Unwind

By Timothy Ellis

Unbound Mercs, Book Seven.

Copyright © 2024 by Timothy Ellis

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and events are fictional and have no relationship to any real person, place or event. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is purely co-incidental.

The author is Australian and the main characters in this universe are of Australian origin. In Australia, we colour things slightly differently, so you may notice some of the spelling is different. Please don't be alarmed.

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any manner whatsoever without the written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles or reviews.

One

“What the hell am I doing here?”

“I guess we’ll find out,” said Trip. “But I admit it is odd. We’re the only two civilians here I can see at a glance, and everyone else is flag rank. It’s obviously a briefing of some kind.”

That much was obvious. We were sitting in a small auditorium, at the very back, after getting a demand to be here while eating breakfast this morning. Only the fact it had come from the Imperator had actually got me here. It had specifically told me to bring Trip, and no-one else.

“Okay, that’s also odd,” he went on. “Everyone is sitting next to an AI. Most of them are either co-pilots, or aides.”

There was a fair representation of species as well. Particularly big cats, who combined represented the third largest militia in the League.

It was four days since we’d retaken the Ralnor corporation planet for them. We’d stayed there well into the next day, mainly because everyone was too tired to want to go anywhere else, then returned to Karn. Since then, some of our new ships had gone out on pirate raids down the spine and into Sector Nine of the Gaia galaxy, with the captains using those as ‘getting to know your command’ experiences.

Both carriers we’d taken from the Terrans were operational now. Nolan had moved over to Unbroken yesterday when it came out of the shipyard, with Nathan becoming captain of Unbound. No-one had told me that was the plan, but it had obviously been the plan all along, and I realized that when it finally happened. Elsa’s business, not mine, but he was the last of our original ship crew to get a captaincy and his gold oak leaf.

We had four battleships now, and eight battlecruisers. Plus six rifted pairs of military ferries, in various sizes. All of our warships had been blooded on minor jobs except Unbroken, but we’d not had a major fleet action again since the last one. Unleashed had a full complement of two hundred Four-Cs, but as yet, Unbroken only had our sixty five remaining Uglies, which the mice were still tinkering with to turn into bombers. She was also playing host to the smaller ferries now, including the corvette sized ones.

Ironically, when we’d needed that many fighters, we’d only had half, and now we had them, we didn’t seem to need them. But Angie was keeping them training, and we’d stayed away from the conventional squadron structure, varying what launched to do what task every time.

“Rift,” said Trip, breaking me out of my musings.

The Imperator and Knight Marshal came out of it, with Admirals Jane and Leanne Waters behind them. It was almost laughable that everyone including them had their AI with them. Three of them went to seats behind the podium, and Jane went up to it. That was when I noticed the rest of the four stars from across the League were seated in the front row. With their AI aides.

“Thanks for coming on such short notice,” she said. “There’s been an event you all need to know about, which will impact your orders or areas of responsibility.”

Her eyes settled on me for a moment, then moved to another person several rows further in that my PC identified as reserve Brigadier Jodie Mills, who ran Wonderland station as a mercenary.

“The Ralnor broke through the Keerah lines a few hours ago.”

I face palmed.

When I looked up again, with nothing more having been said, I found Jane was looking at me again, and a lot of heads were turned in my direction. I shrugged at her, but if she was inviting me to tell everyone I’d been warning of this for weeks now, she wasn’t getting anything, as I actually had nothing to say.

“Well that was a waste of time then,” muttered Trip.

“What was?”

“Telling truth to stupid.”

I couldn’t stop myself snorting, and Jane shot us a very rapid nasty look.

“Yeah.”

“An hour ago,” Jane went on, “I confirmed that the Ralnor high command had been completely changed over to officers dedicated to prosecuting the Keerah War at whatever the cost. Attempts to break through recently have been getting more and more intense while they’ve been telling us they were doing the opposite. At the same time the Keerah have been getting weaker, as civil war and petty warlords have diverted replacement fleets into empire building instead.”

Not to mention the Knight Marshal’s attacks along the frontier on systems with large shipyards.

“The advances in diplomacy gained recently have been lost. While our treaties with the Ralnor are still in place, they’ve stopped talking to us again. For most of you, this is not an issue, but you need to know what has been suggested will happen from here.”

She paused, flicked a glance at me again, and then looked around the room.

“There is a very real concern that the Ralnor corporations which have been pushing for the Keerah War are actually planning to break Ralnor space up into corporate clusters, and effectively rule as much space as they can each grab according to their corporate objectives. The danger is civil war, which we’ve seen signs of already. By the time the Ralnor military wake up to being sent away to enable dissolution, it will be too late for them to do much about it, as the units they left behind will be replaced by corporate fleets. All of this is speculation, but you need to know the possible background as events now unfold.”

“On the Keerah side of the frontier, we can expect to start getting more requests for help from Keerah planets in the line of the Ralnor advance. And now they’ve broken through in one place, we can expect them to do so in others. Some of you will find yourself doing the same job as Space Marshal Pound has been trailblazing, trying to glue together regions of Keerah space that ask for our help.”

Heads turned, and I saw Pound sitting there as well, now looking uncomfortable with the attention. I knew exactly how she felt.

“Our hope at this point is the Ralnor situation is not what has been predicted, and they will merely continue as they are, only with the battle line moving further into Keerah space. For now, that side of things falls on Karn and Wonderland, who are in Ralnor space, and will be monitoring what happens there closely, along with the Unbound Mercenary Company, which has been operating in Ralnor space.”

Heads turned to look at me again. I ignored them.

“Assignments will change, but for now, we still respond to calls for help, wherever they come from. If and when the League get a call for help from a planet being threatened by a Ralnor corporation, whoever encounters that must inform the Imperator and Knight Marshal immediately. That’s why all of your AIs are here. The moment we have any sort of conflict of interest happen, I need to know about it that millisecond, because of the potential diplomatic effects.”

Which might be someone starting an actual war with the hoppers, or one of their corporations who had enough pull to start a full war. She looked around at key officers, and waited for nods from all of them. The fact it was most likely going to be me starting that war didn’t seem to have entered anyone’s head yet. Not even Jane’s. Then I saw the Knight Marshal looking at me. I shrugged slightly, and he smiled.

“If things in Ralnor space go to shit, and we get asked for help by individual planets trying to escape corporate control, we will attempt to help them without going to war. But if this comes to pass, we may not be able to avoid being at war with specific corporations, and we may end up having to choose sides. None of that is palatable, but we need to be prepared.”

She ended up looking at me again, and I nodded. She was telling me they didn’t want me starting a war, but at the same time, the corporation I’d worked for was still a client if they asked for help.

And the reality was, if this was going to happen, it would be our client that the hammer fell on first. Or at least, they’d be one of them. But the military we’d forged relationships with would probably be attacked first along with them. Unfortunately, there was nothing we could do about that unless someone asked for help. Everything I did had to be contracted, or else we just became pirates.

“We’ll keep you in the loop as things develop. But for now, return to your commands, and carry on as we have been. When things change, you’ll get new orders. That’s all.”

She stepped back, turned, and went to join the Imperator.

“We’ve been requested to stay put,” said Trip. “Matriarch Gitte and Jodie Mills have been asked to as well.”

“Warn Elsa, Angie, and Pete. And then reach out to our corporation contacts, and ask them if they want to talk. Also contact the aides of our two admiral friends, and see if they want to talk.”

“Maybe we need to bug bot them, just in case they get replaced, so we have a heads up on the change of command?”

“Now there’s a nasty thought. We need to run that past Admiral Jane first though.”

People were standing and vanishing now, but I stayed where I was. Except I didn’t, because a moment later I was sitting in a lounge chair in the Imperator’s office.

Two

“So,” said Jane, looking at me from where she was standing.

The two militia heads, Gitte, Mills, and me were sitting. The AIs were all standing behind us. They were all looking at me.

“Don’t look at me,” I told Jane. “I’ve got nothing to add.”

“But you have questions,” said the Knight Marshal.

“Nothing I’ve not already asked. Why didn’t you close the frontier has to be the biggest one, but we already had that discussion.”

“It’s still an option. But the League voted no on doing it. And the main reason was because we don’t really have the right to intervene on that sort of scale. Change jump points to help individual planets who ask for help, sure. But not change a ten thousand lightyear line of systems. That’s taking things too far. And before you say it, yes we did that to end the Trixone War, but this isn’t the same situation.”

I shrugged again.

“So it is what it is. Why am I here now?”

“We want your suggestions,” said the Imperator. “Especially for if the Ralnor do implode.”

“I’m not sure I have any. I did want to bounce something off you though.”

“What?”

“We know two friendly three star admirals, running the military in two separate but not adjoining sectors. The first sign of imminent problems could be if those two are suddenly replaced by less competent officers. Especially considering they’ve been dealing with us and Karn. Trip asked if we should put in some bug bots to get a warning if that occurs. Discuss.”

“Do it,” said the Imperator. “But very carefully. If you need more bugs, ask for them. I’m not a fan of spying, but sometimes you need to. Actually, before you do, make sure the bugs are the right sort. Something which won’t be noticed or be seen as out of place if they are. If we need new ones made, Jane will make sure they get made.”

“I’d be bugging the corporations who did that HQ invasion as well,” said Jodie. “Find their headquarters, and bug them. If anything more is going to happen adjacent to us, it will start there. And we might just be able to convince the military to be more alert for attacks if we have hard intel.”

“Are you thinking whatever happens will start where the known trouble has already been?” I asked her.

“It’s possible. If they were testing so far away from Ralnor, maybe the plan is to start a ripple out in the boondocks, but far enough away that no-one near the homeworld gets worried about it until it’s too late.”

“What else would you do?”

“Speaking hypothetically, I’d be approaching that corporation for a map of what they consider their space, and where they consider themselves vulnerable. Then we put magicsats all through it, and monitor it for anything going pear shaped. When something does, you go in under a contract and deal with it.”

“It might not be that easy.”

“The magicsats I can do,” said Gitte. She looked at the Knight Marshal. “I’ll need one of your special rocks though.”

I think Jodie and I were the only ones who didn’t know what that meant.

“Let’s talk about that when we finish here,” he said. “I’m not opposed to the idea. We need to position the magicsats where they will never be discovered though.” He looked at me. “And you’ll need to be extra careful not to give away to anyone that we’re monitoring at all.”

“That could be what someone wants,” said Leanne. “They get us involved, we start monitoring and reacting, and then they reveal we’re spying, and blame everything happening on us.”

That I could probably cover, depending on how much space we were talking about. I had an idea anyway.

“If we’re talking in hypotheticals,” I said, “here’s another one. If our client took the step of asking for us to wall them into a cluster, or if the two sectors where we know the admirals ask for the same, would we do it?”

“Is that likely?” asked Jane.

“I’ve no idea. But the seed could be sowed if we were prepared to do it. And if things then went to shit rapidly, it would be an option.”

“That’s one scenario I would consider,” said the Imperator. “Another is that planets in the region all ask to join the Karn cluster, and we add them one by one.” He looked at Gitte. “Put in the magicsats. Let’s at least find out if there is a problem this large to deal with down the track.”

“I’ll need that extra computer power,” said Uchawi. “Magicsats are no use in a situation like this if you can’t store what they see, and be able to re-run the feeds to find out where something started.”

“We’ll talk about it,” said the Knight Marshal, again.

Something was ultra-secret to do with computers and rocks, but I didn’t really care as long as we got our navmap coverage.

“I’ve already told Trip to ask our corporation contacts and friendly Ralnor officers if they want to talk.”

“Ours do,” said Charlie, who worked with Mills.

Wonderland was just on the Ralnor side of the frontier, midway between Karn and Kelewan, and that put them on the outer edge of a sector, and somewhere where new fleets heading to the frontier went past. They were part of a corridor created by a string of League systems on the Keerah side, and had an open door to Ralnor space the same as Karn did. It sounded like Mills had some level of contact with whichever Ralnor officer commanded in her area of that sector.

“Where is the breach?” I asked.

A high level map of the frontier popped up, showing me a red cross where it was. Predictably, it was on the Karn end of Ralnor space, although nowhere near Karn, Wonderland, or the two sectors I’d operated in so far. But it was in the general fleet feed area for all of them.

“That figures,” I went on. “The fleets brought back from the front in our local sector will likely get ordered back again in order to make the three star object to the orders, and give them a reason for replacing him. The whole area I’ve been operating in is far enough away that no-one is going to be looking there, but that breech is well positioned to suck most of the remaining military out of the entire region.”

“Which is why we put the magicsats and bugs in,” said the Imperator. “If you can engineer a way we can do it legally, all the better.”

“I’ve an idea for making it look like we’re monitoring the hard way anyway, and that I can see if they’ll contract me for. I probably won’t have enough ships though, but we can get some of the hulls we still have sitting there which look identical to ones in service out there pretending to be them if need be.”

“Approved.”

Three

“My apologies for the method of bringing you here,” said Gitte.

By the time she, Mills, and me, with our AIs, had been moved to my conference room, we’d heard back from both three stars and the corporation high leader. They all wanted to talk. Trip had told them all to tell their aides they were in a meeting and not to be disturbed, and then to stand. I’d had my Ralnor waistcoat brought in and put it on, and then Gitte had pulled them here, surprising all of them. The admiral for Wonderland adjacent space only had two stars, and looked a lot younger than the others.

“But I thought it best if we talked as soon as possible, given the situation now. I’m Matriarch Gitte of Karn, this is Colonel Cowan of the Unbound Mercenary Company, and Brigadier Mills of the Wonderland Mercenary Company. The three of us are the most affected League members by the breach in Keerah lines, and what potentially may be about to happen near each of us.”

The four Ralnor introduced themselves, but their names were untranslatable. As ours probably were for them. I just tagged them as older three, middle three, young two, and corporate leader. She was the only female, and the three males didn’t even blink on seeing her. Since the Ralnor military was pretty well exclusively male, that surprised me. But maybe that meant females were more dominant in corporate society? It was just a guess.

“I’m not sure why I’m here,” said young two. “I’m concerned about some rumours coming from Wonderland we’ve been hearing, but hardly worried enough for a meeting with the League of Worlds. And I’ve no authority over the frontier forces. I’m mainly logistics for getting fleets passing through to where they’re needed.”

“This isn’t a League of Worlds meeting,” I said. “We’re the mercenaries who’ve been bearing the brunt of recent events, and the Matriarch is here as a private citizen who owns a shipyard, and has access to things which might be useful as events unfold.”

Or unwind, but that was something I didn’t want to voice.

“We want to find out what we can do to help you,” said Gitte, “should things in Ralnor space start to deteriorate.”

“Explain,” said young two.

Gitte and Mills looked at me.

“I’m concerned,” I said, “that recent events point to corporations wanting to take direct control of the sectors you currently protect or operate in. We’ve seen a headquarters of a corporation which doesn’t support the war attacked, and various attacks on military forces, while the area has been bled of fleets and armies.”

“What do you think is about to happen?” asked middle three, who I knew best.

“Those fleets you got back will be re-routed back to the frontier soon. So will the majority of what forces all of you still have. Only this time they’ll be sent direct to the breech, or to another one closer if that happens. That will leave you with even less than you’ve had to defend your space with before, completely remove any sort of peacekeeper force threat, and give the corporation fleets free reign.”

“There’s nothing we can do about that if it happens,” said older three.

“Would you object to it happening?”

“Of course.”

“And you’d be immediately replaced?”

The three officers looked at one another.

“Possibly. But why?”

“To replace you with less competent officers, who’ll send away what you need to keep your space in line, and let corporation ships do what they like, including raiding your storage bases for front line equipment.”

Which had already been attempted.

“Then they’d come for us again,” added the corporation leader.

“Very likely. And after you, other corporations in the way of the bigger ones, although they may just seem like more mergers happening than is normal. After that, the corporations dominant in each region will take control away from whatever government you have now.”

“That couldn’t happen,” said two.

“Yes, it could,” the leader said. “Most of our sector governments are already heavily corporate represented. Taking over when you own the only effective military would be easy. They could even hide it as outsourcing police forces.”

All three officers looked uncomfortable now, but both the threes nodded.

“What do you suggest?” asked middle three.

“There are ways we can monitor ship movements across some of your space,” said Gitte. “Ways that will not be detectable, except if we respond the wrong way to something. Your permission to monitor what you consider your space will allow us to warn you well in advance of anything going to hit your ships.”

“We can disguise that a bit,” I added, “by jumping my ships through your space on patrol routes, so they can sample the most likely places where an attack force might be coming from. We’ll make that observable, so we can hide where the information of an attack comes from behind routine checking.”

“I’ll never get that authorised,” said two.

“Me either,” said older three. “But I can see the wisdom in doing it. I don’t think anything like what you’re describing is going to happen, although I concede it is a possibility, but probably on a much longer time scale than you’re thinking. But my job is the defence and stability of my space, and I take that seriously enough to consider options.”

“That’s my position as well,” said middle three. “But having had a logistics base attacked already, and a battleship stolen out of a shipyard, both ending up with the loss of ships and people I can’t afford to lose, and even though I had them replaced, I’m inclined to taking precautions, especially if I get them taken away again.”

“How close are you with your civilian government?” asked Mills.

“We have a good working relationship. Why?”

“How would they react to being taken over by a single corporation, or a group of them?”

“Not well. You’re suggesting I talk to key people?”

“Passing on intel would be part of your job now?”

“I’d hardly call any of this intel. Paranoia, perhaps.”

“Paranoia is often worth reporting as well,” I said. “It makes people at least consider possibilities they otherwise wouldn’t, and then when something happens to support that, they’ll reconsider.”

“You’re talking about politicians,” said Mills.

“True,” said the leader, “but most of them have a streak of self-preservation when it comes to paranoia and rumours. We can lobby them as well with our reservations, and we have been openly attacked already, so we have credibility in this.”

“What do you want us to do?” asked middle three, looking at me.

“Prepare for attacks that hopefully don’t come. If you can figure out a way we can monitor legally, then arrange it. But you need to put your fleets and troops on a heightened threat level, even if you do it for potential pirate attacks. They should also be monitoring power signatures for more than freighters should have, and marking anything bigger than a cruiser as an unconfirmed threat.”

“Your civilian leaders need to be looking for mergers which make no sense,” said Gitte. “And if enough of them happen, they need to be ready for someone trying to take over from them, legally or otherwise.”

“That is paranoid,” said two.

“Better to be paranoid and prepared, than unprepared and dead,” said older three, getting a nod of approval from middle three and the leader. “What do you suggest if we get ordered to send our remaining fleets to the frontier?”

“Send them,” I said. “But only send skeleton crews on them with hastily promoted officers you won’t miss. They’ll take long enough to get there that hopefully no-one will find out until they arrive. In the meantime you have experienced crews you can put on other ships quietly.”

“Where do the ships come from?” asked two.

“Lyla can put more ships in space, using your crews,” said Gitte. “If need be, I can build you the same Q-ships the corporations are using, and you crew those as legitimate mercenary forces registered at your capitals. You just hide where the funds come from to buy them.”

“That works,” said the leader. “If you send away fleets, you’ll need more mercenaries to take their place. If I was you, I’d quietly buy up a few of the better companies now, and then expand them if you have to. In fact, I may well do that myself. We need more ships, but we also need ships not known as ours.” She looked at Gitte. “We do need new ships. How fast can I get them from you?”

“As fast as you need. I suggest you contract the Unbound Mercenary Company to ferry a negotiation team to Karn for talks. We’ll make sure you have instantaneous coms for it. We can push ships out of our shipyard, and then jump tug them to you so they look legitimately bought.”

Middle three was looking at me.

“You’re suggesting we do the same thing, and if we have to send away our fleets, we move most of the crews to ships which look like freighters?”

“Basically, yes. Then if things go pear shaped, you’ve still got fleets and troops you can use to stabilize things with.”

“What’s the worst case scenario?” asked the leader.

“Worst case as I see it,” said Gitte, “is you need to put down any attempt at a take over, and become independent states yourselves. That will require political will for the sectors.” She looked directly at the leader. “But for you, if you’ve got space you consider yours, and other planets will ally with you, we can carve you out as a separate cluster, and join you up to Karn. No-one will ever attack you again like that, but it might mean losing markets to those outside your space, although others will open up to you in the League.”

“That might start a war,” said Mills.

“Not if we do it as a result of being attacked,” said the leader. “If a sector did it though, it might well start a war.”

“We won’t be able to protect our borders,” said older three, getting a nod from middle three, and a concerned look from two.

“We can make those borders solid,” said Gitte. “Jump points can be removed, moved, or the destination relocated. Border crossing points created, where you stage enough fleets and marines to stop anyone entering you don’t want to enter. That takes a request from government level, and a map of what you want.”

“It’s being done regularly in Keerah space,” added Mills. “We even have a cluster that is forming and expanding around Keerah planets that are not at war with anyone, nor have empire building aspirations.”

“This is all disaster planning,” I said. “Worst case scenario stuff. But for now, warnings and preparations are prudent, and Karn can supply you with the same ships the corporations are building now.”

“I’ll start getting support to buy them,” said upper three. “I need them already. We have quotas for the building of warships which must be met to send to the frontier. But I need response ships beyond those, and you’ve just given me a way of doing that. The question is how fast I can arrange the funding.”

“You can always call on us,” I said. “And if you can get us approval to monitor ship movements in key areas, we can both warn you far enough in advance, and respond faster ourselves.”

“I don’t care about the sectors,” said the leader. “You’ll have a map of systems I want monitored as fast as I can organise it once I’m back at my desk. My negotiation teams will be ready in hours, so please be ready to send a ferry when we call for it. And by then I hope to have additional systems paranoid enough to join the list for monitoring.”

“I’ll get the ability to do that ready to implement,” said Gitte.

The three officers looked thoughtful. Then older brought out a pad, and the other two followed. They swapped contact information.

“If we need to meet again,” said middle three, “can we get a ferry as well?”

