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  “Wow! That was awesome!” Suzie announced as I walked through the gate. “You guys would really start a war over one person!?”

  “Sure thing.,” the guard said. “If we won’t defend a single Citizen what’s the point of defending all of them.” He patted her on the head. “Here you are Mr. Grumman,” the guard said, handing my wallet back. “Mind telling me what’s going on?” he asked as we began walking toward the main building.

  “I think it’ll be easier to show you and the diplomat. Is he around?”

  “Yah, he’s up late, and even the dead could’ve heard that racket.”

  Ten minutes later Sr. Bozeman, a few of his aids, Suzie, and I all stood around a holographic display as I dropped a datablock into a receiver; and the invasion of Yesler, as the Vermillion had recorded it, began playing.

  “This is bad,” the knight turned diplomat said grimly.

  “No kidding.”

  “So what does this have to do with Alliance MPs chasing you to my front door?” he asked.

  “Well, as it turns out they didn’t like the idea of me spreading this around. Any idea why?”

  “Governor Hendricks has run on the ‘continuing peace’ ticket for the past three election cycles, claiming that it’s his policies that have kept the Tarin’Tal from attacking Xenograft and the surrounding colonies; typical denial and appeasement.”

  “I almost wish it wasn’t something that simplistic.”

  “Well it may be, but it may not matter at this point either. We can’t launch a communications drone to let the Empire know about this. If they are willing to illegally detail an Imperial citizen they won’t hesitate to intercept communications. A transmission would take months to arrive. The only option is for you to get airborne and rendezvous with the Cruiser Yosemite at these co-ordinates.” Bozeman pressed a few buttons and the display shifted to show the cruiser’s flight path past Xenograft.

  “What’s an Imperial Cruiser doing in PoxSpace?” I asked. “I thought the anti-Imperialist faction had everyone scared about a takeover?”

  “Yes, well, Tinek figured it’d put them at ease to send a single cruiser for some joint exercises among vastly superior Alliance forces; an act of trust, putting an Imperial warship in a vulnerable position as a show of good faith. It’s headed back to the borderlands now. Its drives can take it to almost twice the speed of most private craft’s so it should be able to take you or your message to the outpost and the Empire a lot faster.”

  “So all we have to do is figure out how to get us to my ship and get it launched.”

  “That shouldn’t be too hard. I have a shuttle primed and ready for such occasions as this. I doubt the Governor would fire on it no matter how averse he is to allowing such news to get out.”

  “Seems straightforward.”

  “Not really. I know Hendricks and he won’t give up. He’ll try to hit you once you’re out of sensor range of the Consulate. You’ll just have to outrun or outfight whatever he sends at you long enough for the Yosemite to cross your path.”

  “Fun times.”

  “Quite right. Now I think that time is of the essence and we should get started. Commander Simmons will show you the way.”

  The guard from the gate motioned for us to follow. “So what’s a commander doing manning a gate post?” I asked.

  “Oh, I was just giving my men a break. Private Mitchell came down with food poisoning. I told him not to eat from the street vendors but, well the young ones never listen.”

  The man in the Battle armor and two more marines were already waiting for us on the roof by the open top shuttle when we arrived. The vehicle wasn’t designed to clear two thousand feet and didn’t need to; nothing in the city was above four stories tall except for some of the towers in the spaceport, and those barely scraped six.

  “I’m sorry you got caught up in all this,” Commander Simmons said as he checked several components on his rifle. “Bozeman and Hendricks have been going back and forth for years. The Governor thinks that Simmons is trying to use fear mongering about the ‘Tal border to get the colony to slide closer and closer to the Empire. Since the AHW is technically a confederacy and any section can vote themselves independent he thinks Simmons wants Xenograft to join the Empire so he can become Governor himself. Bozeman just thinks Hendricks is a moron.”

  “And what do you think?” I asked.

  “Sr. Bozeman isn’t a fear monger. He truly cares for this rock and has been warning about just such an event that you came yelling about.”

