wrapped around yourself like that.”

  Roxy shrugged. “I suppose. When your body is almost entirely boneless, it’s no great feat.”

  Harry nodded silently before picking up his pack and pulling out his stealth sheath. Once Roxy disentangled herself, she did the same, retrieving the SS-R4 model sheath and unsealing its front closure before stepping into it.

  Unlike the organics in the container, hers didn’t have the need for any biological hookups; she emitted no heat from breath, no bodily waste. She barely needed the SS-R4’s ability to mask body IR, as she could lower her temperature to that of her surroundings with ease.

  If Justin hadn’t wanted to make me his little art display, and had instead chosen to give me more useful skin, I wouldn’t need the stealth sheath at all.

  The disdain—and hint of vehemence—behind her thought surprised Roxy. How is it that I am able to think so critically of Justin? Usually such thoughts were quelled.

  She felt as though she’d been able to do it more often of late, though the realization dissipated in a moment, as images of working with Justin and partnering with him on this great endeavor filled her mind.

  He’s going to make an amazing leader for the Transcend.

  Once in her SS-R4, Roxy proceeded to check over her weapons. The first was her lightwand, which she slid into a small pouch on her thigh. Following that, she added the four carbon-blade knives to their sheathes on her back. A handgun with a fold-in grip went into the pouch on her left thigh, followed by ammunition packs on her chest and the small of her back.

  Finally, Roxy lifted her rifle out of the bag. It was a stealth-capable, multifunction weapon with three firing modes. The first was the standard pulse mode—one she rarely used—followed by flechettes and kinetic slugs.

  The fle
chettes were Roxy’s favorite. She didn’t know why, she just felt they suited her more. It could be that she had favored them in the time before Justin had saved her…or maybe she’d picked it up afterward; she really wasn’t sure.

  The next three hours were spent analyzing ideal routes to take the ship. The team was in unanimous agreement that there would be an AI running the Damon Silas, and disabling it would be the top priority.

  Harry was reasonably certain he had a breach technique that could get him into the ship’s security systems, but it was based on an old set of command-override keys that they couldn’t count on. If that override didn’t work, they’d have little time to effect their seizure of the ship; if Justin’s intel was correct, only seconds once they were detected. For that reason, they decided not to use the breach unless absolutely necessary, or until the AI was offline.

  “I’m on the AI,” Roxy said. “Lloyd, you’re with me. Harry, you take your team to Engineering; Sam, you’re to take the forward weapons control node. Once we have that, we can get the ship the hell out of this system. It’s critical that we get control of the stasis shields—once everyone realizes that their ship is going for a ride, we’re going to become the target of every weapon in this system.”

  Harry grunted, shaking his head. “Those are going to be a long four AU to the jump point.”

  “Justin will be ready,” Roxy said with calm assurance.

  “Better be,” Lloyd said while cleaning the charge pod socket for his rifle. “If he’s not, we’ll get to find out firsthand how much firepower these stasis shields can shed.”

  Several minutes later, they felt the cargo container lift off the deck and begin to move. While it should be airtight, no one wanted to find out they were wrong the hard way, so the team pulled on their helmets.

  Roxy activated her EM suppression suite, just in case the ship ran an active scan against the container before allowing it entry.

  The container shifted a few times, and then left the station’s artificial gravity field. It changed vector twice over the next fifteen minutes, then gravity returned, and the team gently settled back down to the bottom of the container.