“They’re hireable for any reason,” I told them. “If the three of you summon a ferry at the same time, you can meet on Unseen just by walking aboard. And if you want a fast courier system set up, we can arrange that as well.”

“I know someone who’ll jump at that opportunity,” said Mills.

“You better put me back in my office,” said the leader. “I’ve got work to do.”

“Us too,” said older three, with the other two of them nodding.

“Thank you for being so reasonable about this,” said Gitte. “I’ll put you back as soon as you put your pads away.”

They hastily pocketed them, and then they were all gone.

Four

“The shit is hitting the fan,” I told them.

I’d called in Elsa, Pete, and Angie, and Trip had stayed. I quickly outlined what was going on, and what we were preparing to have happened.

“Charlie just told me Jodie and their mercenary team is available if we need more troops,” said Trip. “They also think a few of the faeries might be interested in joining them. That would offer some different magic options. They can’t help with ships, but they can if we need to take ships or stations. Or defend them. The AI part of their company can also fly multiple fighters at the same time, so if we build the third two hundred Fours for Unbroken, they’ll fly them for us if we don’t have pilots.”

“That includes Dean and Bob,” said Elsa, “doesn’t it?”

“Yes. We could sub-contract the whole company if we needed to. They’ve also got Keerah and Ralnor troops.”

I remembered hearing something about that. They’d all be sent to Wonderland before it was called that, expecting to die. Mills had forged them into a company in spite of the Ralnor and Keerah not trusting each other, and they’d mostly survived. Since then they’d been picking up defectors from both sides of the frontier.

“Tell Charlie we’ll be in touch,” I told Trip. “Especially the part about flying fighters if we need them. Then get those fighters built.” Or rather, magically created. “As soon as the ferry request arrives, send one. Or two if they want a team to come straight here, while their main one goes to Karn. Find out where Gitte wants them delivered as well.”

“On it.”

“What are we doing?” asked Pete.

“Preparing to defend our recent client. We’re probably going to need to schedule patrols to appear to be monitoring their space manually, looking for threats. But the area will be covered by magicsats sometime soon.”

“How do we do that?” asked Elsa.

“I was thinking we use the remaining damaged Q-ship hulls, but I think they’ll all be purchased soon. The ones we sold the corporation to protect their home system won’t be enough for them now, especially if another threat turns up. So I’m open to suggestions.”

“We could use the Lightning,” said Angie. “We’re actually not using it for anything now. Trip could just jump it around, fly for long enough at half speed to be noticed and obviously be checking ship movements, and then move on.”

“That gives away the fact we’ve seen a threat though,” said Pete. “They’ll know they’ve been spotted.”

“If it makes them turn around,” I said, “I’m all for that.”

“Can we put a jump square on the Lightning?” asked Elsa. “If so, Trip could drop a bug bot into any ship which looks suspicious.”

“Trip, ask Maya if she can copy one there. And get a supply of the most likely not to be noticed bug bots done as well.”

“On it,” he said. “Where do I go though?”

“For now, that headquarters jump point, all three where they were also attacked, and the rest of the jump points leading to them, the two sector capitals, more covertly, and that shipyard system where the battleship was stolen. That will be a start. When we get a map of corporate interests, you can expand to cover as much of the area as is feasible.”

“That’s probably not a lot, not with one Lightning. That corporation spans at least three sectors, and their HQ is some thousand light years from here. Have you any idea how many systems that could be?”

I sighed. I hadn’t thought about it like that. But it did explain Gitte asking for computing power. That could potentially be tens of thousands of magicsats needed.

“I think I underestimated the problem,” I said. “In which case, us responding to problems we see by magicsat is probably not explainable.”

“Why does it need explaining?” asked Elsa. “We just turn up and say ‘you rang?’. All we need is them to confirm they called for help. It might dictate how far we have to let threats get before we hit them though, but I don’t see that as a problem.”

“I put a military ferry at the HQ station,” said Trip, “to speed up communications. I just got this.”

A screen popped up with a very high level map on it. It was worse than I thought. The corporation had key assets across five sectors. A lot of it wasn’t joined though, and that probably made a huge difference.

“That looks both worse and better than I thought,” I said, getting surprised looks.

“How do you work that out?” asked Angie. “I see a huge area of space that needs protecting.”

“That’s what it looks like. But, Trip, ring the clusters, ignoring the outliers.”

The map changed, now looking like a series of small clusters of about a hundred or so systems.

“Did we get a list of core assets that must be protected at all costs?”

Green dots appeared, and most of them were near the center of each cluster.

“Trip, ask them if they can show us the systems the corporations that attacked them have their headquarters in.”

“I have that already.”

Six red dots appeared, spread around where we’d had that last battle. Then another eight appeared, with each one near a single cluster. That explained why they’d been carving the corporation up among many others. They each wanted the assets local to them. One of them was not that far from the mine we’d protected originally, and not all that far away from Karn.

“What are the rest of them?” asked Pete.

“Past attacks. All fourteen corporations are considered hostile.”

“Any friendly ones?” I asked.

A set of blue dots appeared. Most of them were within the same clusters as the green dots, but several were outside them.

“Send that to Uchawi. If Gitte can magicsat all of that, then we might be able to do some good. If it needs to be phased in, then core assets, and the friendly and enemy HQ’s first. Then fill in progressively. Once we can see, we can bug.”

“Do you still want the Lightning going out?”

“Until we get a live map, yes. We need to at least get some warning if more attacks on what we already know is vulnerable are on their way. But add in checks on the jump points leading to the other corporate HQs as well. Just in case.”

“Uchawi says that will definitely need phasing in. She’s waiting for the two grand mages to work some magic. Possible first phase tomorrow.”

“Then get the jumping going as soon as Maya finishes what you need.”

“On it.”

“What’s our plan?” asked Pete.

“We’ll have to keep a state of readiness going. While I don’t think today will see any escalation, we need to be ready whenever something does start happening.”

“Do we keep training?” asked Angie.

“Keep it going. It needs to happen anyway, but don’t tire everyone out. Hopefully if we need to deploy, we’ll get enough warning to not need to jump out on stations in public.”

“Leaving now,” said Trip.

“Has there been any public announcement of the Ralnor breech?”

“Just going out on the media now.”

“Make sure everyone sees it at lunch time, and spread the word as people talk about it that we’re on a heightened alert as a result.”

“Will do. Enjoy your lunch.”

Five

“Melissa Gordon. I hear you need a courier pilot?”

Various media reports had reported the breech differently. Some had just reported it straight as an event, while others had hyped it up as a major happening that spelled the doom of the Keerah. It didn’t get as much discussion over lunch as I’d expected, and all the senior officers wanted to know was what to expect.

For now, some of them were on call for trouble in places we were getting feeds from, such as the spine, and the Kingdom comnavsat coverage of the route from the Cat World to Hunter Prime. We’d hit the unknown pirates twice now using battlecruisers, and kept several unescorted convoys safe. So far we’d heard nothing from the Cat World about who the attackers were, but it wasn’t a priority for me. Snark had picked up a few more ships.

Until something tangible happened, or Trip found us something to do, all we could do was carry on as we were. The carriers and big ships were way out in the Karn system at the moment doing fleet exercises, and launching and recovering fighters and assault ships. We had a lot more ferries now, and the civilian ones were keeping our passengers happy with their destination options.

Trip popped up in front of me as I was finishing lunch, and told me there was someone in my office. I found her sitting in front of my desk when I arrived.

“Where did you hear that?”

“Jodie Mills.”

“Ah. She said she thought she knew someone. What did she tell you?”

“You need a jump courier to link up some contacts in Ralnor space, without it looking like its organized.”

“You have a jump ship?”

“Sure do. It’s parked in one of your shuttle bays now. It’s small and fast, and I jump in and out of the freight network to get around.”

That sounded ridiculous, but she’d said it looking totally serious.

“How do you have a jump drive?”

“Jon and I go way back.”

“Jon?”

“The Imperator. I knew him when he was just starting out as a pilot.”

“Okay. The drive is the old one then?”

“Yeah. So far I’ve not needed one of the new ones. And technically, or at least so I’m told, civilians don’t rate them.”

“That’s changing, because we have them now. Our mage can do the upgrade for you, if you want.”

“Who do I need to sleep with to get that?”

“No-one. Is that a thing these days?”

She laughed.

“Not usually, but sometimes it’s fun anyway.”

My eyes narrowed at that, and I had to force them open again.

“Do you party much?”

“Depends on the work, and where I am. Why?”

“If you’re a party person, you might like Brook. She’s our resident party person.”

“If you say so. I’ll pay for the drive upgrade. I work for myself, and I hate being indebted to anyone.”

“I’m not sure why you’re here then.”

“I need more work. The Imperium imploding and the Keerah War seriously messed up my routes. If you sub-contract me so I can work under your company name, I can see what I can pick up in Ralnor space at the same time I’m doing whatever you need done. Otherwise, I can’t get permission to go there. I’ve tried a number of times.”

“Do you have…”

“Jump button, military grade belt suit, and combat droids. I even wear your business suit sometimes now as well. My ship is unarmed, but I’m in and out fast, and I deliver.”

“AI?”

“No. I’ve got a self-destruct setup in case of boarding. But if you need one to ride shotgun with me, I guess that’s okay. I don’t need one. George wrote me a custom interface, and jump selection for me is really quick once I add repeat locations to it.”

Presumably that was Fleet Admiral George Murdock.

“Can you carry passengers?”

“Two. But Ralnor? Probably not. Might squeeze one in if they’re not too big. I don’t live on my ship, and I always park somewhere safe before I clock off. She’s built for speed, and very small deliveries.”

“We can give this a try, I guess. Go and see Nade and Red in the company office. Work out something to make the sub-contract official. Get a navmap from Trip. Then go see the high leader of the corporation which hires us at their headquarters. He can tell her you’re coming. If nothing else, you can probably get some deliveries going from there to their station heads, and also to the three admirals we’re keeping in touch with. Suggest you take any sensitive communications to the other vulnerable corporation heads as well. Give it a few days and come back, and we’ll see if anything is working.”

“That works for me.”

“Just make sure you keep an eye out for trouble. On Ralnor stations, you might find being linked to us attracts trouble. And you’ll be the only human there.”

“I’m good at avoiding trouble.”

“You can always park here while you’re working with us. We can allocate the bay you’re in now as yours to use. Do you need somewhere to sleep as well?”

“I may use the park, but no, I’ve got a very nice apartment on Haven station I sleep at.”

Trip came in the door as she rose.

“This way,” he said to her, and she followed him out.

Six

We didn’t get a corporate delegation.

Trip docked a military ferry at where each of the admirals was, and they started using us as a secret communications hub. All the remaining military hulks were divided up between them, and Uchawi had them jumped to their shipyards for repair. It left us with the more badly damaged of the freighters which had not already gone in for repair.

I called a very fast shareholder’s meeting, with most of them attending by hollo, and suggested we use some of the damaged freighters as both a ferry and coms unit. If we needed to set up fast coms with someone new, we could use them. They could have the cargo bays modified with seating and luggage storage, as well as being able to be used for freight containers and pallets. The rift would come to a new rift room on Unseen, where all of them met a travel car, with no other exit.

After agreeing, I put another proposal that we get more assault shuttles for the same purpose, both to allow putting a single file of troops anywhere in whatever numbers we needed, and again, provide instant coms through the rift. The shuttles would be less obvious than ships docked externally.

Pete agreed with that, but suggested we get more Pythons as well, so the same thing could be done on the ground, or the tops of buildings. We all agreed again. And in fact, he’d wanted to ask for more shuttles of both kinds anyway. Given what we were being paid for the remainder of the ships we had parked, the cost of brand new shuttles was not going to be noticed.

That brought up getting more Cobras, and since we had three carriers now, and nothing big parking on two of them, more Cobras was something we should have already done just for mosquito protection of fighters. So we ordered twelve more for fast delivery, as the last six would be needed soon for the third carrier, since we were already creating fighters for it, and we had both mouse pilots free, were still getting job applications, and had access to AI avatar pilots now as well.

Working out a deal with Mills and her company was also agreed to. That had been a longer meeting than I intended, but it got some things moving I thought we might be going to need.

I called in Maya and told her what was coming, and as they were delivered we’d want rifts going in, and the room on this end set up. The design of Unseen had foreseen the need for more of these, so they’d been designed in and built, just add rifts when needed. Trip was now running the travel cars, so they always stopped in the right place, or restricted anyone who used them to areas they were allowed to go. That was especially necessary to keep passengers contained to their areas only.

Trip popped up as I was getting up from my desk, and I sat back down again.

“I did a fast flyby of all the places you wanted me to, and just recorded all the navmap snapshots. You should look at what was heading towards some of the key jump points.”

A map came up showing a standard comnavsat distance from a jump point. There was a convoy of ships several hours out. He tagged each with what they were.

“Are you sure?”

“This group I went back and put bug bots on. They’re definitely warships and troop transports, and they’re from one of the corporations we’ve identified as threats.”

“Where is this?”

“The target is not our previous employer, but one of their friends, and through that jump point is their headquarters. I’m checking now to see if the core assets for our client in the same area are about to be threatened as well by the same hostile corporation.”

“Jump in a ferry, and ask them if they require assistance. If necessary, link them to our client’s high leader. You said there were others?”

“Two more, and again, different corporations, similar situation, but the fleets are a bit further away from jump points. I showed you the closest one to causing trouble.”

Headquarters systems had picket forces at their jump points larger than was normal. As soon as one of those fleets started jumping in, things would get complicated.

“Get Elsa in here. Ferries to the other two as well. Show them the images, and let them confirm them being warships with our client. Also warn her what’s happening, in case she wants to put out a general warning. Where’s Melissa?”

“With our client now. We put a rift on her shuttle, so I can whisper in her ear if you need me to.”

“Good. Tell her what’s going on as well. She might be able to get some warning to those we’re not covering. Does she have a comnavsat on board?”

“Yes, she had one already.”

“Then snapshot what she sees as well, and get her to cover jump points on her way in.”

“Will do.”

“You wanted me?” asked Elsa.

“We have a situation developing in three places we know about, but were not expecting.”

“What sort?”

“Headquarters attacks on friendly corporations to our client. Trip is moving ferries to give us communications, so we can ask them if they want help.”

“We better cancel training then, and get everyone ready to deploy.”

“Do that, yes. Tell the captains we could be jumping from one to another, as we know of three potential problems, all within comnavsat range of a jump point, but various distances away. Did we get a full complement of jump sleds? I mean the new smaller sleds. I know we got the jump salvage droids.”

“They came in last night. Trip’s been making sure we have ship specs for whatever we’re likely to come across we might need to jump move in a hurry. And he’s been practicing moving hulks around. He can put a sled in a standard airlock now, even if we don’t know the internal layout.”

“Good. Are they distributed to all ships?”

“Yes. And every ship has full magazines. Uchawi pointed us towards a system no-one claims, which has asteroids suitable for mining to make missiles. Both Unleashed and Unbroken have been there filling up on raw rock, and they’ve then distributed missiles. We finished that yesterday.”

“I’ve got a high leader who wants to talk to you,” said Trip.

“Get us ready to move,” I told Elsa, and she walked straight out.

A screen popped up, showing me a poodle. I’d seen one of these very big dogs before, so it wasn’t a shock.

“I’m colonel Cowan,” I said. “You wanted to talk to me?”

“I was told you were a general.”

“I am as far as the Ralnor are concerned. If you want to see the waistcoat, I can have someone bring it.”

I had it available for the suit now as well, but just shifting wasn’t a good idea when someone was watching.

“No. I’m told we have a war fleet heading towards us that looks like a freighter fleet. Are you sure they’re warships?”

“They’re the same ships which attacked another corporate headquarters a few days ago. The extra-large freighters are the same size as Ralnor battleships, and just as heavily armed. What look like normal larger freighters, are cruisers. You’ve got an actual fleet of twelve warships heading to your jump point now, with troop ships.”

“You mean the standard fleets with two battleships and two cruisers?”

“No, two and five, with four destroyers, and a carrier. The cruisers seem to be more common. We’ve seen attacks by up to twelve of the cruisers alone already.”

“We can’t repel that sort of firepower. It’s unheard of around here outside of the military fleets. Are you sure they’re hostile?”

“We think they are. My suggestion is you move your jump point ships through, and as soon as you pick them up on your sensors, you challenge them, and see how they react. If they admit to being hostile, we have time for a contract to help you. But be aware there are other fleets heading to other headquarters, and due to hit jump points not long after yours. We’re getting ready for action somewhere right now.”

“How do you come to know about these?”

“Random checks of jump points we know might be vulnerable the same way our Ralnor client was. They told us about you, so we did a quick check. We just realized you and others have a real problem developing.”

“Hold on a moment.”

The screen froze, and I guessed orders were being given to their fleet at the jump point. Then she was back.

“Send us your standard contract. We should know if the threat is real quite soon.”

“We make every effort to capture ships without too much damage. Since they’re coming for you, we can offer you first choice for buying them. They’ll be partly damaged, and any survivors will go back to the Ralnor military. But the ships should be repairable by your shipyard fairly quickly.”

“So I was informed, and yes, we will want them. If someone has declared war on us, and the military can’t protect us, we’ll need more ships to protect our most important assets ourselves.”

“Contract sent,” said Trip, in my ear. “I put one of our jump comnavsats on a jump sled and jumped it there, so I’ve got a real time feed. Should I do the same for the other possible problem sites?”

“Yes, do that.”

“What was that?” asked the poodle.

“Sorry, answering someone else. We’ve got real time feed from your jump point now.”

Another screen came up, and I could see there were three cruisers, four destroyers, four frigates, and two corvettes now in a defensive formation with the jump point behind them.

“We’re challenging them now.”

She was looking to one side.

“Trip, can you record what’s being said on the flagship’s bridge?”

He popped up next to me, and the poodle looked surprised for a moment.

“Yes, doing that now.”

“You can do that?” asked the poodle.

“Not officially. But in this case, they’ll just lie to your fleet commander, and since we can shatter that lie if it is a lie, we’re doing it.”

The poodle looked concerned, but then nodded. No-one wanted to know they could be bugged at will by someone else. We waited, as the enemy fleet drew closer.

“We’re ready to deploy,” said Trip. “Do the pilots wait in their birds?”

“Tell them yes, at least until we confirm the situation is what we think it is.”

“It is. I’ll play back the recording as soon as the conversation between the two fleet commanders is finished.”

We waited. There was a drone in the background from the poodle’s end, which I assumed was the conversation being passed on to her, and she had her body turned now as if watching another screen. The drone stopped, and she looked at me again.

“They claim to be a convoy delivering shipments we’re expecting, and picking up others for their next stop. I’m getting confirmation on the documentation, but they look and sound legitimate.”

“I’m still recording,” said Trip.

“Do you have enough to establish the recording is real, and so is the threat they pose?”

“Yes. I’ll keep recording, but I can play you enough to satisfy both.”

“Please do,” said the poodle.

The vid played for me, with my vid going split screen to show her both me and the recording. It started before the fleet commanders spoke, showed the whole bridge while it was happening, and then the laughing and orders begin as soon as the channel ended. We heard their assessment of the ships waiting for them, which wasn’t at all respectful, and how they intended killing them.

I was shocked, and the poodle was both that and enraged.

“The contract will be vetted and returned to you as fast as we can,” she told me. “Can you save our fleet? We are unable to get more ships there in time.”

“Have your ships stay where they are. We’ll be hitting them well before they get into range.”

“Good hunting, colonel.”

Seven

Camel jumped in alone, right in front of the convoy, but just outside their missile range.

Trip was up as a hollo, Maya was sitting off to one side of me with a set of trainee hollos around her, and Sprite was on his mat. I was wearing my real waistcoat, magically repaired from the damage Sprite had done to it one night recently, with a suit overlay putting the insignia on my shoulders as well, and I had actual orders from older-three to prevent the convoy from reaching the jump point.

Our fleet was at the jump in point, waiting for me to tell them to come in. Right now, I still thought there was a chance the enemy fleet would turn away rather than fight us. A small chance.

A screen popped up, showing me a Ralnor with admiral insignia, but in civilian dress. He looked surprised to see me, and then sneered. I was getting really good at Ralnor facial expression now, and that one was common when they saw humans. The military were the only ones who didn’t use it.

“You are identified as an unauthorised convoy of disguised warships on your way to a corporation headquarters,” I said. “You are ordered to return immediately to your planet of origin, and await inspection by Ralnor Intelligence officers. Unauthorized warships will be seized, and fines levied. You will turn away from your course immediately, or be destroyed.”

He laughed, and the channel ended.

“I’m thinking we need to bring an actual Ralnor next time,” said Trip. “Yes, there we go, they’ve fired missiles at us. I’ve sent that to the admiral.”

Mosquitoes launched, and the admiral popped up straight away on a screen.

“General, you are authorised to destroy that convoy in any way you see fit.”

“Aye, admiral. We’ll do so.”

He nodded, and vanished. Trip brought up the ship captain hollos.

“Trip, isolation protocol, go.”

“Going.”

I watched the navmap. All the warships in the convoy blinked out, and reappeared spread right out where none of them could support another one. The carrier instantly launched fighters. I put my hand on the controls, and sped us up to combat speed.

“Go.”

Camel jumped, with a destroyer now right in front and locked up, and I gave it full guns, and a three image rec poke. We jumped to another destroyer and I gave it a full torpedo salvo and the poke. Camel jumped again, and we were where I could see both easily, and they were now dark.

We jumped again, and I found myself on one side of a group of fighters, and went straight into strafe, locking up and firing whatever seemed appropriate. Six kills later, we jumped again, and Trip brought us to a stop in front of the freighters.

The bigger ships took longer to kill, but one by one they succumbed. When the last one was dark, the jump sleds moved them again into a parking line. The fighters headed back to Unseen, which had been the only carrier to launch this time. The enemy carrier had only launched a hundred, so either we killed it too fast to launch a second time, or they didn’t expect to need many fighters at their target. I had the feeling the pilots we’d killed were not very experienced either.