  “So Hendricks thinks I’m just an agent for Bozeman? That’s stupid. You can’t fabricate videologs like that!”

  “Some people can,” Simmons said. “And even if Hendricks believes what you were broadcasting he’d want to be the one to present it in his own way, with his own spin.”

  “It’s all political isn’t it?” I asked.

  “Yep,” Simmons agreed. “If it’s not trying to kill you it’ll play politics with you. That’s why I’m a soldier... I only have to deal with the things trying to kill you. I’d rather have a sword in my front than a dagger in my back.”

  “Good point,” I agreed.

  “Ah, we are here,” Simmons said, looking over the edge and hefting his rifle. The man in the battle armor jumped out even though we were still a hundred feet up and hit the landing pad with a massive crunch.

  “Alright, you alliance flunkies,” the warrior shouted through his armor’s speakers. “Back away from that ship or I get to squish you. Your choice.”

  “Wow,” I said, turning back to Simmons from looking over the edge. “You guys aren’t very diplomatic.”

  “Heh,” Simmons laughed. “Like I said, there are two types of people and we’re in the military for a reason.” The Alliance MPs scattered like cockroaches in the light and the shuttle set down on the pad.

  “Thanks, Simmons” I said. “Tell Bozeman you deserve a raise for this.”

  “Every day,” he said, waving back as Suzie and I walked up the ramp into the Vermillion.

  “Alright Suzie,” I said, turning to her as she strapped into the copilot’s seat. “You ready to put what you’ve been learning into practice?”

  “Yeah,” she replied excitedly. “I’ll prime the defenses; you get us in the air.”

  “Right,” I said, jamming the thrusters and grav manipulators to life and leaving the planet’s surface in the dust. It’s always amazing how fast a fully functional ship can climb in altitude. At least it’s incredible to me, having been born and raised on a part of Lintalla that was still recovering from the scars of the Phoenix war and entering the modern age.

  4

  The planet had a small moon, only about a quarter the size of Fallen Earth’s moon. Any bigger and it would disrupt the tectonic forces on the tiny planet. The good news for us was that it didn’t leave much room for Hendrick’s mercenaries to hide. “Not the moon,” Suzie said.

  “What?”

  “I saw you looking at those scans. I think it’s more likely they’d be running dark under the disks of that gas giant,” she said, highlighting a planet dangerously close to our flight path to intercept the Yosemite.

  “I agree. Let’s adjust course to buzz them at GS two.”

  “But you said GS two is dangerous inside a system.”

  “Yes, that’s because a near miss at GS two or above can cause sensor damage to a ship traveling at sub-light speed.”

  “Oh, I like that idea.”

  I smiled; “Thought you would.”

  “So they won’t be able to follow us?”

  “No,” I corrected her. “They should still be able to follow us and see us just fine unless we get a perfect pass, which we can’t do because we can’t see them. But it should be enough to scramble their targeting and pinpointing systems. They’ll be reduced to line- of- sight combat.” An evil grin spread across the little girl’s face.

  “This is going to be fun!”

  “Don’t get ahead of yourself; its also g
oing to be dangerous.”

  “I just outlived my family and the conquest of my world. I’m cool with danger,” she stated matter of factly.

  “You’re a scary little kid you know that?”

  “Yeah,” she agreed.

  Alarms began sounding, signaling a near miss with another grav-device signal. “Looks like you were right,” smirked Suzie.

  The ships turned and began following at faster than light speeds. Either their sensors weren’t damaged as much as I’d hoped, or they were wagering our wake would be clear of debris. “Open the cargo bay,” I told her.

  “Um… I don’t know where that button is yet. And there’s nothing in there but… Ooh. That guy Tom didn’t pick up the power plant things did he?”

  “Nope,” I agreed. “It’s the button above you to the right. It’s marked with a red ‘x’.

  “Got it,” she said, and pushed the button. One of the pursuing ships on my scanner flared and disappeared.