“Why didn’t anyone come up with this years ago?” asked Elsa.

Meaning the jump movement of big ships.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“It cost us two sleds,” said Trip. “I think they merged with something solid where they jumped in, and the jump drives were destroyed.”

“That’s probably why,” said Nolan.

“The magic should be compensating for that,” said Maya.

“Only if there’s enough room,” said Trip. “If the available space is filled with something, it’s got nowhere to go. Plus, the drives were not designed for this at all.”

“I’ll add it to our next group think session.”

That was what she was calling it when her group brainstormed any magic issue.

“I can live with losing two,” I said. “Trip, give me the lead freighter to talk to.”

A screen popped up a few moments later, showing me a civilian Ralnor. He already looked freaked out, and the freighters were all turning away already.

“Stop your engines and prepare to be boarded,” I said. “Failure to…”

The screen vanished, missiles launched from all of them, and they continued to turn and run. Camel jumped to the other side of them. I looked at Nolan, who had our bombers on board Unbroken.

“Poke time for the bombers,” I told him. “I was hoping we didn’t need to do that, but it seems we do. Next time you can just launch them before you go in against your primary target.”

“Will do. Launching.”

Unbroken appeared near enough to make me flinch, and Trip chuckled.

“Please don’t do that again,” said Maya, looking daggers at Nolan.

It was his turn to flinch. We’d all heard the stories of what happened when you spooked a mage. It was never anything good. How accurate those stories were was another thing, but better safe than sorry.

Camel jumped to a different place, well out of the way. The bombers launched, and went in against the freighters, with Unbroken doing mosquito support.

Unseen was recovering fighters, and all our salvage droids were recovering debris. What didn’t fit into our debris storage was moved into a massive pile, and once the clean-up of large pieces was complete, a jump salvage droid pulled it all in, and vanished back to Karn with it.

The worst of it was collected by the time the bombers finished with the freighters. They were jumped back to Karn, where mages would move survivors to a POW camp set up on a derelict Keerah ship. I checked on life signs on the warships, and told Trip to move them to Karn as well, and have the mages take the survivors off.

These ships had more than I’d expected, and it seemed their life support in key places remained functional when we poked them. Someone had done a better design for these ones, even though they looked the same on the outside as previous ones. It suggested a standard hull was being used as camouflage, but the inside fittings were custom.

When the military told us where to send the survivors, we’d use two rift joined ferries for it. But that was going to wait until we’d dealt with all the threats.

The fleet formed back up to wait for the carriers, and Camel jumped back to its flight pod park. The bombers were now RTB as well. Fighters were landing as fast as the elevators would allow, and a couple of them made Maya flinch as they seemed to be a bit close as they flew past us. The Excalibur was a big bird, especially when it was flying right past your window. In space, you kind of lost that perspective.

The big surprise was we hadn’t had any fighters destroyed this time. It suggested the corporate pilots were mostly rookies, but it was also partly because Unseen had been providing mosquito and image rec support, while firing on the enemy carrier.

The few badly damaged birds were taken to Unbroken, which didn’t have a full complement of fighters yet. Only the bombers and the Uglies were available to launch from there. We might have to speed up the creation of new Fours, but for now, it had empty bays to do repairs in, and we instead created a new bird to replace it where it came from. The damaged ones would be spares for a while, at least until we employed the last two hundred pilots.

A screen with the poodle on it popped up, we were congratulated, and they asked for details of the condition of the warships. I promised to send that as soon as we had an assessment, and explained the survivors were being removed from them at the moment. The poodle looked disappointed, but accepted that. I wondered if they wanted prisoners for interrogation. But Military Intelligence would be getting first crack at them. I explained that, and the poodle accepted it as a fact of life here.

The screen vanished after effusive thanks, and their fleet jumped back to their own side of the jump point, leaving behind a single corvette spotter.

“Next!” I said to Trip.

Eight

The whole battle and clean up took less than a half hour.

By then Trip had the next corporation head ready to talk to me, and this time it was another Ralnor. But the colouring of the fur was very different this time. The conversation was much the same, except they’d already received a copy of the recording, and that had spooked them. They’d moved their ships to the other side of their jump point immediately, and now they issued the challenge while I waited. This time the admiral on the convoy flagship just straight out told them to prepare to meet whatever deity they believed in.

Trip put Camel in front of the convoy again, I told them the same as last time, and the admiral on the ships basically said ‘Bring it!’, only with more words. We took them apart the same as the previous convoy, and just as easily. This time Unleashed launched fighters, but as she did so, she was landing pulses on the enemy carrier’s shields. There was definitely no time for a second launch this time.

By three we’d finished the clean-up, and moved on to the third convoy, and that one was again just a repeat of the previous two. By now, I had a sick feeling in my gut, as I sat there watching the hulks vanish and fighters returning to both carriers, since this time they’d launched half each, and only pilots who’d not taken any damage previously.

I had the distinct impression that the pilots we were facing were all either military rejects, or civilian pilots taught to fly against pirates. None of them were up to the level of even our worst pilots. And the ship captains were not a whole lot better. Three different fleets from three different corporations, and none of them were capable of fighting their ships properly.

It made me think that was partly behind getting the military to go hunt tigers. If they went up against their own military without a serious number imbalance, they’d lose as badly as they had to us. And that made no sense. Except that maybe the corporations didn’t trust the military to do their bidding without questioning it.

“I found a historical reference which sums up your expression,” said Trip.

Maya and I both looked at him. She didn’t look happy either.

“What do you mean?”

“A long, long, time ago, someone came up with an expression which I think fits.”

“What?”

“They called anything death related and easily done like this, ‘clubbing baby seals’.”

Maya flinched. But this was the reality for a mercenary company. The easier the job was, the better. For now, the corporations had no answer to our jump drive or experience. But Maya was still too new to this to have it settle in as a reality.

“That’s pretty horrible,” she said, and I had to agree, but said nothing.

The clean-up went on, and the pilots stood down after they landed. By three thirty, we were finished, and I hoped that was all we needed to do today. Nade, Teal, and their fuzzballs were dealing with the ship sales side of it, and as soon as prices were agreed and paid, we’d start moving ships to their new owners.

I was sipping a jolt drink when Melissa popped up.

“You need to come immediately. I just jumped into a war zone, thinking I was just delivering a warning. The locals have already sent out a distress call for anyone to come to their assistance. And yes, this is another corporation headquarters.”

“We’re coming. Trip, get us there where we can see what’s going on.”

Camel jumped to Unseen, and Unseen jumped somewhere else. Comnavsats went out, and the whole mess came into focus.

“Trip, put their big ships somewhere else, and get the pilots back in their fighters. I need to talk to whoever is in charge down there.”

A screen popped up with a furry something on it.

“Can you help us?” it asked me. “We have troops landing on the ground, and our station is taking damage. Whatever you charge, we’ll pay it.”

“We’re on our way.”

“Hurry!”

The screen vanished.

“The channel was lost from their end,” said Trip. “The battleships and carriers are now out of the way, and I’m moving cruisers now. I’ve tagged local ships still fighting in green.”

“Do we have…”

“Fighters are ready to launch. Who goes this time?”

“All of them. Send the bombers after the assault shuttles on their way down, and if the Uglies are flyable, and Nolan wants to jump down where they’re away from the enemy fighters, he can launch the Uglies as well.”

Last I’d heard, they’d been able to get working torpedo launchers on them, but not yet enough shielding to survive going in against capital ships. Against assault shuttles, they might be fine. There was a short pause.

“The mice are pointing out just how stupid them not getting jump buttons was.”

“Deal with it later. Get us in the fight.”

Camel jumped, and I fired all my guns at a destroyer at point blank range, and tore it apart. I jerked us up and away, causing Maya to flinch and grip her chair arms tightly. Beyond it was another one, locked in combat with a different class of destroyer, and I checked I was going to fire on the right one, locked it up, and gave it a full torpedo spread. The entire side of the ship opened up, and it went dark. But before I could do anything, it was hit from the other side as well, and the ship tore into two mangled pieces.

We jumped, appearing behind a fighter chasing an almost identical fighter but in a different colour. Again, I checked I was locking up the red dot not the green one, and pressed the image rec button twice. The fighter didn’t even see me coming, took five of the missiles, and just exploded. The next nearest button locked up another fighter, and I went into strafe, gave it front guns, and then shifted aim to the wingman and sent image recs at that one.

Camel jumped again, this time making Maya cry out in alarm as the side of a station appeared really close out her side windows, but there was no-one ahead of me to shoot at. Instead, there was the wreckage of a fighter on the station, and I pulled speed off, and looped around it. There was obviously a hull breach going on. I looked at Maya and she was concentrating already, and the whole area of mess went flat, and what was coming out stopped.

We jumped again. This time I was behind a shuttle firing at an Ugly, and the Ugly just couldn’t shake him. I locked the shuttle up, and gave it image recs until it exploded.

“Thank you,” said a mouse voice, and the Ugly turned suddenly, and headed for the ground again.

“Why doesn’t that mouse have a wingman?” I asked, but didn’t get an answer.

We jumped again, and this time I appeared near a badly damaged cruiser, being fired on by another destroyer. I had to resist putting torpedoes into the cruiser, and instead, raced over the top of it way too close, and torpedoed the destroyer instead. It took several cruiser pulses at the same time, and just exploded. That did more damage to my shields than anything else had so far, and it felt like we protected the cruiser from the worst of it. A moment later the cruiser was gone from view, but not destroyed.

“I moved the cruiser somewhere safe,” said Trip, and then we moved again as well, but this time well away from the remainder of the fight.

Just in time as well, as my shields were now needing to recharge before we did anything else. A moment later, Fokker and Albatross appeared next to us, both with less shielding than I had.

Trip had put us facing the main battle, and it was nearly over. Freighters were running, and when I checked the navmap, the remaining enemy capital ships were now being engaged by appropriately sized ones of mine. Ship hulks started vanishing before they could impact the station further, and I looked at Maya. She was looking fatigued, and so were her trainees. But there were several other hollos up now, and they were wearing full mage insignia, but still looked pretty young to me.

“Do you want us to go deal with the freighters?” asked Brook.

“When you’re up to fifty percent shields, and not before.”

Camel was already back near that level, but I was feeling fatigue now, and if Brook wanted to chase freighters, she was welcome to it. I needed to know what else was going on.

“Trip, put us back on Unseen.”

There was a big flash over by the station, and Maya cried out, and went limp. A moment later, she vanished, along with all the hollos.

“A docked ship just exploded,” said Trip. “I think Maya had warning and managed to shield the station and the ships on either side, but it looks like it was too much for her. I’m grabbing what debris I can now, and chucking it somewhere safe. Oh, hell.”

“What?”

“We’ve got not-crocs in care units. They must have been on the ship, and their jump buttons jumped them out as the ship exploded. That’s where Maya and several of her trainees are as well. They were emergency jumped to the care units too.”

“What about the station?”

“The bulkheads have sealed off the damaged dock, and I’m grabbing people still alive with the jump sleds. We need a hospital ship. The station has taken a lot of damage internally, and there’s a lot of casualties.”

“Ask Haven for a civilian version.”

“On its way.”

I noticed finally that we were parked, but Unseen was no-where near the station. But a moment later it was, and I saw Fours change course to come towards us. Sprite had already left, and I unbuckled, rose, swayed a bit, and then headed through the rift to Unseen.

“I think we’re done,” said Elsa, as she saw me.

“Ah, shit,” said Trip. “No. We’re only just getting started.”

Nine

Four thirty, and I felt gutted.

The last thing I needed right now was being told we had more to do.

“Melissa kept going, and I’ve been taking jump point snaps as she moved. The Lightning is going constantly as well. This is the only battle we’ve found, but over the next three hours, there’s going to be another six of these convoys hitting jump points with fleets guarding them. One of them is that mining site we fought at before. And another one is a client asset out this way.”

I thumped down into my seat harder than I’d intended, put my medical monitor into primary, and gave myself a bigger pick-me-up dose than I should have. The fatigue faded. The only thing still happening was Brook and Herb shooting at freighters two by two. Our fighters were all RTB, as were the bombers and Uglies.

Pete’s cam was showing a firefight on the ground going on by a Cobra, which was steadily loading civilians. I saw Nade and Teal on the airlock guns. A moment later a ferry appeared nearby, and Ralnor troops started streaming out of it. Pete had obviously called for help from the admiral.

My hands and head went into uncontrolled movements for a few moments as I felt overwhelmed, and then I got a grip again.

“Show me what’s about to happen where,” I said, looking at Trip.

A screen appeared right in front of me, and started flashing navmap images at me. They were slow enough I saw a theme. Pretty much the same as our original three fights were happening elsewhere. Convoys were approaching jump points, some of which had defenders making ready, when they should have been jumping back and laying a proper ambush.

“Which one is soonest?” I demanded.

“Lyla,” said Elsa, “we’re done for the day.”

“Hospital ship is here,” said Trip. “I organised a dock, and it’s going straight in. Medical teams are jumping in with League marines with their suits using our clothing style, so they look like they’re with us.”

“I don’t care,” I heard myself say. “I need a…”

I stopped talking, and started thinking. I needed somewhere…

“Trip, I need Uchawi.”

She popped up a moment later.

“Uchawi, do you know of a system that has no jump points, but where no-one lives?”

“Several. The Apricot Mapping Service found them when we were looking for a colony planet recently. Why?”

“Show Trip where it is. We need every jump sled or salvage droid with the long range drives here right now. Trip will probably need help as well.”

“What for?” asked Elsa.

“Trip, mark the enemy ships closest to being in combat. Send a sled to every warship, and move them to a random position in the system Uchawi shows you. Then do the same with every warship in order of their threat, until you don’t see anything to move. Then do the freighters as well. If you can identify flagships, dump them nearby the sun, so they have something to worry about other than what the hell just happened.”

Trip actually paused, looking stunned. I went straight on.

“Uchawi, tell the Matriarch and Knight Marshal what’s going on. We need magicsat coverage of the whole area Trip will show you, and we need it now. Then we need someone to look at every system, and find any more of these attacks in progress, and feed them to Trip. If there’s too many going on for Trip to handle, get him help. I don’t know how many of these fleets are out there heading for targets, but I want the lot of them in that isolated system as fast as you can do it.”

“Doing it,” said Trip. “Don’t bother me for a while, please.”

He vanished. So did Uchawi. The navmap I was looking at started losing red dots. It vanished when it was just freighters left, and another one took its place.

“I don’t need to see this,” I said. “Just tell me when it’s done.”

The screen vanished. A butler put a drink in the holder, and I grabbed it, and just chugged it. The expected jolt was welcome. I gave the empty back to the butler, who took it away, and looked around the bridge. For the size of it, it was basically empty. But there were a lot of hollos up, and everyone was looking at me.

“Where are we at?” I asked.

Trip didn’t respond. I hadn’t been looking at him, but at Elsa.

“Unseen is undamaged. We lost nineteen Fours, and no pilots. Nell?”

“Undamaged, and eleven. But I think we’ll be writing off a few more.”

“Undamaged,” said Nolan. “The bombers are fine, but we lost seven Uglies. The mages pulled the mice out of them successfully, so there were no casualties.”

“Undamaged,” said Sandra.

“Ditto,” said Brian.

“Lost some paint,” said the next captain, and then the litany started including minor damage.

All in all, we’d done well against a bigger force, although the defenders had exacted enough toll on them before we arrived that we’d done a lot more damage than we normally would have due to their shields being weaker than expected. But it was also true that poking here was a luxury, given how late we’d come into it.

Uchawi popped up again after the last of the ships had reported in, and Brook and Herb had parked. They’d left a trail of ballistic freighter hulks behind them, and no-one had time to get the survivors off them, if there were any. I wasn’t even going to check. If a senior mage was looking, then hopefully they’d deal with it. If not, it was the luck of the draw for them for coming here.

“The magicsats for the clusters marked out as anti-Keerah War friendly, are going in now.”

Her face changed from serious to very strained.

“What?” I asked her.

“There’s a lot more going on than anyone expected. Those convoys are everywhere!”

Ten

“Tell Trip to forget about the freighters, and concentrate on carriers, battleships, and cruisers. We’ll just have to hope that local defenders can handle destroyers on their own until he can get down the list to them. Any ongoing battles get the priority now, and they’d better have every attacking ship with a firing gun pulled. Someone make a note of where troops are on the ground for dealing with later.”

“I’m bringing in more AIs,” said Uchawi. “And we’re gathering every sled and salvage droid which can jump, even if they can’t go too far. We’ll move everything that’s a threat as fast as we can to wherever we can, and we’ll go back for them after when the long jump ones are freed up.”

“The salvage droids with old drives, use them to dump ships close to the local sun. Give them something to worry about.”

“Changing tactics now. We’re dividing up the sleds and droids, and assigning accordingly.”

Elsa was sitting there with her mouth hanging open, saw me looking, and snapped it shut. She gave orders to send out every normal salvage droid we had to start dealing with the mess in orbit. The ship captain hollos vanished, and appeared again as small ones on her console. It left me with Pete and his majors, who were all still fighting somewhere.

A set of counters popped up on the HUD, giving totals of ships moved. The total at the bottom was in the hundreds and going up rapidly. I dragged my eyes off it, and found Purple next to me.

“Maya will be fine. A mage named Endby turned up and did some healing on her and the others who collapsed. He also did something with the not-crocs as well, who all had skin damage before the jump buttons could emergency evac them out of the explosion. They’ll be fine as well. The passengers are glued to their screens. But we’re going to be on the news again. Probably are right now.”

Yeah, I could imagine Amy breaking into media broadcasts with the news that Ralnor space was melting down, and we were in the middle of it. And as I sat here taking in the extent of it, I had to wonder why it was all happening so fast. Not in my wildest delusional nightmare had I expected things to melt down so fast. I’d expected the local fleets to be sent away first, given time to get too far away to intervene, and then a series of pirate blamed hits on the remaining military forces.

Instead, someone seemed to have timed massed corporate attacks on other corporations for just after the Keerah break through. But how was that even possible? It shouldn’t even have been predictable. Or did someone actually do the work to figure out what it would take to break through, and then put it all in place, and set it running on a timetable?

Trip popped up again.

“The local three star admiral wants to talk to you. You’ve not met yet.”

“How do we have good coms then?”

“Uchawi organized those shuttle rift pairs in a hurry, and we put one of each pair on the military station where all five three stars are. Two of them were surprised, but started talking to the other three in a conference call as soon as we organized it. Charlie has been monitoring it. They’re all saying the same things. You need to hear it.”

Charlie worked for Mills. That probably meant she and her battalion were here now.

I nodded, and a new screen popped up. He vanished again. The screen showed a Ralnor with different fur colour again, and I had no idea what age he was.

“General,” he said, “I’ve been advised to talk to you, since you’re currently in my sector, but I’ve been talking to my counterparts in four others from here to Karn. I don’t know much about humans, but you look exhausted.”

“I am. We got suckered into three full battles we probably shouldn’t have taken on when we did, and then discovered an actual battle here which was already in progress and going badly for the locals. My company is done fighting for today, even though I still have troops on the ground. I’d call this a trap for us, but there was too much going on for it to be a focussed one. My guess is, whoever organised this madness assumed we’d take one too many battles when we figured out there was yet another attack in progress, and the last one we took would kill us.”

He was staring at me, but realized it, and stopped.

“We’re not sure what is going on. We’ve had sabotage attempts on our docked fleet units, and several battles with ships which declared themselves to be pirates. They lost, but they took out ships I couldn’t afford to lose. We were partly prepared for them, apparently from a warning which came from you originally, but was shared by two of my counterparts in other sectors. They believed some of the corporations which opposed the Keerah War would see pirate attacks as well.”

“There are no pirates.” He stared again. “Everything that’s happening right now is corporations attacking corporations, and the attacks on you are to stop you from intervening at all. Someone, probably on Ralnor itself but I’m guessing, planned this very carefully, and it was linked to the breakthrough of the Keerah defences. Tell me admiral, are the corporations saying the military cannot keep their space safe from pirates now, and they want more say in the running of the sector?”

“How did you know? I was just briefed on that.”

I sighed.

“It’s all a plan to replace your existing civilian sector governments with corporate rule. I suggest you warn those who might listen to you that this is ongoing, and protect anyone who might be targeted to remove their contrary vote.”

He turned away and started barking orders. That made me stare at him, as I hadn’t expected to be taken so seriously. Trip popped up again.

“The other three stars are barking the same orders. They’ve been watching this.”

The admiral looked back at me.

“We’re taking precautions, just in case you are right. But if you are, it means we have a civil war on our hands.”

“Unfortunately, yes. But as far as fleets and attacking other systems goes, we’re stopping that right now across the five sectors we know about. We’re using our jump ability to move all ships which appear to be a corporate Q-ship, in whatever size, to a place where they can’t make any trouble for anyone else. There’s nothing else we can do at the moment. There is however nothing we can do to help you if corporate troops are already on your stations and planets and try to seize power.”

I took a breath.

“Actually, we can help to join up places without enough troops with places that have them doing nothing, but only a few of these at a time. So call for them only if really necessary.”

“Understood.” He looked to the side again, and I waited for him to look back. “We just interrupted an assassination attempt. We’re going on full alert. Thank you for what you’re doing, but now I need to go do my job. I’ll be back in touch when I can.”

I nodded, and the screen vanished.

“The other four three stars are reporting the same thing,” said Trip, “only several killings have already occurred. Whatever is really going on, it’s only just started.” He paused. “More magicsats are going in. We’ve covered all five sectors fully, but there’s not going to be any real time coverage of anywhere now. One snapshot of each system is all we can manage, and then whatever looks hostile in there is being tagged to be moved.”

I looked at the counter.

It was over a thousand now, and still going up.

How the hell did they build such an armada without their military knowing about it?

Eleven

Elsa more or less forced me to go to the dining room for dinner.

We were stood down now, and even Pete and his people were back. The Ralnor had a general down on the planet below us, and he was now in charge. There was still fighting going on, but it was mopping up more than anything else. According to him, we’d saved about half the corporate leaders, including their high leader, and they were exchanging messages with other corporations now, showing them what had happened here, in gory details. Planets were going on alert now across all the space they had influence in.

Nade and Red had come in after Pete finished talking. She looked as tired as the rest of us did, and it turned out she’d been on various door guns with Teal. She hadn’t even realized her jacket was brown and holed. And once it was pointed out to her, she said it was her third jacket today. She and Teal, as the company’s official door gunners, had stashed extra jackets and coveralls on all the Cobras and Camels, and done jump icons for all of the airlocks. They’d been going from Cobra to Cobra wherever the most action was.

Elsa told her to go and eat, then collapse in her quarters, but she insisted on giving us the news that all four corporations were buying the ships we’d been able to take in a reasonable condition, and the payments had already been made. That included here, where the hulks were still where they’d died, and consequently the death toll on them had been much higher. Apparently no-one here cared, and the local media was hailing us as heroes.

The other ships from the previous battles were being delivered by jump sleds on their way back to their next target. I asked Trip to arrange for conventional salvage droids to go get all the ships paid for here, and park them somewhere safe. I also told him to make sure any local ships too damaged to move, but with people still alive on them, were towed to their shipyard if they were not already there. If anyone needed evac, he was to send shuttles to do it. I should have ordered that way before now, but better late than never. He acknowledged without even popping up this time.

The fact we’d been well paid for the day was hardly noticed, or at least, I wasn’t the only one who didn’t react at all. Angie looked like she was about to fall out of her chair. She’d launched three times today, in a Four, and the last fight had been brutal. But all the captains and Pete’s senior officers looked much the same. We all needed sleep.

I waited until everyone had finished eating, and issued an order for everyone but the current shift to go to bed. And if they were tired as well, then they either staggered the shift so they all got some sleep sometime, or parked back at the jump in point, and left the ship in charge of Trip, or whichever AI currently was running it.

There was a general reluctance, but they all rose, touched jump buttons, and vanished. Elsa was the only one who didn’t, and she sat there looking at me. Neither of us said anything for a time, then she sighed, rose, and walked out.

The dinner table turned into a conference table, and I blinked at it in astonishment. Then I jumped as a hand came down on my shoulder unexpectedly, and for a moment I blacked out. When my eyes started seeing again, I found myself looking at Matriarch Gitte. A pulse came in, but I ignored it.

“Sorry about that,” she said. “Endby pulled you here, and did some healing on you. We need you alert, and knew the day you’ve had already. You just received a pulse. I need you to install the software in it, and run it.”

“What is it?”

“Virtual conferencing. We’re waiting for you.”

“Who is?”

In spite of suddenly feeling much better, that didn’t stop me being confused by what was happening now.

“The League leadership.”

My mouth fell open, but I forced it closed, and opened the pulse. The new software installed into the coms area of my HUD menu, and I activated the link attached to the message which came with the file. Gitte’s office was overlaid by a really large conference room, with me sitting at a round table with a lot of other people. Some of them I knew from media broadcasts, but a lot of them I didn’t. I found Gitte sitting next to me now, instead of opposite me as we actually were. I hastily closed my eyes to avoid the double image.

“Welcome, General Cowan,” said the Imperator. I flinched, and there were a few chuckles. “And yes, today, you are one, like it or not.”

I looked at my left shoulder, and it had a star on it, along with the Ralnor insignia. I sighed, and no-one missed it.

“We need a briefing from you,” the Imperator went on. “We only have a rough idea of what’s going on in Ralnor space, but what we do know doesn’t make any sense. Please clarify what you know for us.”

“I know nothing. Other than my people fought four battles today, the last of which was already well advanced when we discovered it, and the locals were losing. There are Ralnor military troops on the ground and stations there now, and we’re stood down. I just sent all my people to bed. Someone detonated a docked ship at the orbital station, and my mage risked magic burnout to limit the damage. Her and several trainees are still in care units, although I was told Endby visited them.”

That got some nods, presumably from those who knew who he was.

“Tell us what a lot of AIs are currently doing,” said Jane, who was dressed in a business suit.

“What I asked them to do. After our last battle finished, my AI discovered more warship convoys within hours of going through into corporate owned systems which held known headquarters of corporations which oppose the Keerah War, or key assets owned by them. There was no way we were going to be able to respond to any of them, and there was, is, no other response possible.”

“What’s going on?” asked Chloe Hunter.

“I’d be guessing.”

“Guess then,” said the Knight Marshal, somewhat tersely.

“I think there was a plan made on Ralnor itself to have corporations opposed to the Keerah war taken out by their rivals at the same time a breech was made in the Keerah defences. Well over a thousand Q-ships ranging from destroyers up to battleships and fleet carriers were pointed at corporate systems, and timed to arrive over a six to eight hour window. All the convoys were big enough to completely overwhelm local defence forces. And somewhere in that plan was my company taking one job too many, and being wiped out as well.”

“That’s insane,” muttered someone.

“That’s only part of it. Across five of their sectors that we know about, so called pirates have been taking on the remaining military fleets in an effort to destroy them, or render them unable to respond to anything else. The last I heard from my Ralnor military contacts, assassination attempts on civilian leaders opposed to the war had begun as well. There’s been an engineered situation created for corporations in favour of the war to take over control of sector governments.”

Silence, and more than a few mouths were hanging open.

“How well did the Ralnor Military do?” asked Mage King Haynes.

“Better than they would have been expected to. I’ve been preaching to be paranoid to the three stars who control two of the sectors, and they’ve been talking to three others. So ships were ready for surprise attacks, and sabotage attempts were not quite as a surprise as they might have been.”

“What does all that mean?” asked the Lufafluf.

“Again, I’m guessing, but some level of civil war just kicked off, although I doubt they recognise that yet. I don’t know if it’s limited to those five sectors, but they are the ones down the middle of their space that sent the most fleets and troops to where the breech was made. It may be only local to them, or the entirety of Ralnor space may be fighting now.”

“You’ve still not answered my question,” said Jane.

“There was nothing else we could do. I told my AI to use our jump sleds and jump salvage droids to jump all the corporate warships we knew about to a system with no jump points. Last I checked, there were more than a thousand ships in there, and my AI was so busy he’d stopped popping up a hollo to answer me.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Almost several hours now. For all I know, we’re well past two thousand ships, and still going.”

Some of them looked shocked. The Imperator looked at the Knight Marshal, and they just nodded to each other. Whatever that was about, they were not telling anyone else. A lot of eyes went to Jane, and she looked at me.

“There’s some three thousand ships in there now, and I’m told the warship part of the job is just about done. There is a similar number of troop transports still to go, and by the time they’re moved as well, that number will probably be above seven thousand. The warship total represents over two hundred attack fleets. But considering that’s an area of space some fifteen hundred lightyears long, five hundred wide, and a few hundred deep, that’s not as bad as it could have been. A couple of hundred systems were being attacked out of high single digit thousands.”

“That’s still horrifying,” said Gitte. “That’s like every single planet down the human spine being attacked on the same day.”

And when you put it that way, it was horrifying.

Twelve

It got worse.

As soon as I got back from the meeting, I crashed. Out like a light the moment I lay down on the bed. Trip woke me at six the next morning.

I listened to a litany of woes while in the shower, which had happened while I slept. One of the five stars I hadn’t met was now dead, along with all his staff and half the military station personnel, after someone had blown it up from the inside. We’d lost a linked shuttle in the explosion. That sector capital was now under their version of martial law, and what news we had suggested that sector was going to fall to the corporations trying to take it over.

A dozen planets had enemy troops on the ground because we’d been too slow finding them, so removing their ships hadn’t changed much for the populations being attacked. And while our Cobras and ferries had been busy all night moving Ralnor military troops around, no planet had received enough to prevail. According to Trip, we now had our choice of which one we went to.

Pete met me in my office, and he’d already made the choice. The planet was a key fighter production facility for the Ralnor military, and if that fell, the corporation who took it would be able to supply anyone front line fighters, and the ordnance they used. The same planet also produced current tech missiles for capital ships. The locals had called for help, and none had so far come, but while they’d had a proper military garrison, they’d been totally unprepared to be invaded, and were only just hanging on.

Crocatoa walked in looking like he was relishing a good fight coming, and Pete and Trip organized the ferries for sending a full division of not-croc troops through as soon as we got there. Most of them were using the Hunter Run version belt suit, with merc clothing and their own armour over the top, and the same pulse rifle ours used. Because they were more vulnerable than the combat suited ones attached to Pete’s forces, they were going to be very careful exactly where they went in.

General Mills walked in next, and although she only had a battalion, they were walking aboard Unseen right then. How tigers appearing on the ground were going to be received would probably be interesting.

The last to come in was Arthur, and he was followed by Guinevere and Mordred, who were introduced to us. It turned out he’d been recruiting ex-Terran marines, and had several battalions standing on jump squares ready to deploy. His station just needed to know where to jump to, and he had medical teams ready to go as well. According to Guinevere, he needed a distraction from the Terran situation, and this was better than anything else going on at the moment.

I let the marines work out the plan, and sat at my desk checking what else was going on. The number of ships moving around in that dump system was now over ten thousand. As well as the big military convoys, there’d also been plenty of smaller ones pretending to be pirates, and they’d all been plucked out as well, often after they’d already hit their targets.

What worried me was if we’d over-plucked. Trip admitted that had occurred to him, but until things settled out, no-one had time to check. My next question was if there was a habitable planet in the system or not. That determined how long we could leave them there. If there was one, they could make their way there, and we needed do no more any time soon. If there wasn’t one, then we’d need to worry about ships running out of food, water, or life support. Some of them were damaged, and those were the most likely to have shortages.

Of course, right now, no-one cared. I made sure Trip added a proper survey of the system to his list of things for someone to do, and then turned to Angie, who was standing beside my desk waiting for me.

“Find out who’s got ground support experience, and get them fed and ready to launch. As soon as Pete and the generals are ready to go, we’re jumping, and troops will be going in.”

“About half our pilots are eating as fast as they can now. I was thinking we stagger who launches now to give us another two or three launches today with different pilots.”

“Whatever works.” I sighed. “Yeah, that’s probably likely. Check with the generals as to how many they think they’ll need, and divide them up. Once we’ve hit the worst of them at where we go now, we’ll probably be hitting someone else after a break.”

She looked at my shoulders.

“Are you aware you’re wearing stars and Ralnor insignia?”

“No. But it doesn’t surprise me. I think I left the suit overlay running.”

“Leave it then. Today you’re a general again.”

She turned, and strode out before I could say anything. But she had a point. I left it how it was. Uchawi popped up.

“We’ve got a problem developing.”

“Back of the queue.”

“It’s not that sort of problem.”

“What then?”

“We’re seeing the movement of corporation warships from outside the five sectors, heading towards where we’ve cleared away all the warships.”

“That suggests that those sectors have already been taken over, and they recognise something went wrong in our five, and are sending reinforcements.”

“Or nothing at all happened there, and these are the planned reinforcements for the five sectors being used as a test.”

It could equally be either. Or something different going on.

“Can someone do magicsats for the adjoining sector capitals, and find out which?”

“That’s being debated now. Our problem is what to do about what’s coming.”

“We better ask what the Ralnor want to do.”

“I’ll see what response I can get from them. You heard one of the three stars is dead?”

“Yes. I’m assuming that sector is going to fall, even with all the corporation warships gone.”

“I’ll see if I can find out who’s in charge there. They’re going to be the most concerned by reinforcements, even if they’ll be weeks or longer getting to the capitals.”

“Let me know if any of them want to talk.” I paused, looking at her hollo. “Who made you coms AI?”

“You did. You convinced Gitte she needed the computing power to monitor the magicsats, and that makes me the person coordinating it. Don’t tell anyone, but there’s now some extra moons around one of our gas giants now. And more likely to come. I’ll get back to you.”

She vanished. Elsa stepped up next.

“Breakfast!”

Thirteen

I was still eating when the troops went in.

We’d picked up about half of the Ralnor troops on the ground here as well before we left, with all three Camels having been jumped down to collection points, and now packed full of more troops than I’d thought they could take. But it turned out Camel had fed a second lot of companies to Unbound through the cargo bay rift.

We jumped to the target planet as a full fleet, and the corvettes jumped down to the planet. Unseen appeared in the upper atmosphere for just long enough to scare the shit out of a lot of passengers, and launch enough fighters for ground support, before jumping back near the station.

The orbital station turned out to have been taken by the corporates, so Unbound went in and forced a docking long enough to offload those companies, while Mills’ people used our jump squares to go straight into the admin section, and other key areas. The tigers caused a big stir, but no-one but the corporation troops fired at them. Down on the planet, the not-crocs freaked everyone out, but again, the locals didn’t fire on them. They knew someone was coming, but not who, or what.

I finished eating as fast as I could, and went back to the bridge. Elsa was sitting in her chair still finishing her breakfast, since she’d been interrupted in the dining room, and had taken it with her. But she had a reason to be there, being captain of the ship about to be moved, and fleet command, where I didn’t.

Trip popped up before I made it to my chair.

“Conference about to start, Lyla. Your office.”

I changed direction, and headed in. Barely in my chair, four screens popped up showing me three stars who obviously hadn’t slept recently. One of them I didn’t know, but across the four of them was demonstrated that like humans had different coloured skins, Ralnor had different colour fur. None of them were even close to each other in colour.

The four of them greeted each other, and then me. Trip came in and stood next to me so they could see him, and his avatar was wearing silver lieutenant bars on his shoulders now, presumably to legitimize him being my aide. He told them about the reinforcements we’d detected heading their way, and it turned out they already knew to expect them, courtesy of prisoner interrogations.

One bit of news was middle three had been in touch with young two, and that sector was all quiet. But it was close to the frontier, and Ralnor fleets were always passing through on their way to the front line. It cemented my thinking that this was only happening where the fleets had been whittled down to almost nothing. Of course, there was no confirmation of that available.

That was another worry though, as the sectors around all five we knew about were not communicating now. I found out that Bonko and Knott were at another planet with a war raging on the surface, having picked up and taken Ralnor troops there. They simply loaded them into their cargo bays on stations, and then landed on the planet. Bonko had the means to deploy them, but a Karn rift mage had needed to put one in for both of Knott’s ships to get the troops to the ground. Other Karn jump ships were doing the same job, apparently.

I outlined where we were and why, and with how many troops, and surprised them all. They suggested where we should go next, and requested more help moving troops themselves. It wasn’t that they were that short of troops, but that so many of them were not where they were needed. Trip started organizing with Uchawi to get any ship with a jump drive and working life support to where troops needed picking up, along with a rift mage to deploy them at the destination.

Finally, older-three asked for a meeting between his surviving leadership and Karn. They wanted to discuss what help the mages could be in first of all isolating the rogue corporations in their sector, and then locking down the sector from external attack. I summarized what was going on in Keerah space for the others, feeling quite shocked that I’d been listened to at all, and that they were embracing it so fast. The others wanted to be in on that meeting as well. That shocked me even more, so shocked I felt the need to clarify it.

“Are you saying your civilian leaders are wanting to secede from Ralnor space, and form your own clusters?”

“Yes,” said middle-three. “You stated before that protected clusters were being formed in Keerah space, and I’ve discussed the concept with enough of our civilian leaders for them to vote to follow up the possibility. We want an isolated sector too, at least until things settle down.”

“That will require League senior mages being involved. Changing jump points to wall away a small cluster is one thing, but entire sectors? And four of them? That will need either Matriarch Gitte doing the magic herself, which as a League head of state will probably require League level approval, or given just how much there is to do, it might require all three grand mages doing it. That’s a seriously big step.”

“We want to at least talk about it,” said the one three I hadn’t met before. “Karn has a good reputation, even if we don’t have any direct contact where we are. We need options, because if we do nothing at all, it’s only a matter of time before we get invaded from multiple sides, and we won’t be able to hold our own space the way things are now.”

“If I might make a suggestion then?”

“Please do.”

“We’ll get a meeting set up, so people can meet face to face, without anyone knowing you are. I recommend you come to that meeting with a chart of your space, and exactly which jump points you’d want changed to remove the rogues from your space completely, and then wall around your space, with maybe just a few systems where trade can continue to go in and out that you can actually defend. If you have that information with you, you can leave it for the mages to look at. Because the ultimate decision will be theirs as to if it can be done, and if so, how.”

“Already in progress,” said older-three.

“We’ll get back to you soon then.”

They thanked me, and the screens vanished. I sighed loudly, and slowly.

“You realize what this means?” asked Trip.

“No, what?”

“A self-fulfilling prophecy.”

“How do you…”

I stopped, realized what he meant, and face palmed.

I’d actually started what I’d been predicting.

Fourteen

“You could have used the damned conference link,” I complained.

My office changed into the Knight Marshal’s office in a blink, with no warning, with me moving from one chair to another. There were only four of us there, but I was the only non-mage. The other two were the Matriarch and the Mage King. Three grand mages, and me, the pretend general. Each of their AIs was on a screen behind them.

“And good morning to you too,” said Gitte, smiling.

“Lyla,” said the Knight Marshal, “this is an informal meeting, so you call us Bud, Gitte, and Haynes. We just heard about your conversation with the Ralnor admirals, and what they asked of you. Can you elaborate on that?”

“Basically, they asked for the rogue corporations attacking them to be removed from their space if possible, and for their sectors to be turned into closed clusters, with maybe only selected doorways for trading through. As I understand it, that’s what you’re doing for Liza Pound, and the protectorates are this on a bigger scale, but a slower build.”

“You do realize you predicted this?” asked Gitte.

“Not happening this way. And not happening anywhere near this fast. Nor did it occur to me that whole sectors, minus specific corporations, would want to do it at all. I was thinking each corporation would want to enclose their own space with a single entrance they could protect. That makes more sense to me than what’s being asked.”

“This is probably easier,” said Haynes. “We establish a hard border around the sector, and then cut out the cancer, so to speak. Simpler than having potentially dozens of small clusters wanting to be created.”

“Or more likely,” added Bud, “strings of small clusters or individual systems across a lot of space for each corporation. That’s a lot more work.”

“They want to talk about possibilities,” I said, “and I told them to bring maps of what they’d prefer to have done. Apparently they were in progress already, and that amazed me to find it out. One of the admirals actually listened to me, and told civilians and other admirals.”

“Uchawi is working out how to hold the meeting,” said Gitte. “Would Unseen be available to host it?”

“I’ve got troops on the ground at the moment, and a dance card forming for when they’re done there. So I’m not sure where Unseen will be when it gets held. But as long as I don’t need to be there, you can use one of our conference rooms if you want.”

My tone told them I didn’t even want to be here now. Uchawi popped up.

“We’ll need a bigger space than that. All of the corporations who’ve been hit badly want in on the meeting as well. I think some of them want their enclosed clusters as well.”

“Makes sense,” said Bud. “Some of their systems may be outside of the four sectors, and need to be included wherever they are. Tell them to bring their own maps.”

“That got passed on. Some of them are in a hurry though. Do I set this up as fast as possible, and you move them magically?”

“Just tell Trip what you need,” I said. “If he thinks we have a suitable place, then it’s fine with me.”

The three mages looked at each other, and Gitte and Haynes nodded to Bud.

“Set it up,” said Bud. “I’ve cleared today anyway, and stood down my fleets and the dragons for a few day’s rest. The only thing any of mine are doing is where Liza is.”

“I’m clear as well,” said Gitte.

“I’m not,” said Haynes, “but I could use a good excuse. So call if you need me.”

Bud nodded to him, and looked back at me.

“Assuming we establish some sort of large clusters, what else would you recommend get done at the same time?”

I had to think about it. They waited, although Haynes was starting to look like he needed to be elsewhere.

“You could bring back the fleets which came from those four sectors. The ones at the frontier, and any still in transit there. That would help keep them stable in the future. Transports with troops on them too. But my guess is, a lot of them are already in Keerah space, or were used as cannon fodder to make the breech.”

“I’ll ponder how we do that. Anything else?”

“Remove a key jump point or three ahead of the Ralnor in the breech to stop them cold?”

He frowned. The other two kept their faces neutral.

“What else?”

“Once things settle down, we’ll need to do something with all those ships in the dump system. That’s a serious lot of people who might start running out of supplies.”

“Damaged ships were placed near battleships and carriers,” said Uchawi. “They should be able to supply them in the short term. But we will monitor in case there are attempts to get our attention. If someone is claiming they’re out of something critical, we’ll deal with it then.”

“What do you want to do with them?” Gitte asked me.

“I’ve not thought about it. I just wanted them moved, and had no idea we were dealing with that many. What happened to them after didn’t enter into my thinking at all, and still hasn’t.”

“Well,” said Bud, “start thinking about it, because it’s your decision to make.”

“Mine?”

“Yes. You made the decision in the first place, and the majority of the moves were done using your equipment. That makes them all your responsibility.”

I sighed, and the three of them grinned.

“Welcome to the consequences of your own actions,” said Haynes. “When you start making flag rank choices, the consequences are just as big.”

“I’m a temporary general, nothing more.”

“Sure,” said Bud. “But no-one else believes that. We’ll consider what magic might be useful for dealing with your problem, but you start thinking about all the options for dealing with it.”

“Do we know if the system has a habitable planet?”

“Just barely,” said Uchawi. “It’s an ice ball. Marginal atmosphere, sea life, but very little moving on the ice covered ground. Not somewhere particularly suitable for setting up a POW camp, or even a permanent colony.”

“Once the clusters are formed, could they be sent home magically?”

“They could be moved the same way they went there,” said Gitte. “But do we want all those ships and crews back where they can be used to attack the new clusters?”

“Probably not. But we can’t just let the people die on the ships.”

“It’s your decision,” said Bud. “Choose something you can live with, and we’ll see if we can automate the process of making it happen.”

“We could use some of those ships,” said Gitte, grinning at me.