  “Got one. Four more.”

  “Can we beat four?”

  “Um, you want the real answer or a good one?” Suzie asked with a Cheshire-like grin, underlined with a touch of childish innocence. The same one they give when they’ve already figured out Santa isn’t real and you keep telling them he’s about to come down the chimney.

  “Hold on!” I shouted. “Breaking GS in three- two- one!” We did a hard break and the G-force almost overloaded the ships inertial-suppressors. It felt like a sudden stop in the middle of a rollercoaster.

  “It worked!” Suzie shouted. “We’re behind them.”

  “Fire at will!” I shouted, and we both squeezed our triggers. Suzie’s turrets sent waves of Gatling fire at the mercenaries, or whatever they were, while my cannons fired steadily one after the other. The Vermillion might be a merchant ship, but I’d been outfitting her for years to deal with the most unsavory places in which Imperial citizens do business. This was about as unsavory as it got.

  Two canons and four gatlings, however, were light change when compared to anything midsized or above, and my heart sank as the last of the mercenaries dropped out of GS. It was a destroyer sized Harpoon craft favored by the worst of the worst pirates. It was four times our size and had five times the weapons; we wouldn’t last long against it, let alone the four remaining support ships. A brilliant flash passed my window; well… three support ships.

  “There’s too many; when I lock on one another crosses my stream. I can’t break their shields.”

  “Keep trying. We don’t have to beat them, just stay alive and make enough noise to catch the Yosemite’s attention.”

  We twisted again as the Harpoon tried to barrel strait down on us. The move took us out of the big ship’s firing path but placed us between it and one of the support ships that began nailing our port side with hot streams of Kinetic fire and flack. I spun the ship horizontally and faced the main cannons towards the Harpoon while Suzie trained the Gatlings on the support ship. If they wanted to trap us they would have to take our direct fire.

  The enemy’s ship may have superior firepower but no one could match Imperial shields and the big ship’s cornea of protection began to sputter, causing them to accelerate and release the trap. “Are they running?” Suzie asked.

  “No, just protecting their port side. Hit the overdrive. The shields can’t take anymore.”

  “But you said that’d eat up all the power.”

  “Yeah, I know. We don’t have any choice. Either we buy time or we’re dead.”

  “OK.” Suzie began punching the series of commands I’d taught her and I released the engine control. The result was a massive boost of acceleration, and as we rocketed forward I hit the command that started the ship’s Imperial distress beacon. All we could do now was pray and wait to see who caught up first, the Yosemite or the mercenaries.

  The sudden acceleration stopped as the overdrive cut out and we watched as the kilometers between us and the mercenaries ticked down like seconds on a fine tuned bomb. “They’re getting really close,” Suzie said as she started firing behind us. The mercenaries were out of range but I didn’t stop her.

  Suddenly there was a clap of light from the release of a huge GS drive and an Imperial Cruiser was immediately above us. “HMS Vermillion we have received your distress beacon. Prepare for immediate support.”

  I felt the ship’s inertial dampeners adjust as the Yosemite began pulling us closer, while several missiles the Mercenaries had launched detonated on the Cruiser’s shields they had extended to protect us.

  I switched my holodisplay to show the space behind the ship and saw the mercenaries for a split second before an entire salvo of plasma rounds from the Yosemite tore all four ships to flaming ribbons. The fires only lasted a second as they decompressed and went out in the dead of space.

  “Vermillion this is the Yosemite. What is your condition?”

  “Thank you Yosemite. I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you. We’re alive and ok.”

  “Confirmed Vermillion; we have your Imperial registry to Mr. Grumman.”

  “Yes, this is Vince. I need to talk with your captain. I have a vital piece of Intel and a priority message from Sr. Bozeman, authorization code 49552.” There was silence from the Yosemite’s com officer for a second before he responded.

  “OK, Mr. Grumman, batten down the hatches and keep your hands and arms inside the boat, we’re pulling you in.”

  Thank you for reading!

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