She let the ‘or all of them’ hang there.

What the hell did anyone do with ten thousand ships?

Fifteen

We’d forgotten something.

The stations had been taken back by mid-morning, and by late morning the ground battles were coming to an end. Pete had started pulling his people out, and using the marine areas on the other two carriers for some of them with some of the Ralnor troops, while half of the not-crocs went to Arthur’s station.

A League hospital ship, a much bigger but still civilian one this time, had jumped in and started handling casualties among the not-crocs, and the Ralnor troops. No-one there knew it was originally a Keerah ship.

The plan was to stand down for lunch, then give the troops a few hours to relax, before moving to our next target. As much as we were needed elsewhere, there was only so much troops could do without rest. Pete and Crocatoa had worked out the timing they thought would work. Mills and Arthur hadn’t disagreed with them. But a ship arrived and took Mills’ AI troops off, taking them to our next target to find out the actual situation there. They didn’t need food or rest.

“Oh hell,” said Trip, just after I’d sat down to lunch in the dining room.

He’d popped up in the middle of the table, and eating and conversation stopped.

“What?” I asked him.

“There’s fleets emerging from the rifts from Ralnor.”

“Why is that an issue?” asked Elsa.

“They’re a mixture of military and corporate ships. And they’ve brought a lot of them into each sector.”

“Put bug bots on them as fast as you can,” I told him. “If you need to get Jane to do that, do so. We need to know who has the command, and if at all possible, what their orders are.”

“So you want some capable of hacking the computers on the flagships?”

“That too. As fast as possible. We need to know if they’re a new threat, or a relief force come to put down the rogue corporations.”

“On it.”

“Inform the Ralnor admirals, and see if they’ve had any communication from the fleet nearest them. That will probably take some time though, won’t it?”

“The rifts went into the center of each sector. The capitals are not that centred. Message time will vary, but they should have heard from their nearest fleet inside a half hour.”

That explained why messages to Ralnor took less time than sector capital to sector capital did. Or from sector capital to the front, for that matter.

“Is anyone in danger from them?” asked Elsa.

“It’s mainly freighters around the rifts. None of them have been fired on so far. But none of them are obviously from one of the corporations which have been attacked.”

“Keep monitoring then. If they start firing, we’ll need to intervene. But by then I hope we know who is doing the firing, and why.” He seemed likely to say something. “Yes, it will indicate they’re hostile, but we need to know for sure.”

He nodded, and vanished. I went back to my food, and noticed everyone else had already done so. It would have been nice to turn off my brain while I ate, but there wasn’t a PC setting for that, short of actually forcing sleep, which wouldn’t help. So I pondered what Ralnor military ships arriving meant for what might have already happened on Ralnor.

Back on the bridge, we jumped to the next place we were needed. The orbit of the planet was strewn with wreckage, and some of it was dropping into the atmosphere. We sent out the salvage droids to collect what shouldn’t be heading downwards.

Pete announced they were going in immediately with what troops felt they were still fit enough to go now. Others were getting their time to rest. It limited what we could do immediately, but according to the AIs who were down there fighting with the locals still holding the government buildings, just relief forces for there and key other places would help the locals, who’d been fighting constantly since yesterday.

Mills was taking her Keerah and Ralnor troops down straight away, while her human troops needed the rest. Arthur had very few to send, but the not-crocs had a bigger percentage ready to go again. Size, in this case, did matter. Although Pete’s Lufaflufs were going down immediately as well, with his big cats.

Angie launched fighters at the same time the troops went in. Those were mainly from Unleashed, and Nell did the same thing Unseen had done last time, jumping dangerously close to the ground to launch them, and then jumping out again. I couldn’t stop myself from shivering. A carrier smashing into the ground because you left the jump out a few seconds late would be catastrophic for the ship and anything underneath it. And if the power systems detonated, the whole of everything for a long way around.

Elsa cringed as well, but Nell looked confident and happy as she did it, and if we’d said anything, she’d have just told us it was perfectly safe. But her definition of that was obviously different to ours. The Cobras jumped down and stayed there, either working with fighters to harass invading troops, or on the ground supporting troops they’d just delivered.

“You’re wanted in your office,” said Trip, looking at me.

Sixteen

Middle-admiral was on a screen as I walked in.

“We’ll be arriving on your ship shortly,” he told me. “But I thought you’d want to know I’ve heard from the three star admiral commanding the fleet from Ralnor.”

He didn’t look happy.

“Bad news?”

“Yes. Me and my entire staff have been declared traitors, and the intelligence section was told to arrest us immediately. The fleet commander is taking my place here as soon as they arrive.”

“I take it your intelligence people did no such thing?”

“No, they didn’t. But we’re officially renegade now in the eyes of Ralnor. Are there plans in place to deal with that fleet?”

“Not yet. We’re still waiting for confirmation on who’s commanding it, and what their orders are. For now though, they’re not in a position to threaten anyone except freighters. We have some time.”

“And we’ll use it. I’ve put my most loyal troops around my second in command, and our remaining leadership not coming to the meeting. They have orders to ignore any orders not coming out of my mouth in person, and to shoot anyone giving alternative orders. I’m not going to be able to be away for long, all the same.”

“If you’re officially renegades, then it won’t matter if you get help that is more obviously League, will it?”

“What did you have in mind?”

“Combat droids. We’re not using them because we don’t want the League dragged into this officially. Actually, it doesn’t matter, we can have them disguised as lizards, and put them wherever you need troops which cannot be compromised.”

“As much as I want to say they won’t be needed, a company would be very welcome. I’ll have where they’re needed down on the planet sent to you. I’ll also tell the other admirals to send where they want them as well.”

“Trip?”

“On it. Arthur wants to send a platoon of actual troops looking like lizards as well. Or rather, Celeste-Leanne, who’s with Arthur to speed up communications, said he does. They can supply more combat droids if you need them.”

“Whatever. We’ll need his squares to deploy them anyway. Get it done.”

I looked back at the admiral.

“They’ll be there as fast as we can get them there. No ship will be involved. They’ll just appear.”

“We’ll signal we’re ready for the meeting as soon as they arrive, and are in position.”

“Tell us immediately if something happens. We’ll send someone.”

“I will. See you soon.”

The screen vanished. Trip was still up as a hollo over my desk. His mouth twitched. More theatrics.

“Your presence is required at the meeting,” he said.

“Of course it bloody well is.”

“The other admirals have checked in. They and their governments have also been declared renegade, and are putting the same precautions in place to protect key people. I told them some of our troops would be arriving soon, and they’d be lizards they haven’t seen yet, and completely trustworthy. I let Leanne know.”

“Good. What about the fleets?”

“Taking longer than I thought to hack their computers. But the chatter on the bridges suggest they are genuine Ralnor troops, not civilians who took over military ships. The civilian ships are definitely corporation owned and crewed, and by corporations either headquartered on Ralnor, or in systems nearby. Confirmation of orders should come soon.”

“Gather up all the jump sleds again, and find me a mage who can remove those rifts.”

And then another thought occurred to me.

“Ask the Knight Marshal if he wants to consider removing all the rifts he put in Ralnor space.”

“That would probably trigger losing diplomatic relations with them.”

“My guess is, our activities are already keeping the diplomats busy. You better find out what is happening at the League level, but ask Bud anyway. He needs to consider it, even if it doesn’t happen soon. Eventually I think it will need to happen.”

“You know, that might have been the problem all along.”

“What was?”

“The rifts made communications faster. That may have enabled the corporations on Ralnor to coordinate what’s been going on here much more easily. Those rifts may not have started the process, but they most likely sped the entire thing up.”

“Tell Bud that as well.”

He nodded, and vanished.

Seventeen

The meeting went on without me.

So did the fighting on the ground. There was no way I was going to be bored shitless in a meeting that had nothing to do with what I or my people could do, when I could be doing something tangible.

Instead, I asked for a meeting with Admiral Jane and the Imperator, and got only Jane. She met me on Camel’s bridge. I demanded to know what was happening with League diplomacy, and she actually told me.

There was none.

The treaties were still in place, but they were refusing to talk to the League, pending investigations into espionage and spying, and the provoking of sectors and corporations into treason and insurrection. She suspected the treaties were still there to keep the non-aggression pact in place, in order to keep the League military from intervening legally. If so, someone was thinking straight on Ralnor, at least diplomatically.

Apparently I was now their villain, and an agent provocateur for the League. That had been denied at the time their ambassador had informed us he’d been recalled and why. Their entire embassy on Terminus had packed up after that meeting, boarded their diplomatic shuttle, as that station had no docking for bigger ships, and their waiting diplomatic ship was now still on its way to the open jump point in the Reaper’s Crossroad system.

Once they went through, a fleet would be stationed there on our side just in case things deteriorated further. My guess was the door would be closed from the other side by the fleet stationed there, and what trade they’d allowed locally would end, and our traders would be told to leave Ralnor space as fast as they could.

Jane had to talk me down from my ‘if they want a villain, I’ll be their bloody villain’ reaction, and suggested something else for me to do instead. She was aware the senior mages were meeting on Unseen, but didn’t want to know about it, since officially, they were there to assess if what was being requested could be done by my mage. The League still wanted plausible deniability to anything which happened now, and I was it. Nice of someone to tell me that before now, but it explained the summons.

After she left, I called Maya to Camel, where Sprite joined us, and I had Trip jump us to a position just outside the Ralnor military sensors of the fleet nearest to us. Maya concentrated on remote viewing to find the three star in command, while Trip and the butlers made preparations on the cargo deck.

When he said he was ready, Maya yanked on the Ralnor officer, who appeared in the middle of a wide ring of combat droids and suits all pointing heavy stunners at him. He was surprised, then horrified, but still reached for a side arm that was no longer there. Had to admire his guts, even if it was pretty stupid to take on more than a dozen armed foes when you were alone and in the middle of a ring of them.

He wasn’t alone for very long. Trip jumped us to the next nearest fleet, and Maya found and pulled out that three star as well. We repeated it until all five officers was standing there glaring at metal and emitter nozzles. When you wanted intimidation, you used metal robots, not lizards or people smaller than them.

As soon as all of them were there, Maya moved the three of us down as well, and we sat in seats which had been prepared behind the ring of combat droids and empty suits, which let us look through the gaps in the ring at the hoppers.

“What’s the meaning of this?” demanded one of them, as soon they saw me.

“You’re just here for a chat,” I said. “I’m General Cowan of the Unbound Mercenary Company, currently being employed by some of your corporations, who were cowardly attacked by other corporations.”

For these people, not being a flag officer would just mean being totally ignored. I’d decided to just suck it up for once.

“Traitors, the lot of them.”

“Yes, but to who? That’s what I want to know. Who is in charge on Ralnor now that a fleet comes from there with corporation ships crewed by civilians, the ship designs of which we’ve already identified as pirates and invaders? We heard the high command officers I met with on Ralnor were replaced. Are any of them still alive?”

“You should know. You had them all assassinated. You and your League.”

They seemed to be letting this one officer speak for all of them, which presumably meant he had the seniority. And they knew that, so they were from the same command structure. At a guess, looking at them, the one talking was a senior three, and the others had been recently promoted to that level. But that was a guess. I looked at Trip, and he nodded. He was sending this to Jane.

“Someone’s really going all out on the indoctrination lies then. And you’re all dumb enough to believe a human mercenary has any access to Ralnor at all? Wow. No wonder the corporations are taking over the way they are so easily.”

“The corporations have always been the power in our space.”

“Tell it to someone who cares. Right now I see the Ralnor homeworld attacking its own people, and those being attacked hired me to protect them. That means you’re my immediate problem.”

I noticed the other four beginning to notice that the guns pointed at them were not moving at all. No normal person could hold a gun up for so long without it beginning to move around as the weight became more and more significant. Even the strongest of soldiers had a problem with that eventually. But these guns hadn’t so much as moved a millimetre since they’d arrived, and all five of them had several pointed directly at their heads.

“So you kidnapped us?”

“We’re not there yet. If I’d invited you to a meeting, you wouldn’t have come, would you?”

“Of course not. You’re wanted for crimes against Ralnor. I’d have sent a company of marines to arrest and detain you instead.”

“And you’d have lost those marines. I get the impression you’ve not been properly briefed on the situation here. Tell me, have you had trouble contacting the corporation fleets doing your corporation master’s bidding here?”

“No. Why would we? We’re each here to replace traitors at the sector capitals. They’ve all been arrested, and will be sent back to Ralnor to stand trial.”

“Ah, no. One of them is dead, along with half the military station someone blew up.” They all looked surprised. “That wasn’t in the plan? Interesting. The rest are still in place directing what forces they still have into putting down invasions by rogue corporations. In other words, doing their jobs. They’ve hired me and my company to help them do that.”

“I must admit to being surprised you’re still alive.”

“Because you engineered enough battles one after the other that I should have walked into a trap at one point when my people were all exhausted? Yes, we figured that out, and didn’t bother walking into it. Instead, we removed the whole problem.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

The other four were looking more and more surprised now, which suggested only the one of them knew the whole plan.

“It took us a while with the tech we had with us, but every single corporation warship and troopship across all five sectors was sent to a POW system. The troops on the ground they left behind will progressively be dealt with. Once they are, we’ll deal with the rogue corporation headquarters of those doing the invading.”

“You’re pretty full of yourself.”

“No, I’m tired, sickened by what your people are doing to innocent people, and determined to bugger up whatever plans you have long term for this region of space.”

The ‘you and whose army?’ retort would have fit in nicely here, but it didn’t come.

“Why do you care?”

“I don’t like bullies. But I’m a mercenary, and I’m loyal to those who are loyal to me. So when a client who’s always dealt with us fairly, and their allies, are viciously attacked, I take it personally. So let me tell you your options at this point.”

He started chuckling. The other four were looking worried. My obvious confidence was telling them something was wrong.

“You can go back to your fleets, turn them around, and go back through the rift to Ralnor. After you’re gone, those rifts will be removed. No-one gets hurt. Or you can continue on your current course, in which case one of two things will happen. We’ll destroy you as easily as we did the first few corporation fleets we discovered, or we’ll incarcerate your fleets in the POW system until such time as someone negotiates your release. And then remove the rifts. You choose.”

Two of them flinched at the word incarcerate. Not the senior though.

“Sorry, but you’re not actually full of yourself after all. You’re completely delusional. We know what ships you have, and those three ships cannot possibly do what you say you’ll do.”

I smiled at him.

“Your information is out of date. And irrelevant. Even with those three ships, we can still destroy your fleets. It would take a little longer, to be sure, but would still be certain. But as it happens, we don’t need to. We can just intern you. I admit there are some logistical issues we’ve not sorted out yet, but for now, no-one here cares if you live or die where you’ll be put.”

“You’re completely insane, aren’t you?”

Doing a maniacal laugh was just so tempting, but I stopped myself.

“Nope. I’m just someone you’ve pissed off who happens to have better tech than you have. Would you like a demonstration?”

“Of what?”

“Trip, proceed.”

A jump sled appeared in the air above them, the gravity ramped up and pulled them off their feet and up to it, and it vanished.

“How long?” asked Trip.

“I haven’t decided yet. Maya, can you remove those five rifts if we get near enough to them?”

“No. Removing them requires the same power as putting them in, and they’re way too long for me. But I could change this end to send any ship jumping here straight back. Will that do?”

“I think so. It will probably strand some freighters on the other end though. But until the grand mages decide what they’re going to do, I’d just as soon not let any more warships come here through them.”

“Now?” asked Trip.

“May as well. We’ll let the fleet commanders get a good chill on while you do it.”

It didn’t take long. Jump, Maya concentrated on the rift for a few moments, then jump again. When it was done, we went back to the same place we’d been before, which was on Unseen’s flight pod.

“I sent out warning messages to the freighters nearby each rift,” said Trip, “telling them the rift was only one way now, and to pass the message on that anyone going through may not ever be able to get back. Several ships have already slowed and turned away.”

“Okay. Better bring the hoppers back.”

The sled took a little longer than I expected to appear again, and five Ralnor, now covered in snow and shivering, hit the deck and collapsed, along with a considerable amount of loose snow that covered them again, and the sled vanished. The senior one struggled up, and looked daggers at me while he shook the snow off. The others looked terrified as they also shook snow off themselves.

“Was that supposed to scare us?” the senior demanded.

“No. That’s the only habitable planet in the POW system. And the system itself doesn’t have any jump points. Now, I’ll repeat your options. You can turn around and go home, you can stay and fight if I decide to offer you that option, or I can put the five of you back on that ice ball, and then send your ships there as well. The only variable in doing that is if any ship is close enough to rescue you before you freeze to death, and frankly, I’ve no idea if there is or not, or even if they’ll detect you’re there at all.”

“Barbarian!”

“Fine. I hope you like the cold.”

“Wait,” said one of the others.

The tail of the senior hit him hard, and he went down again.

“We will not be negotiating with this barbarian.”

I looked at Trip.

“Put the four of them in the best place you can find, and then put their senior back where he was before.”

The sled appeared above them again, they were pulled up, and it vanished.

“Now what?” asked Maya.

Eighteen

I tried again with the fleet second in commands when I was back on the bridge.

This time though, Trip opened channels to all of them at the same time, using the rifts to Ralnor to make the coms to all of them real time. I told them their admirals had been interned as POWs, and they now had the same choice to make. Turn around and go home, die where they were, or be interned in the POW system.

The interesting thing this time was the channels were widened to include the lead civilian ship, and instead of addressing five admirals, I ended up addressing the five real civilian commanders of the fleets instead. They all laughed at me, although the admirals had already seen their senior officer vanish in front of them, or someone who’d told them that, and none of them were laughing.

A word to Trip, and the five civilians vanished from the screens, as their battleship sized Q-ships were jumped to join the rest. All five admirals, and they were junior ones the same rank as I was, were told the ships had vanished at the same time, and they all looked troubled. But almost immediately five more civilians joined the channel.

I told Trip to widen it so all of the ships could hear, and then told them any ship which turned back to the rift would be allowed to leave. But they needed to do so immediately, or hope they liked where they were going to be interned. Then I had him end the channel.

We gave them two whole minutes, and nothing changed, so I set Trip loose on all five fleets simultaneously, starting with the civilians. Ships began to vanish in batches. I was hoping this would convince some of them to turn, but it was quickly obvious whatever fear factor was operating was preventing anyone from disobeying their orders. It took a while, as we only had access to our own jump sleds this time, but eventually all the ships were moved.

Part way through that process, Maya was called to the meeting. Actually, we both were, but Trip told them I was busy, and would be there when I could. Before I did though, I checked on the ground action still in progress, and found it was starting to wind down. Pete wasn’t back yet though, but he told me it wouldn’t be long now, and to line up our next target.

He’d been in two long battles already today, so I was inclined to not do another one. Instead I told him once we got the combat droids back, we could send them in to the next target with whoever was still operational. Some of his people hadn’t gone in this time, so they might be ready by then to go again.

Trip gave me an arrow to where the meeting was being held, and I snuck in the back, and settled into a seat without anyone but the three senior mages knowing. From the talk going on, it seemed some sort of agreement had been reached, and they were hammering out details. That was confirmed a short time later, with me already bored shitless, by Bud outlining the agreement.

The four sectors would be progressively turned into a single cluster under four governments, with individual corporate clusters set up inside that with limited entrances to their space. That meant doing the corporate ones first, after sealing up where the fleets heading in from outside were heading to. The rogue corporations inside the cluster needed to be isolated first, then the friendly ones isolated with selected entrances.

The whole thing would take time, because it was Maya and her trainees who’d be doing the work, and our company being paid the mage fees for it. Maya looked a little shocked, but was trying to hide it. And my guess was, every trainee or junior mage who could do something with a rift was going to be rotated her way to strengthen them. I think she realized that.

The fifth sector for now was being left out of this, pending confirmation of what government took control in the next few days. But given the violence there had been considerably worse, it looked to me like only the friendly corporations who’d requested joining the meeting from there would get their own clusters, and they’d be connected to the new bigger one. All of this was going to totally change trading in the region, but everyone accepted it as a necessary thing.

In order to keep stability and order, they were getting what part of their military fleets which still existed back. That included troops. My guess was it was would be a lot less than was sent, with only the ships still in transit to the frontier still in good condition.

I rose to slip out, thinking they were finished, but that wasn’t to be.

“You have news, General Cowan?” asked Bud.

Heads turned in the direction he was looking.

“Yes. The five rifts from Ralnor have been changed so no-one can come through from there again. Warnings are being issued to any freighters heading there that if they go through, they won’t be able to come back. We’ve probably stranded some traders on the other side, but we can deal with that later if need be.”

“And the fleets?” asked Gitte.

“Neutralized. Only one of the senior admirals knew anything about what was happening. And after they were removed from their ships, the junior admirals left were quickly shown to be under the orders of civilians on the Q-ships. There’s no doubt all this was orchestrated on Ralnor, and the League in general is being blamed for everything happening, including the assassination of the leaders we talked to on Ralnor only a short time ago. Me and my company now have a price on our heads, branded the agent provocateur doing all the damage. I’m still hoping we get proper confirmation on all of that though. If anyone wants to see the recording of the fleet admirals, I’ll supply it.”

Bud’s face had lost some colour towards the end of that, and his expression hardened. Some of the civilians were totally shocked, and others nodding as if that explained a few things for them.

“Anything else?” asked Bud.

“Ground actions are still in progress. We’ll try and do a third one today, but some of them will need to hold out until tomorrow now. We’ll need the lizards back for the next one. But assuming you’re all going back shortly, that timing will work. But if we can get some of the sector troops back from the front line, or in transit to it, now, we can get this all finished a lot quicker.”

Bud nodded to me, and looked around all the delegates.

“Anyone have anything to add?”

“No,” said middle-three. “We’ve been away too long as it is. The sooner our fleets and troops are back, the better. We’ll send you where is the best to put them as fast as we can. The only thing I’d add that we ask you to do is remove the rifts to Ralnor completely, now we know for sure we’ve been targeted from there. We’ll need help later getting some of our traders back, but the threat from there is real, and we don’t need spies reporting back there that way now.”

The other admirals nodded their agreement.

“Thank you for coming, and reaching this agreement so quickly. If you’ll gather up your pads, we’ll send you back where you came from.”

There were some hasty grabs for pads put on the table or chair arms, and then they all vanished. I walked over to join those still there, which included both Trip and Uchawi avatars.

“I’m going to need more than trainees,” said Maya, sounding stressed. “That’s a huge task you’re dumping on me, and there is no way I’m going to be able to do it with the current group.”

“Syrinx will be in touch with you as soon as I brief her,” said Bud. “You’ll be getting every rift mage who needs practice cycling through your group. That will include dragons as well. You’ll get started as soon as we have a proper map done by Trip and Uchawi, and an order to do the work in.”

“I’ll need a ship.”

“Use our Lightning,” I told her. “If you need something bigger, we’ll find it for you.”

The Lightning could seat a dozen comfortably. If need be, we could either re-task the first of the smaller jump ferries we’d ordered, or have one mage copied from any existing one. I looked at Gitte, and she nodded, obviously thinking the same sort of thing as I was.

“I’m going to send someone to fill in for you while you sleep,” she told Maya. “You’re not the only trainee coordinator now, and I can bring them to do the other two shifts so you’re not overloaded.”

“It’s already four,” Maya responded. “There’s not a lot of day shift left.”

“Get started now, and we’ll have replacements for you while you eat. Do a few more hours after dinner, and then you’re off until after breakfast. Then you’ll need to finish whatever was left undone during the day.”

Maya nodded, and vanished. The mages looked at me.

“Get some troops back to throw at the remaining ground problems,” I told them. “Mine need a long rest, and all I’ve got available now are half rested humans, and combat droids looking like lizards. All the Ralnor troops we’ve used so far are going to be in worse shape than mine, given expected casualties.”

Trip’s mouth twitched, which suggested the casualties were extensive.

“That is our first priority,” said Bud.

“Yours,” said Haynes. “I’m late for another meeting.”

He just vanished without even standing up first. Bud looked at Trip.

“Show me where you need troops. And are your grav sleds still being used?”

Screens popped up with navmaps on them, each one highlighting a world which was still fighting.

“We’re using them for debris now,” said Trip. “This system was a mess when we got here, and others will be the same. You better take that into account before dropping ships into orbit.”

“I’ll do the clean-up,” said Gitte, and closed her eyes.

“How many troops do you need at each planet?” asked Bud, looking from me to the two AIs.

“A brigade each would be good,” I said.

That would be three to five battalions, depending on how many were on each troop ship. He nodded, and then seemed to glaze over. Blue dots appeared in orbit of each of the planets, and then more navmaps popped up showing the four sector capitals, which now had blue dots as well.

“I’ve advised the admirals they now have troops,” said Trip, “and they should issue them orders and explain what’s going on to the commanders in a hurry, since they just vanished from either the frontier, or fleets on their way there.”

More dots appeared at the sector capitals. A lot more.

“That’s all the remaining fleets from each sector,” said Bud. “If the admirals want them moved somewhere else, you’ll need to use your jump sleds. Some will need to go to where the sectors want open doors, but that can wait until the jump point changes are done, and the doors are threatened.”

The navmaps all vanished, and another one popped up. There was a single blue dot there labelled as our Lightning, and it was at one of the rogue corporate headquarters systems. A moment later, the jump point vanished. The Lightning then vanished as well. The first stage was obviously isolating the rogues completely, which would cut off their coms to anyone else.

The map changed, another one blinked out, and the speed started to increase somewhat, as Maya and whoever was with her got into a rhythm. We kept watching on a higher level map that showed us where in the five sectors the Lightning was. Trip said nothing until the Lightning was on the edge of the new cluster boundary, and another dot plinked out.

“That was the first jump point going to be threatened by an outside fleet,” said Trip.

“What about stranded freighters?” I asked.

“Any that head for where the jump point was will be contacted,” said Uchawi. “If they don’t belong in the cluster, they’ll be told where the nearest exit is, or jumped out if it’s too far. We have a protocol for this. It’s why the jump sleds were developed in the first place.”

Of course they had a protocol for it. They’d been doing this for a long time now, just not such a big area in such a short time. Although, the original protectorates from memory had all been pretty big. But not this big.

“Anything else we need to do?” asked Bud.

“Not that I know of,” I said. “But sometime we need to decide what happens to those ships in the POW system.”

“You need to decide,” said Gitte. “I’m pretty sure that even with their fleets back, the sector admirals will be more than happy to buy those Ralnor warships you just collected.”

“Which would require a senior mage to move the crews off.”

“We’ll arrange something,” said Bud. “If you decide where they go, we can probably do a button.”

“A button?”

They both grinned and vanished, taking Uchawi with them.

Nineteen

The combat droids pretending to be lizards came back to Arthur’s station.

They were then sent down to finish the job on the planet below, so exhausted troops could be pulled out. Even the not-crocs were ready to be rotated out, and many had been already, as the fighting stopped where they were.

On the other planets we hadn’t been able to get anyone too yet, Ralnor troops who were fresh and bored went in, and the defenders were finally able to get some rest.

At the capitals, arrests began of anyone who worked for the corporations who’d done the attacking, who were in any way implicated in the assassination attempts, or linked to the ships which had pretended to be pirates to attack military ships and shipyards. Damaged ships which had returned were directed to shipyard bays, or docked where repair crews could board them.

Pete joined me in my office for the last hour before dinner, and Trip kept feeding us updates from everywhere something was happening. That included the POW world, where it turned out some troop transports which were close had picked up the life signs of the admirals, and collected them. According to Trip, the senior admiral was going to need a lot of medical treatment, but the other four were just very cold.

The other thing which happened there was one of the troop ships deployed a portable barracks to the surface, and began to assemble it at a location with only bad weather rather than snow, which was close to an ocean. Presumably they were going to do some exploration, and determine if the fish were food or poison. Even we didn’t know that, as the planet had never been properly surveyed.

Out in the system proper, ships were either heading for the planet, or heading further out looking for jump points. Given the number of ships in the system, communication was not a problem for them. As long as they left some ships in key places to pass messages on to those heading for the outer edges, every ship could stay in contact with whoever was giving the orders there now. I’d told them there were no jump points, but they’d need to waste a lot of time now determining it for themselves. I expect they thought I’d lied about it anyway.

Choosing what to do with all those people was something I was having trouble getting my head around. I had no doubt the military warships would be wanted by the sectors. But what to do with the crews was the big problem. Dumping them on an ice ball didn’t seem a good idea.

Back here, Trip had used jump sleds to move Ralnor carriers to join the troop ships, so they were getting their own air support now. That saved us needing to send tired pilots there ourselves.

Jump points with fleets heading for them from outside the sectors had continued to vanish, and then Maya had started on isolating the hostile corporations properly. She appeared in my office as Pete and I were getting up to head to dinner. Replacement trainees and some full mages had turned up, so she and her trainees could come back for dinner.

They were not going back to the Lightning. Uchawi had transferred a cutter sized jump ferry to the company, and that gave them a lot more room for coming, working, and going mages. It being available so fast suggested it was a magic done copy of an existing one. Our Lightning had jumped back here when the new ferry took over the job.

Pete’s officers looked better than he did, but they’d not been fighting this time. Mills looked worse than Pete did though, but seemed to be quite happy about it. I heard her mutter that anything that got her out of her office was a good thing, even if it was exhausting and dangerous. She was older than all of us, and apparently pushing herself harder as well.

According to Trip, a lot of the not-crocs looked just as bad, but were hiding it better. He showed us an image of Arthur and his people, and they looked done in as well. They’d obviously gone in again when they shouldn’t have.

Angie and her majors looked tired too. They’d been directing ground support missions all day, and had done several themselves as well. Apparently the Ugly mice had done a mission in Fours too, and come back with a better appreciation for them than they’d already had.

Employing more pilots had stopped, but Unbroken now had a full two hundred Fours ready for them. Whether we’d actually need them now or not was another matter. But not for today. There was no longer any real reason for not using the remaining mice in Fours. The Ugly bombers were still not useable, and we kept needing more and more pilots. Mind you, the cosmos liked playing jokes on people, so the moment we confirmed them as active in Fours, we probably wouldn’t need them again.

In spite of a much easier day, I felt tired and drained, and just ate mechanically, listening to the chatter of the other officers. Maya finished quickly, and walked out to find the rest of her trainees, before going to the new ferry. I pinged her to make sure she didn’t over do it this evening.

The rest of them headed for their quarters or to check up on their people, and I went back to Camel, heading for a lounge chair. Before reaching there, I found Sprite asleep in the one I was going to sit in, and changed direction to another one. This wasn’t the first time I’d found him here since Nell had moved to Unleashed.

Once seated I pinged Nell if she had a moment, and sent her the icon I used for jumping here. She appeared a few moments later, and saw me pointing at her cat.

“I wondered where he was. Thanks for letting me know. I swear he doesn’t like the new carrier. Granted the internals are a lot different, but he seems to spend very little time there since I moved.”

“I wonder why he spends so much time on Camel. He was on the bridge again when I went out today. Just seemed to be sleeping there until we arrived.”

“He likes the view, I think.”

“There’s no view in here.”

“True, but cats are like that. They have spots they like to sleep in, and there sometimes isn’t any rational explanation of why.”

“Whatever. I think he was sleeping on my bed the other day. I thought I dreamed I dropped down on top of him when I crashed, and woke up later with holes and pulled threads in the Ralnor waistcoat. I had to get Maya to repair it for me. So I’ve been surprised to see him still coming here.”

“Do you want me to get the rift changed so he can’t leave Unleashed?”

“No, but if he’s going to be spending time on Unseen and Camel, maybe he’ll need duplicates of whatever you have to cater to his needs on each.”

“Have you thought of getting a cat yourself?”

“No. Why would I?”

“I just wondered. You could have stopped Sprite from getting here if you wanted to.”

“The concept of a ship’s cat is not an issue for me. As long as he doesn’t cause trouble, and he doesn’t seem to, I don’t have a problem.”

“So if others want to get cats, they can?”

“As long as we don’t end up with cat fights in the middle of battles, or dinner, it wouldn’t worry me. And people provide whatever they need. You ship captains can do what you like on your own ships.”

“I was thinking of getting another one. Sprite was a stray, and we know he was planted on me, not actually chose me. I was thinking that’s why he spends so much time across all four ships, and he’s not really all that attached to me after all.”

“So he still turns up on Unbound?”

“At times, yes. He seems to just accept that he can wander where he wants to through the rifts. But the odd thing is, it’s only the ships he goes to, not through to the stations we connect to. And not to any of the other rift linked ships. Brook hasn’t seen him on Fokker, and nor has Herb on Albatross. He just comes here.”

“Would he accept other cats intruding into his territory?”

“There’s only one way to find that out. But we can limit the exposure to each other until they get used to another cat being around. And any cat which doesn’t get on with others, can be prevented from leaving personal quarters. With belt suits on, it’s not like they can hurt each other if they fight.”

“Whatever works. I’m not fussed. Send me a list of what Sprite uses now and where to order them from, and I’ll put them in somewhere, and see if he uses them. He certainly spends enough time on the bridge here to justify having his own stuff here.”

“The butlers can be told to take care of a cat, and they do everything including cleaning up any mess, and feeding them. With Sprite, we’d need to find out where he prefers to be fed, so he doesn’t get fed too often.”

Sprite was looking at us now, back and forth as we were talking. But he was not looking like he intended to move any time soon.

“How will you feel if he decides to live on Unseen?”

“Or here? He’s a stray. He can choose to live wherever he wants. And I’m sure he’d come visit me anyway. But if he does choose to stay away from Unleashed, as I said, I’ll just get another cat. I’m so used to having one now, I don’t want to be without one.”

I looked at Sprite, and he looked back impassively.

“Well, cat, you need to decide where you’re living.”

He appeared to go back to sleep. Nell chuckled, went over and scooped him up, and after giving me a nod, touched her belt button and vanished.

I pondered the whole cat thing, which was a good distraction from pondering the whole what to do with crews thing, decided nothing other than to order some cat stuff tomorrow, and see what Sprite wanted to do.

Maya pinged me she was back shortly after eight thirty, and by then the biggest of the rogue corporations was now totally isolated. That was another decision needing making. Did we leave them isolated, or did we join them all up, and then leave them an opening to outside the new cluster somewhere? For now, they were getting isolated, and serve them bloody well right.

A long yawn had me check with Trip, but he had nothing needing my attention, so I went to bed. Sleep took a while to come on, but once I was, there were no dreams I remembered after.

But when I woke in the morning, there was a round furry lump sleeping next to me.

Twenty

Sprite stayed in bed as I hustled my way to my office.

Trip was waiting for me, and the news was mainly good for a change. The fighting on all the planets had ended. The returned Ralnor fleets had been reorganised into new ones to allow damaged ships to wait for shipyard bays, and then been jumped to where the carriers were, or to where they were otherwise needed. Other ships had been sent the same way to pick up prisoners, and once loaded, would be jumped back to the sector capital.

The mages had completed isolating the rogue corporations, and made a start on ‘walling in’ the friendly ones. Reports had considerable confusion going on now with traders from the rogues that were now locked out of their home systems. No-one generally knew what was going on, and so far, the sector leaders had made no announcements. All people really knew was some systems had been attacked, there’d been assassination attempts and deaths, and the sector capitals had gone into marshal law or lockdown for a short time.

The aftermath was going to be major, just with dealing with freighters caught in the wrong place. But Trip assured me there was a plan in place, but it was too early to get it moving. More jump sleds were being created to cope with the demand, and AIs were going to be assigned to running them and finding ships needing to be moved. But as far as anyone was going to know, we were doing all of it.

I thought the whole ‘keep the League out of it’ thing was just silly at this point. I got that Jane, the League leaders, and the diplomats were still hoping to keep relations with the new Ralnor leadership intact, but I thought that bridge was already burned. From their end. They’d made us the scapegoat, and once it became known what we’d done with their fleets, and the cluster we’d carved out of their space, diplomacy was going to end completely. I hoped I was wrong though.

And maybe it could all be blamed on me and the company. In the League there was not much more than minor speculation going on about what was happening in Ralnor space near Karn at the moment, but Trip thought Amy would catch on to it soon enough, and then I’d be wanted for an interview again. I told him not to accept one until all our ducks were in a row, and that wouldn’t happen without discussions with key people first. And someone convincing me we should be the fall guys in this.

The commanding Ralnor admirals all wanted to buy the warships we’d taken as soon as possible. What they didn’t want was the crews, as there was no way of trusting them. Nor did they want them sent back to Ralnor, where they could then be deployed to somewhere else undergoing the same treatment as the five sectors here. Trip had asked for suggestions as to where the crews could go, given there was not a reasonably habitable planet where they were now. We were still waiting for an answer on that one. And like as not, wouldn’t get one.

But we already had offers for the ships, based on them being in pristine condition, and the four sectors seemed to have divided them up between themselves already. They wanted some of the troop transports as well, but not all of them, and without the troops.

I went into breakfast with the whole ‘what do we do with the crews?’ thing back on my mind. Everyone looked better, but tiredness was still there in their faces. We needed a couple of days off now. And unless something new happened, I thought we should be able to get it.

“Did Trip tell you we have passengers on three of the Ralnor capital stations?” Elsa asked me.

“No, he didn’t tell me that. Is it an issue?”

“Not that I can see. But it means we need to keep ferries there, even though they’re no longer needed for rapid coms. We don’t need to stay here either. The situation is resolved, and we can go anywhere we want now. Arthur and his station went back to Celeste a short time ago. Jodie and her troops went home last night. Should we head back to Karn?”

I looked around the table, and found they were all looking at me.

“We may as well. If possible we should take the next couple of days off. But those of you with your own ships are free to look for any work you can take which won’t tie you up for fleet jobs. I’d also caution against using a battleship to just swot a pirate destroyer. Give it to someone more appropriate. Just keep tomorrow free, as most of us will be getting invitations to whatever Celeste is planning. Anyone is free to decline, but it’s a good reason for a second day doing nothing but rest.”

“Is that Thanksgiving?” asked Nolan.

“Yes. They were trying to get a brand new island resort built and operational for it. I guess we’ll find out if they managed that when we get the invitations.”

“Can I find out how far they’ve got with that?” asked Nell. “I fancy a good sit on a beach this afternoon.”

“Sure. Have Trip connect you to Celeste-Leanne. And if they are taking guests, let everyone know in case others want some beach time. Then get him to put a ferry linked to the embarkation room wherever they want them parked.”

“Ferries,” said Elsa. “Unleashed and Unbroken have their own embarkation rooms for pilots and crew to get around through.”

“Whatever. Anyone have any ideas about what to do with the crews on the ships the Ralnor want?”

“Does Uchawi know of a better planet which could be used to maroon them on?” asked Pete.

“We probably should have specified that the first time when asking about a system to use,” said Angie.

“It was only supposed to be a couple of fleets,” I said. “And even then, only temporary. Needing somewhere for people to live wasn’t a factor. I’ll go see Uchawi this morning.”

Conversation lagged after that as we ate, but I kept on thinking about it. When I rose to leave, Nell followed me out.

“Okay if I tag along?” she asked me. “I figure we could go to Cat World after, and you can get what Sprite needs. He did sleep with you last night, didn’t he?”

She meant Cat World the store chain, not Cat World the planet. At least I hope she did.

“I’ve no idea. I was out like a light all night. But he was there when I woke this morning. You didn’t see him?”

“He was with me when I went to bed, but not there when I woke. No-one else seems to have known where he was. You might have to come to terms with the fact you now have a cat.”

I sighed. That hadn’t been in my life plan at all. She took the hint, and said nothing more. We took a travel car to the rift room, walked through to the Karn shipyard, and took another car to Uchawi’s office.

“Trip said you were on your way. Take a seat. What can I do for you?”

“We need a habitable planet to put ship crews on, preferably where there isn’t any jump points again. Some of the troop ships have barracks modules on board, so all we really need is somewhere they can use them. Maybe put in a jump point between the two systems so the other ships can take themselves there once they find it.”

She went still for a few moments, and then a system map popped up. It zoomed in on a planet.

“This one might do you. It was rejected for a Karn splinter colony world, but it is habitable for a maximum population of about a million. There’s a narrow band of temperate climate with plenty of arable land there. No major predators, although there are some minor ones. Nothing poisonous to us or the Ralnor discovered with the initial survey, although a follow up wasn’t done.”

“Could that system be joined up to the other one?”

“Presumably. It’s a bit far for Maya though, from what I’ve been told she’s capable of. You’d need to put in a request for either a mage to boost her range, or hire a rift mage with the right range ability.”

“What about the planet and system itself?”

“We don’t want it, and it’s basically unclaimed. If you want it, just put people on it, and we’ll register it as yours. Isolated like it is, no-one is going to care.”

“Does it have a magicsat in there now?” asked Nell.

“Yes. I assume you’ll want to keep an eye on what happens there?”

“Someone should,” I said. “Can you find us a mage? Maya is kind of busy at the moment, and I don’t want to interrupt her.”

“I’ll see who’s available, and get them to contact you. I’ll also let those keeping track of possible colonies for the future know the planet is no longer available.”

“Thanks. Have all the invoices for the new ferries been sent to us yet?”

“Yes. Nade has them, but I understand nothing happening with them yet. I had a suggestion as well, along those lines.”

“What?”

“Grab one of those civilian carriers when you take the warships, and send it to me. What I’ll do is gut it completely, then turn it into a ferry carrier. It can then dock or land all the ferries up to corvette size when they’re not being used. It would lose most of its offensive armament, but retain the defensive, and get mosquitoes.”

“I like the idea,” said Nell.

“Send me a quote,” I said. “And some sort of conceptual image so I can see what you’re planning.”

“Will do. I suggest you also get a ship converted into a hospital ship as well. It seems you’re going to need one more often than not now. Haven has several designs. They won’t be cheap, mainly due to the number of care units for multiple sized species, and the doc droids and supplies they need, but if you have one to jump in when you need it, you won’t need to rely on the availability of Haven’s. They get used very regularly in Keerah space these days, and they tend to stay in one place longer than the fleets do.”

“Select several ships from those in the POW system, and do designs and quotes for them.”

“Different sizes?”

“Small, medium, and large?” suggested Nell, smiling.

“Might as well,” I agreed. “One of each to start with, and if we need more, we can do another set. We’d need medical teams for them as well then.”

“Those are not hard to find,” said Uchawi, “and Brigadier Carter will most likely recommend some to you if you ask.”

“We need some on the carriers anyway,” said Nell. “Just for routine stuff, and pilots who need assessments after care unit time. The doc droids are okay, but they’re so impersonal.”

“Do you want to follow that up, and report to the shareholders?”

“Sure.”

“Anything else you need?” asked Uchawi, looking at me.

“That was more than I had on my mind, so no.”

“I’ll find you that mage. Where will you be next?”

“Cat World,” said Nell, grinning.

Twenty One

The staff at Cat World were all insane.

We’d jumped back to the company office on Unseen, then gone through the rift to Haven. While Karn had a branch of Cat World, Nell had wanted to go to the one on Haven, which was supposed to be the best League store.

The office itself looked different to me, and on looking around I figured out it was actually bigger now. The front desk was double the size I’d last seen it, and there were more rifts on the walls capable of taking a pallet easily, each one labelled with a ship name.

In the middle was seating for people who might be waiting for someone from a ship, or an interview on one of the ships. There was no-one there now, but instead of one butler at the desk, there were now three avatars, which all seemed to be Trip variations. I was reminded that we still had a third carrier to fill with pilots, and the office here could cater to good sized interview groups now.

We walked out of the office into the station itself, and immediately stopped again. The images on the outside which had been put up for Halloween had been changed. There were several images of the whole fleet now, from various combat situations. Suddenly as we watched, most of them changed. We kept watching until they changed again, showing a new set of images. As advertising for what we did, they looked effective. People going past were certainly looking at them.

Nell led the way to Cat World, and stopped outside a window to look in. There were multiple areas set up for cats, with quite a few visible, and they even had a few small dogs. Most of them ignored us, but a few turned in our direction.

I followed her grinning self into the store itself, and she told me to go look at the kitty castles. She then headed for where the cats were. I looked around, saw something like tall platform trees off in one corner, and walked that way. I passed food, litter, cat and dog toys, scratch posts, and finally came to the castles.

That was when a complete nutcase made a beeline for me.

“You’ve not brought your owner with you I see. Are we here on one’s behalf? Or are we here to enter servitude?”

“Huh?”

He gave me a look which suggested I was mentally deficient. I gave him a look which said make sense or I was out of here.

“Are you here today buying for an existing cat, or here to be adopted by a cat? Or dog?”

“Existing cat. It’s something of a stray.”

“Planet, station, or ship?”

“Ship.”

“I assume said cat already has feeding and litter requirements met?”

“Yes. But he’s roaming across four ships now, and seems to spend a lot of time on mine. I don’t have anything on my ship for him, other than a console pad.”

He nodded sagely.

“Does he or she have a tree now?”

“I’ll find out.”

I pinged Nell the question, got an image back, and pulled up a screen to show it to the sales guy.

“Ah. You’ll be wanting this one then.”

He pointed to one of them, which did appear to be the one in the image. It was of course, the most expensive. Not that it mattered to me.

“Why that one?”

“Cats don’t like change. If you’re taking over the cat, then you’ll need to get the exact same things which it’s already used to. Do you have a butler?”

“Plenty.”

He gave me a look which suggested that had not been the anticipated answer.

“What sized ship?”

“Corvette class. But he’s roaming between two fleet carriers, and a Q-ship in the cruiser range.”

He stared at me as if I was crazy. With what he was wearing, he was the crazy one. If you didn’t know him and saw him anywhere else, what he was wearing was a dead giveaway he worked for a pet store. And I wouldn’t have been seen dead in it myself.

“Warships?”

“Yes, of course.”

“You said the cat was a stray? How did it get on board?”

“You saw the woman I came in with?” Nod. “She adopted it before taking a position on one of my ships.”

“Your ships? Never mind. She didn’t adopt the cat. The cat adopted her. It’s important you understand that. The cat distribution system works for cats, not people. If the cat is now spending more time on your ship, then you’re the one being adopted.”

I gave him a look which suggested that was just crazy, but he looked totally unfazed.

“He or she?”

“He.”

“Photo?”

My PC actually popped one up, so I replaced the image on the screen, which was still up.

“Ah, distinguished looking cat. What else does he own?”

The cat owned?

“I’ve no idea. I’ll find out.”

I pinged Nell if she could join me, but instead, she sent back a set of images this time. I changed the images on the screen again. The sales guy took me on a meandering course around the store, and verbally assaulted me with options and suggestions, leading me to believe working here required mental health issues rather than credentials or skills.

But by the time we’d covered everything, including food and what type of litter he used, I had a long order of things which more or less duplicated what he already had. At that point I pinged Nell to ask what was happening with Sprite’s stuff she already had, assuming she got a new cat. The answer came back that anything the new cat didn’t use, would go to Unseen for the main pilot mess, where he was used to being. She’d been thinking about a cat tree for there anyway, so if her new one wanted a different one, that’s where the existing one would go.

My brain was overloading. The cat might want a different one? Serious huh? This seemed excessive for just one cat. And then I was dropped in the deep end of cat toys. I insisted Sprite didn’t need playing with. I was informed sternly that all cats played, and if he adopted me, I would be playing with him.

I was further informed deadpan that the less I provided that he played with himself, the more I’d be required to satisfy that need, or suffer the consequences in terms of ruined furniture and belongings. Once again, images were sought, and a vast array of noisemaking, movement making, and just plain stuffed stuff was added to the order, including several variations of ‘cat tunnels’ which could be linked together.

Finally the sales guy left me alone to check on the availability of everything, and I went in search of Nell. I found her sitting in a cat enclosure, watching a plump cat on the small side, of indeterminate breed, playing with various toys.

“That’s Muffin,” said Nell.

The urge to face palm was almost overwhelming, but I resisted.

“Did you order everything?” she went on.

“Yes. I was conned into the more expensive versions of some things though.”

“Not that it matters.”

“No. But knowing my luck, he won’t use any of it, and will just sit in the empty boxes it all comes in.”

“Cats are like that. That’s why that butler over there is watching Muffin. It’s making a list of everything he wants.”

“How…”

“Does it know?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s a Cat World secret.”

“More like insanity.”

She laughed. The chubby cat heard her laugh, and came running, making a credible speed for its size weight ratio. What it couldn’t do was jump up, but he presented himself to be picked up, and purred loudly when he was.

“They tell me he’s about six months old, and already been returned twice.”

“Why would…”

The cat licked her face. And kept on doing it.

“Oh. Does he do that with everyone?”

“Pat him.”

I ran a hand down his spine, and he stopped licking Nell, and licked me instead. I jerked my hand away feeling like my skin was coming off, and he looked offended. So too did the sales guy who was now standing outside the enclosure waiting for me. Nell laughed at my expression.

“You want a licker?” I asked her.

“It wasn’t one of my criteria, but he was one of the cats who looked at me when I stopped at the window, and when I came in, he came straight over. He wants to go home with me. Don’t you, Muffin-wuffin?”

The cat purred even louder.

Twenty Two

“Syrinx,” said the mage.

She’d appeared in my office a few moments after I arrived back, and scared the hell out of me.

The order from Cat World was going to be delivered this afternoon to Unseen through the office, and then butlers would move it to Camel, and set it all up. Nell had stayed behind to finalize her adoption by Muffin.

“I was told you need a rift mage?” she went on. “I just came from visiting Maya, who’s currently using a lot of my current rift students. That’s a great workout they’re getting, and it seems to be going well. How did you get her to join a mercenary unit?”

“You didn’t get told?” She shook her head. I waved her to a lounge chair, and we both sat. “Gitte basically ordered it. She’d been point person for a group of trainees who’ve been doing ship work for us for a while now, and once she was promoted to full mage, she got her current job as a trainee coordinator, but needed an employer. We’d wanted to offer her a job anyway, so it seems to be working out.”

“Good. What do you need that she can’t provide?”

“We have a system with a lot of Ralnor ships interned in it, but the planet is a barely habitable ice ball.”

“I can’t change that. You’d need Gitte for something like that. Or Bud.” I stared at her, and she chuckled. “You didn’t know that could be done?”

“No. But it’s not necessary. Uchawi found us a marginal planet Karn rejected because the maximum population is too low, and we need both systems joined. They’ll find the jump point pretty quickly, and make their own way to the planet. We also need a button to remove crews off ships to the planet, so we can sell them. The ships, not the crews.”

She laughed.

“Which systems?”

A navmap popped up, and she studied the two highlighted points on it. None of the systems shown were joined in any way. A moment later, the link between the two was added. The navmap zoomed in on the new system, and a dot appeared almost immediately as a ship jumped in. She’d obviously put it almost on top of a ship. From the navmap it looked like she’d used standard jump point positioning, so even if the ship picked out the planet quickly, it would be five or six hours before it could get there.

“Thanks. That will do nicely.”

“Where do you want people put on the planet?”

“Trip?”

He popped up over the coffee table, and the navmap changed into a rough continent map of the planet. An x appeared on it, which seemed to be a flat area near a major river, and also near the sea.

“That looks to me like the best place to set up a town,” he said. “But you better put people down on the outskirts of that, and put a wall around where they appear so they know not to build anything else there. With nice big easy to open gates in it?”

“What about I make it a nice big pavilion,” she suggested, “which can provide shelter for the first lot, if they need it. How many are you putting there to start with?”

He showed her a set of icons representing how many of each ship class, and she stared at it, and then me.

“Do I want to know how you come to have that many Ralnor military ships?”

“That’s just a fraction of the total warships,” I said. “Most of them are civilian Q-ships or troop transports. That’s another thing. If the ship is a troop transport, and has a building module of any kind on board, can you put that on the ground somewhere as well?”

“Why?”

“They can use them to start their colony with.”

“So you need all the equipment to complete them with put there as well.”

“Yes. If that’s possible.”

“Anything is possible. I just have to understand what it is before I can do it.”

“We’re selling the Ralnor warships back to four of their sectors, which are going independent.” She gaped at me. “They’re also buying some troop transports, which is why we need somewhere to put the crews and troops, because no-one wants to send them home, or can trust them.”

“What are you people doing? Or is it secret?”

“It’s not secret, as far as I know. Just not something the media has caught on to yet.”

“Go on.”

I gave her a quick summary of what had happened recently.

“Wow. You have been busy. I knew the Ralnor had broken through into Keerah space, but had no idea anything else was going on. Okay, let me get this straight. You want to target a ship, move everyone on it to the arrival point on the planet, and then do what with the ship?”

“Put it in the Karn system,” said Trip, “with engines shut down and no momentum.” Another screen popped up, this time showing where our ship park was. “If you can line them up here, that would be good.”

“And if the ship has any sort of prefabricated building on board, needing assembly or otherwise, you want that on the planet as well. Plus if the place for arrival is full of people, they need to go somewhere adjacent that’s safe.”

“That covers it, I think,” I told her. “But maybe do two buildings? One for arrivals only, and the other with basic living stuff for the first groups before they can organise actual buildings?”

“That’s doable. We have a standard emergency shelter I can simply create down there, which includes basic survival rations. Those are for humans and big cats, but I understand the Ralnor can eat them as well. The sleeping areas are for cats and large sized beings, with human extras to make them more comfortable, so they should be okay for Ralnor as well. I’ll put the biggest one we do there, but it won’t be big enough for the number of people you’ll be moving to start with. It will, however, give them something. I’ll put a wall around both as well, so they know they’re safe to start with, and it will give them plenty of ground they can use for whatever until they do their own surveys once their ships arrive.”

“Sounds good to me. Trip?”

“I selected a likely spot that would be big enough. It’ll be a hike for them to get to water though.”

“The shelter has its own water supply, and will collect rain. I’ll need to be over the planet to do this.”

“Follow me,” I said. “Trip, tell Elsa where I’m going, and why.”

“Will do.”

He was already popped up on Camel’s bridge as we stepped through the rift. Sprite was sleeping on the console pad as well. He looked up and gave us a look which suggested we were intruding.

“This is Sprite,” I told Syrinx. “And he doesn’t own this ship, or me. He does however seem to like sleeping here.”

His tail flicked noticeably, and she chuckled. The view out the windows changed, and a planet was now directly in front of us. A continent was clearly visible. The HUD appeared over the top of the view, and a red dot appeared. A screen popped up showing a close up of where the dot was.

A moment later there was a building there. Then a second one. And then a wall around them both. By the look of what I thought were trees, the whole site occupied a large amount of land, and if need be, at least one more similar sized building could be put in without any problems.

The button which appeared next to Trip was palm press size, and bright yellow. A moment later his avatar appeared, and the hollo vanished.

“I forgot to ask,” said Syrinx. “What about personal possessions? Just how badly do you want to strand them?”

“How hard is including possessions in the magic?”

“Not hard. I can use whatever they own for moving them, and supply standard duffels for anything which doesn’t fit. They’ll arrive with them either wearing the bags, or at their feet if they’re like a wheelie bag or grav chest. Up to a point though. I figure they need clothes and small personal items. Anything like furniture or large ornaments will be out of the question.”

“Do that then. Are there any signs there telling new arrivals to exit the building?”

“Yeah, I did them in multiple languages, including Ralnor. I figure the second group of arrivals will spur all of them to hurry out. Or the third group will. Trip will be able to monitor how full the arrival area is anyway. I included a cam in the center of the ceiling.”

The button vanished, and appeared again. The ice planet system popped up next, and Trip selected a ship.

“That’s the first civilian carrier we moved here,” he told me. “I figure that’s a good test, since Uchawi wants one to convert into a ferry carrier.”

Syrinx looked like she was going to ask the obvious question, but didn’t.

“May as well,” I told him. “If it works, tell Uchawi to do the design and quote for that ship.”

“She’s already done both for this class already.”

“Fine. Do it.”

He pushed down hard on the button, and a dot vanished. Another screen popped up showing a lot of Ralnor wearing some sort of carry bag, and a handful without, but with larger boxes around them. None of them moved. I nodded to Trip, and another dot vanished, this time tagged as a military battleship, and more people appeared. This time was different. The military moved almost immediately, and those nearest the doors dumped their stuff, and went out through them straight away, weapons being drawn as they went.

“They still have their small weapons,” said Syrinx. “Is that okay?”

“Probably,” I said. “If they start fighting between themselves we might need to remove them, but for now, it lets them feel safe in a new place where they don’t know what is hostile or not out there.”

Camel moved, appearing back in the Karn system, but pointing at our ship park place. There was not a lot left there now, and other than the carrier and battleship, mostly in serious need of a shipyard, which is why they hadn’t been used or sold yet. A second battleship appeared next to the first, and a third lot of people arriving caused everyone in the building to start heading for the exits.

“Anything else you need?” asked Syrinx.

“No, I think that’s the lot. Thank you for that.”

“You’ll get my bill,” she said, grinning, and vanished.

I looked at Trip.

“You know what you’re doing for a while now?”

“You want them all moved now?”

“Yes. Park them all here, and we can then finalize the sales after they’re all ready for the sleds. Just time them so they arrive steadily, and not packed in on top of each other.”

“I’m good. You’re late for lunch.”

Twenty Three

“We’ve got a go for some beach time this afternoon,” said Elsa, as I sat at the dining table.

“Is the resort finished?”

“No. But the beach facilities are, including food and drink services. The swimming pools are also operational, including the bars around them. We have an invitation for all our people to beta test what is finished today and tomorrow. I spread the word a short time ago, and we have a ferry on the ground there already. The space port has trolleys for moving people to the resort. Our passengers are also welcome there. All we need to do is make sure the movement of people is orderly, but Trip is working on making sure of that.”

Food was placed in front of me, so I nodded to her, and started eating. The chatter seemed more upbeat than it had been at breakfast, and some seemed to be enthused about an afternoon doing nothing but likely get sunburnt.

I figured I’d go and have a look around, maybe have a drink while looking out at the ocean, and then come back and deal with the next task on the list for my attention. I’d need to check on where Maya was up to, the transfer of the ships to the Ralnor sectors, and then touch base with people about our losses and replacements.

Thinking of Maya, I noticed she wasn’t here.

“Where’s Maya?” I asked.

“Eating with the Matriarch,” said Elsa. “She pinged me in case anyone was looking for her. Apparently Syrinx is with them, so I assume it’s a mage lunch to discuss what she’s doing, and how the trainees are going doing the jump point work.”

“Fair enough. As long as she actually eats.”

There were some chuckles at that, and I looked around, a bit surprised at it.

“Lyla,” said Pete, “you’re the only one who normally needs reminding to eat.”

“Not that often.”

“Often enough,” said Nell.

“Did you get that cat?”

“I did. Muffin will be restricted to my quarters for the time being though. I’m not sure yet how Sprite will react to him, but he’s fitted with a collar suit, so if they fight, neither of them will get hurt. He’s hiding in a cat igloo with a blanket over it at the moment, and the door to my bedroom is shut, so Sprite won’t be going in unsupervised, and not until after Muffin goes into exploration mode and settles in.”

“Why Muffin?” asked Brian.

“He looks like he’s eaten too many of them,” I told him, and got a good laugh from everyone but Nell.

“He’s adorable,” she said. “You’ll see. Eventually.” She looked at me. “It will be interesting to see what Sprite does when your stuff is set up on Camel.”

That caused some interesting reactions.

“What’s this about Sprite?” asked Elsa.

“He’s been spending a lot of time on Camel,” I said, “so I’m putting in what he needs in case he’s decided he wants to live there. He may or may not use any of it. But Nell’s thinking is he wants to live on Camel, so she found herself a new cat this morning. We’ll just have to see what he does. If we’re wrong, we’ll move the stuff around until he decides it’s in the right spot.”

“I didn’t peg you for a cat owner,” said Nathan.

“Neither did I. But according to the nutcase who served me at Cat World, the cats adopt us, we don’t adopt them.”

There was some general laughter, and I went back to eating. My deck one butler on Camel pinged me a request to visit as I was finishing, so after ascertaining most of them were heading to the beach now, I went through to my living room on Camel. There I found the cat castle tree thing set up along one wall, and Sprite near the top of it sharpening his claws.

He stopped when he saw me, and sat, looking like he’d been doing nothing at all. I gave the butler the order that enabled the feeding and cleaning services for a cat, added to ensure that Sprite wasn’t double eating somewhere else. Sprite looked scandalized at that, jumped down rapidly, and disappeared out into the passageway.

The butler showed me where the bot controlled litter box was in a small storeroom I hadn’t even known was there, but contained unopened boxes of food and drink. And for the first time I saw the inside of the small kitchen, which the room was off. The only food visible in there was cat food, but only because it was still being put away. I suspected at least one box of food was going into the storeroom, while the other was going into easy reach cupboards. There was a water dispenser in one corner, and a food dish and hard food dispenser in another.

There were still a few unopened boxes, which I assumed contained the tunnel, several small scratch poles, cat blankets, and all the toys. The butler enquired as to where to put them, and I told it to keep them on this deck, just not on the bridge, but otherwise I didn’t really care, and dumped around the cat castle was good enough for now.

It remained to be seen if Sprite would use any of them, and it didn’t really matter if he did or not. But the fact he’d found and used the big tree so fast was a good sign. If he did like them, then he’d probably move them wherever he wanted to.

Maya came in at that point, smiled when she saw the tree, and gave me a quick update on the jump point work. They’d completed the closed cluster creation for the corporations which had been attacked that we’d gone to the aid of. They now had only limited entrances to their spaces, in key places they could effectively defend.

Trip had moved all their remaining warships to blockade the inside of the doorways. And they’d apparently ordered stations be built near them as well, to be customs control points. There were going to be a lot of pissed off traders having to go the long way now, but that was the corporation’s problem.

It was looking like the job of doing all of them would take several days, and the entire cluster might be a week or more. For now, whenever an outside fleet looked threatening, changes were being made to block it. But eventually, only key doorways would be left open.

I reminded her to take some beach time, if not during the day, then this evening. I also suggested she attend Thanksgiving tomorrow, as a way of learning what other people did that hers did not. She surprised me by revealing Gitte had already told her and her other original trainees to go, and a replacement for her had been organized already. As far as the beach was concerned, they were all heading there for dinner.

She vanished to return to the ferry they were using, and I had to chuckle about the beach. There would probably be no-one eating on board this evening other than those actually on shift. And if I knew my people, it would be the new officers who were on shift this evening, and also whenever tomorrow things were happening. Since we only needed one person on the bridges when stood down, it should have been easy to organize.

Trip popped up, and a pulse came in.

“You’re requested on Celeste right now,” he told me. “Jump icon sent.”

Twenty Four

I appeared on the beach.

There were a lot of people here already, both on the sand and in the water. More were arriving all the time, and there was a fair bit of noise coming from where I thought the pools were. The sand was dotted with beach umbrellas and chairs, and a lifeguard station was a short way up the beach.

The water looked inviting, and I was suddenly aware it was hot here, and I was a bit overdressed in my ship suit.

“Ah, you made it,” said a familiar voice, and I looked towards where it came from, and found the Imperator beaming up at me from a beach chair.

Chloe was next to him, and they were both in swimwear, and recently wet. He nodded to her, rose, shifted into jeans and t-shirt, and stepped over to me. She rose as well, touched her belt button, and vanished.

“I’ve something to show you,” he told me. “And possibly a request to make of you. Mind if I move us both?”

“If you must.”

“I must, yes.”

He touched me on the arm, pushed his jump button, and all the people and beach gear vanished. Now it was just the two of us, and a lonely stretch of beach. Plus it was dark, but with a bright moon illuminating things enough to see.

I could tell by looking up that we were not in the core anymore. Even at night there, the sky was bright with the nearby suns of adjacent systems. But here, it was the true night sky of where I’d grown up, except none of the star patterns looked familiar.

“Where are we?” I asked him.

“A planet on the lower spine. It’s eight jumps beyond Last Hope.”

“And we’re here, because?”

“I thought you might like to buy it.”

“The beach?”

“The planet. Actually the whole system.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Several reasons. First, it’s a fifth tier world, which no-one has claimed yet. But will be very soon. Your company is expanding to the point where you need a proper headquarters somewhere, and here you can do anything you like. Even build your own resort for passengers to visit when they want a beach. You could also build residences for all your people.”

“Fifth tier?”

“It’s limited to about fifty million people. Sixth tier is about ten, and seventh is one million. Your POW planet is a seventh tier world. Fourth tier is a hundred million, third is five hundred million, second is the early billions, and first is more than five billion. We auctioned off the first and second tier worlds already, without releasing what the remainder were like. Colonists are moving down here steadily now, looking to stake claims.”

“I’m not seeing why I need to buy this one. Or any one.”

“Jane tells me you can afford it, and all the building it will need, plus a station in orbit, and still not really notice you bought anything.”

“She would know. I can’t say I’ve even looked at my account for a while now, so I’ve no idea what’s in it.”

“More than enough to buy and set this world up as a combination headquarters for your company, way point for people going down the spine, and resort planet.”

“Why do I get the feeling the waypoint is what you’re mostly interested in?”

“That’s only part of it. Your company is uniquely able to provide what we need down here.”

“And that is?”

“Protection and supply. We need a patrolling warship presence below Last Hope, in case some troublemakers slip through and only reveal themselves where they settle. And we need to make sure colonists on all the planets get regular supplies. You’ve got ships which can do both jobs at the same time. And the ability to adapt some ships so they can carry a load, but still land that load when there’s no station in orbit. We’ll put in some space ports when there’s a need, but for a start, we’ll need ships capable of landing anywhere to deliver what people need.”

He stopped for a breath.

“You could also put some ships in orbit which do the same job as a station, until stations are needed. There’s designs being done for that sort of thing, which includes standard docking being added to ships such as the Ralnor Q-ships you have access to. You provide emergency assistance and basic resupply for systems without a station. And your station here is a full service stop, including some ship repair capability.”

“Someone has put a lot of thought into this. Jane?”

“She’s one of them. Don’t get me wrong, the Imperium will employ you for the protect and supply part of it, and a lot of the freight you’ll handle will be supplied by us to get colonies started and over the self-sufficiency hump. But you’ll also be the de-facto sheriff for the whole spine down here.”

“Doing a police job is not part of what we do.”

“And you won’t need to do it. We’ll make sure there’s adequate police on the ground. And they’ll work with you as needed. The entire lower spine is Imperium space, and you’ll be invited to join the Imperium. Dick Burnside runs Imperium security, and he’ll make sure the local police are what is needed on the ground, and on your stations. And we’ll also supply Brawlers for local fighter patrols, and rent the accommodation for the pilots from you.”

It occurred to me that Unbound would make a good ship class for down here. Able to carry freight, a squadron of fighters on board, and capable of taking on anything likely to cause trouble here. Also the corvette hangar meant they could carry a smaller landing ship. We could also use some of the Ralnor carriers sealed up and modified with docks as orbital stations, and what he was saying might work.

“As far as cities and resorts are concerned, the buy in price includes a mage built city in the best place on the planet, and a copy of the resort Celeste is in the process of completing now. Both will be copies of what exists now, so created by magic. The price also includes a modified Haven station, where some of the lower towers are dedicated to specific things. One will be a fighter hangar for Brawlers and Fours. Others will be shipyard modules with specialized docks, so any mechanical problems on ships going further down the spine have somewhere to be fixed.”

“I didn’t know that sort of thing existed.”

“We’ve learnt a few things over the last couple of years. There’s a man named Patchet in Hunter’s Run space in Gaia who runs a DSRV, a mobile ship repair facility. His experience is being utilized in the design of station towers for the same tasks.”

“I’m not sure the company will be interested in all of that.”

“The company isn’t being invited. The invitation is for you. You would own the system and everything in it. The company is being offered the protect and supply contract.”

“I’d need to talk to the shareholders.”

“Of course. But consider this, over the next few years the colonies will open up further and further down the spine, and your company will essentially control that space. Down the track, the whole space will probably become a corporate cluster, something like the Ralnor ones you’re setting up now. Your cluster.”

“What could possibly go wrong with that scenario?”

He laughed.

“Plenty, I guess. But we trust you, and as long as that trust is honoured, we’ll be happy. And I understand Jane did warn you we’d be asking you to join in with the cost of doing what needs to be done. This is one of those things.”

“You make it sound like I don’t have any choice in the matter.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean it to come out like that. It’s totally optional. But it’s an opportunity as well, and at some point you will end up buying your own world. That’s pretty much a given.”

“Do you own one?”

“Not along here. I have a planet called Gold Coast at the other end of the spine, but it’s a private retreat, and not on the main navmap at all. Mine down here will be the one about ten jumps further on from yours, and Jane’s will be, from memory, nine after that. Once colonisation gets further than that, others we trust will be invited to join us. But the contract for freight and security along here will be yours however far the expansion goes, and you want it to continue.”

“Are there any other inhabited planets along here?”

“No. The whole Orion Spur has been explored now, my father led the fleet doing it, and it appears the Darkness ate their way to Long Bar a few thousand years ago. There’s very little animal life anywhere, and all the new colonies will need to be reseeded. The planets have regenerated plant life properly, and fish levels seem to be fine as well.”

“You’re serious about the Darkness? I thought that was a myth, in spite of what I was told when I joined the Imperium military.”

“It was no myth. I fought them personally. They were almost impossible to kill one on one. What we know now comes from Bud, and his journey into the past dealing with a dragon issue. The system they evolved on is gone now, along with all the systems around it. So they’re threat is gone forever.”

I nodded, somewhat relieved to hear that. I’d hate to move in down here, and then find they survived somewhere.

“But their legacy down the spine remains, and that includes the civilizations they destroyed. Some planets are off limits, and the jump points have been changed so no-one can find them. Mainly because archaeology teams are working on them, and we don’t want them disturbed. Sometime we’ll get around to checking all the planets that were not on the original jump point network for life as well, but it won’t be anytime soon. And down the track a bit, you may want to take on that job yourself.”

“Perhaps.”

Exploration might make a good change from fighting at some point.

“Anyway, consider what I’ve said. And before you go, put a jump icon down up the beach a way. Jane suggested this might be where you build your personal retreat. Somewhere where you can unwind.”

I thought about it, then walked up the beach to a point well beyond the high water mark, and set a jump icon. When I looked around, I found I was alone.

It was an idyllic spot, even when viewed by moonlight.

Perhaps because of that.

Twenty Five

Spite was sleeping on the lounge chair I preferred when I jumped back.

The cat seemed happy, so I left him there, and sat in a different one. Trip popped up from the coffee table, and I asked him to see if the resort had private dining rooms available for this evening, and if so, to book one for the shareholders, and inform them of when and where. He responded immediately there were a few ready, and one would be made available for us.

He updated me on what was going on as well. The Ralnor sector leaders had started announcing an edited version of what had happened since the Keerah breakthrough to their people, with one of the five being radically different from the other four. That was causing some issues, but the delay in doing so had obviously been to get troops and police forces ready. There was some resistance happening from some corporations, but so far no real violence. There was nothing from Ralnor itself yet, but some sort of condemnation and reaction against the four was expected soon.

The warships were parked and waiting for payments to be made, and the jump sleds were ready to deliver them. I left that to him to do once everything was finalized. The interned crews were already exploring beyond the wall, although he likened how they were proceeding to be like how invasion forces advanced into hostile territory, and expecting to be shot at with the next step, or rather hop or shuffle, taken.

There were a lot of ships in the system now, but most of them were trying to find more jump points, and were heading towards the standard positions in the outer system for them. They’d already proved what I’d told the admirals was a lie, so they were presumably assuming there were more to find.

The ships heading into the system were mainly troop transports. They were on a direct line to the planet, so presumably the emergency shelter we’d put down there had a coms system they’d been able to use, which although not able to do real time at that distance, would at least have been able to do a message saying there was a planet with people on it already, and requesting assistance.

He also confirmed that the five admirals I’d talked to were already on the planet, since he’d taken the troop ship which had picked them up off the ice planet. The senior one had been taken straight into the medical section of the building we’d created for them, but the other four seemed to be giving the orders. My guess was, that would stop as soon as a senior general arrived, since not being in space was them out of their jurisdiction.

With the update done, I sorted through a backlog of emails. Jane’s clothing statements were still coming daily, and there were the notifications of bank deposits from her and the company share distributions. There was also a truly enormous amount of junk, most of it trying to sell me something.

The most recent email had come from Jane as well, but this one was headed to get my attention. It had the costing for full ownership of the system I’d been taken to, along with the details of the surveys done for the planet and system, and suggestions for where to put the first city and a resort. Also which island the Imperator had taken me to, and a modest beach bungalow for my own use there. Details of the station were also included.

“Trip?”

He popped back up again.

“You rang?”

“Did you get the email from Jane I was just sent?”

“No. Why would I?”

“Ask Jane for everything she sent me, but keep it quiet for the time being. I want your full assessment of how viable it is, and a cost evaluation against anything comparable.”

“Can I buy a vowel?”

I gave him a look which suggested I had no idea what that meant, and all he did was smile.

“A hint?” he added.

“I’m being offered a system and planet to buy, by the Imperium. I need an opinion on if I should or not.”

“I can do that. When do you want it?”

“As soon as you’re finished with the analysis. Also a realistic idea of when everything promised would be completed.”

“No problems. Oh. Really? I can see why you’re asking. I assume you want it before the shareholder’s meeting?”

“If possible. But that’s not really what the meeting is for.”

“The contract, yes. It’s doable without owning a planet along there, if that’s what you wanted to know. Actually, if we converted a dozen of those cruiser length Q-ships into Unbounds, they could do the whole job, without needing jump drives. We could put a squadron on each and allocate twelve pilots on a roster to jump to any of them if needed, carry passengers and freight, and convoy with those heading down spine from Last Hope.”

“Pull the Q-ships to do that out when the warships are gone. And get Uchawi to quote on a bulk conversion order.”

“Will do. Actually, the whole Unbound conversion isn’t necessary. Oh, wait. Landing on planets without a station is required, so the large hangar could house a corvette ferry. I’ll see what Uchawi thinks of the idea. Maybe all we need is a wide mouthed cutter with a rift on the airlock to the Unbound’s cargo bay.”

“Whatever. Stations in orbit is another thing. I thought if we took some civilian carriers, sealed them up, and converted some of the launch tubes into ship docks, they could act as a temporary station above new colonies. The flight and maintenance decks would be main station areas, with basic accommodation and recreation facilities, ship repair, and supplies off them. That sort of thing. See what you and Uchawi can come up with.”

“What an interesting concept. We’ll do that. I’m actually surprised this hasn’t been designed already, but I’ll check in case it has. Not all inhabited planets in the protectorates have stations. We might be able to put them in other places as well once we get the concept proven.”

“Whatever. Check with Jane as to how many we’d likely need, and when by.”

“Will do. Anything else?”

“For now, no. But you should be present for dinner tonight.”

“I will, although I won’t be eating.”

“You used to.”

“True, but it’s not very pleasant. The Celeste AIs don’t agree, but they integrated into human society completely. It’s all new to me, and I only did it because it was necessary at the time.”

He nodded and vanished before I could say anything to that, which was probably just as well. I finally looked at my bank balance, and went very still. When I compared what was there with what the system and everything in it would cost, I found I could afford it quite easily. Was it worth what they were asking was a completely different thing though, as I had no idea what planets had gone for at auction. That was why I’d asked Trip to look into it.

A strange scratching noise distracted me, and for a few moments I had no idea what it was. Then I saw Sprite come out of the kitchen with his tail up. He headed for the tree, scratched at one of the upright sections for a short time, then leapt up to the top where there was a sleeping bed, and promptly curled up there.

It was looking very much like I now had a cat.

Twenty Six

“The Imperator offered us a long term contract this afternoon.”

Trip had confirmed that the price of the system was substantially below what the system without anything on the planet or in space should be selling for. None of the planets nearby were being sold off though. They were open colonies where people could stake a claim under certain rules, and the Imperium would help them evolve, eventually with the planets becoming Imperium members.

His advice was to snap up the deal immediately, before anyone had second thoughts about offering it. He showed me plans for the bungalow to go behind the beach I’d seen in the moonlight, all modern amenities but with a rustic feel, and not far away was a place where a Camel sized landing pad could be put without disturbing the wilderness of the island very much.

According to Jane, the building was similar to what people she’d known who’d now passed on had lived in for most of their lives. There was an option to put visitor cabins in as well. Trip had asked if he could see those original versions, but Aisha had told him they’d been destroyed in a volcanic eruption on Thorn’s World not all that long ago. That had made the media at the time, and even I’d heard about it. Super volcanos turning a planet uninhabitable was not something that happened very often.

Interestingly, or at least it occurred to me as interesting, the stuff I had in storage might actually work in a place like that, instead of the League standard furnishings I was used to. I needed to think about it. And definitely needed to sleep on the whole thing.

“What sort?” asked Doug.

“Protection and supply of the new colonies below Last Hope.”

“For how long?” asked Tom.

“Indefinitely. I’m thinking we use some Unbound class ships to move freight and passengers while convoying with ships heading down spine. They each have a small ferry on board for landing on planets without stations, which will be all of them to start with. And a squadron of fighters with a rotating group of pilots to fly them whenever needed, but not living on the ships. It will probably be boring for the crews, but as the colonies grow, so will the workload.”

“Why us?” asked Brook.

“I would have thought that was obvious,” said Elsa. “We have access to plenty of ships we can convert any way we want, and protect and supply is part of our core mission. We could extend it to also convoy down the whole spine, if there was a call for it.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” I admitted. “But yes, we could. There’s another aspect as well. We could convert some of the bigger ships available to us into mobile stations.”

“The carriers?” asked Darren. I nodded. “That could work. Put one over each colony without a station in orbit?”

I nodded again.

“That’s a huge escalation in what we do,” said Nyle. “And a huge investment. We’d need a very firm contract to justify it.”

“We need to decide if we’re interested in it first,” I said. “If we say yes, we’ll go into contract negotiations.”

“How many colonies?” asked Angie.

“Initially, I’ve been told eight. Some of those have people on the ground already, which is why the Imperator wants someone doing the protect and supply now. Future expansion is some twenty more systems in two phases, but without any timing on that. I guess it will be as fast as people can get there, and stake claims.”

“Can we stake a claim ourselves?” asked Elsa.

“No reason why not. Are you thinking of us having a headquarters somewhere along there?”

“Can we buy a whole planet?” asked Brook. “I’m still looking for my own island. If we owned a planet, I could more or less take my pick. I’d rather invest in a planet than just an island.”

The others were looking at her with surprised looks, but I was wondering why I hadn’t thought of that myself. Of course, it wasn’t necessary, and the Imperator had deliberately pushed me past that option. She was actually missing that she could go there in her Camel right now and stake a claim to any island she wanted, as long as it was within the criteria for claims.

“Let’s not get carried away,” said Pete. “We don’t need a whole planet. Just somewhere to put a headquarters and a station in orbit. I’d rather we bought a large island somewhere nice, and a decent station we can dock at when not off on a job. Maybe another island we can use for troop training, if the one we get isn’t big enough.”

“I’d rather have a penthouse on the station,” said Angie, “than anything on the ground. Access to a good beach would be nice though. I’m rather enjoying the sun at the moment. But I wouldn’t want it every day.”

She had a point. I had no real need for dirt under my feet, and I was more than comfortable living on Camel. All the same, I needed to sleep on things.

“All we need to decide now,” I said, “is if we’re interested in a long term contract that will continue to expand as the lower spine is colonized, and will need ships dedicated to it that won’t form part of our normal fleet. It might not pay in the short term at all, given the conversion costs on so many ships. The Imperium will cover the base cost of patrols and freight shipments, but the more we put in assets wise, the less we probably make overall. If we did mobile stations, they might not turn a profit at all. But the question is, do we take the chance, given that we have access to plenty of ships, and we’re so over funded at the moment that profit is hardly a motivating factor?”

“When do we need to decide by?” asked Pete.

“The Imperator didn’t say. I’d say we sleep on it, and vote in the morning. If it’s yes, then we get Trip and the fuzzballs going on the contract negotiations. But my impression was the Imperator wants to lock us in very quickly, now colonies are actually being started.”

“It’s probably the price we need to pay to become properly accepted by the League militaries,” said Darren. “It might even buy us access to some of the more advanced military equipment.”

“I doubt it. But we can have Trip sound that out. But put it this way. Most of this is coming from Jane, and we passed her Last Hope and lower spine tests, and have the assets and funds to do the job right. She’s the one who controls what access anyone has to the advanced tech. So keeping her happy, while also expanding what we do, can only be a good thing in the long term.”

“Maybe this is another test?” suggested Brook. “If so, not taking the contract could be a black mark on us for the future.”

“All things to consider. We’ll eat breakfast together tomorrow, and decide then. For now, let’s eat.”

Twenty Seven

After dinner, I used the jump icon I’d set on that beach to go back there.

I found a nice spot on the top of a sand dune, and sat there looking out over the ocean, and up at the night sky. The gravity wasn’t quite standard, the air tasted a bit different, and according to the survey, the days and years were longer. The sun was hotter than in my home system, but the planet was further away from it.

Did I want to live on a dirt ball again? It felt good sitting here, but I’d have probably felt the same sitting on the beach at Celeste. That wasn’t the important question anyway. The question was did I want to own an entire planet, and then have the complication of the company and shareholders wanting parts of it. In theory that was simple to do, but the company was a potentially limited term thing, while planet ownership could extend for my whole life, and past it. There had to be planning in place for the future.

The whole owning a planet thing kept coming up though. And until I actually had one, that would continue. Better to get it done now then. But if people actually wanted to live here, that would mean I’d be some sort of Queen to them, although landlord might be better. Whatever you called it, I’d need to provide what Kings and Queens traditionally did, in terms of infrastructure and services. Did I really want all that?

Of course, I could just get the planet without the city created. That way the only population density would be on the station, and the city build could be put off well into the future, maybe after I retired from active life. The company headquarters would be on the station as well, and only small builds allowed down on the planet, or what might be needed for any tourism or activities the planet had to offer.

The resort would probably still be a viable thing though. Short term accommodation only, designed for tourists, and for day trips by our passengers. Actually, passengers on any of the ships doing the route down the spine might be allowed to day trip to the resort until they reached their actual destination. Or we could even do them staying at the resort while their cargo needed to stake their claim at their destination travelled there.

There were options for that as well. Those who could afford jump ferry rates could be taken straight to whichever planet they were headed for after pickup. But maybe stay at the resort while their builder droids and butlers set up their living quarters. Although there was likely cheap accommodation on the station for that as well. But that might be a service we could offer as well, providing the prefab units, and setting them up for people.

There were a lot of possibilities, and I just knew I’d end up needing more fuzzballs to run it all. And then it occurred to me that was exactly what Jon and Jane wanted from me. Not more fuzzballs, but me running it all from here.

I sighed. It just meant I’d need more administrators, and they could be people, or fuzzballs, or a mixture of both and any AI that wanted to get involved. There might even be people already earmarked by Jane to be pushed at me once I took the bait.

And the planet and its bargain price was obviously bait, I could see that now. But we could use a proper headquarters for the company, and a system we could park ships in without cluttering up Karn. There was that big asteroid sized debris mountain there too, which would need moving. And then the magic that used it would need changing as well, with it also using what was in the system too, if need be.

My thoughts eventually petered out, and I sat for a bit longer, just being here.

And realized I’d already made a decision.

Once I realized that, I rose, selected my lounge room, and jumped home to Camel. Sprite was not there, so I went into the bedroom, changed for sleeping, used the bathroom, and went to bed. After the light was out, there was a thump down near my feet, and something settled next to my feet.

I dreamed of being crowned Queen in a medieval style court, and various ways people tried to kill me.

When I woke in the morning, Sprite wasn’t there, but it sounded like he was playing with something out in the lounge room. I lay there with the light on for a bit, but the decision made last night hadn’t changed. So I got up, and prepared for what should be a relatively easy day, went through my normal morning routine, dressed in second best, and headed to breakfast on Unseen.

Sprite was now asleep on one of the lounge chairs, actually the one I’d used last night, and so I told the butler to put a cat blanket on there after he moved again, to see if he’d accept that chair as his. A tunnel was now across the middle of the floor, and various toys were strewn all over the place.

Once over on Unseen, I found I was first in for breakfast. The others came in one by one, and Brook wasn’t the only one who looked like she’d partied last night. No-one said anything until they were all sitting, but they all looked at me. I raised my eyebrows, but said nothing.

“I think we should take the contract,” said Darren, “and look for a large island we can either buy, rent, or claim. We do a dozen Unbound class to start with, and at least four of the mobile stations. Then trial things using them. If it works, we add in more of them to make it work the best, and then look at doing the same thing in Sector Nine for Snark, only more spread out.”

“I’m in with all of that,” said Elsa. “So are my shareholders. But we’ll need a better station over any island we get, so might need to find out what stations we can buy. I’m not sure a rinky dink ship conversion is good enough as a corporate headquarters dock.”

“I don’t care,” said Brook. “If I can get a tropical island with a shack on it as well, I’m happy.”

“Ditto,” said Nyle. “A different one though, and maybe not so tropical.”

That got a few chuckles.

“I’m on board for all of that,” said Pete, “but we’ll need an island or somewhere suitable for marine running tracks and training, that’s not anywhere near anyone else. Or where it matters what happens to the landscape.”

“It’s all good for us,” said Angie, reminding us the pilots she’d originally brought with her were also shareholders with her. “But yes, a nice beach would be good.”

I looked at Doug and Tom.

“I’m in,” said Doug, “and if you need a shareholder to monitor the ship operations, I’ll throw my hat in the ring for that as well.”

We all looked at Tom.

“I’d like to buy one of those Unbounds, and run it as a personal ship on the route we create, getting the owner’s share myself.”

“Wow,” said Darren. “We have come a long way. It took all of us to buy Unbound, and we didn’t have much left after. Now we can afford to each buy our own? Who’d have guessed that back when we started.”

“Not me,” I said. “I didn’t see any of this coming.”

“What do you think?” Elsa asked me. “You’ve said nothing at all so far.”

“I just needed to know what the rest of you thought. I’m in as well, but if we’re going to do this, we need to do it properly.”

“What does that mean?” asked Pete.

“Trip?”

He popped up in the middle of the table.

“Tell the Imperator yes and yes. But there’s a few things we need to talk about first.”

“Jane says his office in the military tower straight after breakfast. He’s running at the moment.”

“Why the second yes?” asked Elsa.

“Show them,” I said to Trip.

A hollo of the planet popped up next to him. It was spinning fast enough so everyone could see the continents and major islands. The poles had extensive ice caps, and areas of the continents were so mountainous that now I began to understand the population limitations. Large scale farming options limited population size, without importing food. But then, I seriously doubted that would ever be a problem.

“What’s this?” asked Angie.

“That’s the planet I’m buying,” I told them, and mouths fell open and stayed that way. “The contract is the second part of what the Imperator offered me. I’ll own the planet personally, and it comes with a city, resort, and my own island home. There will be a modified Haven class station in orbit as well. The system is eight jumps from Last Hope.”

“How modified?” asked Elsa.

“One tower will be for fighters. Most of the rest of the lower towers will be ship repair and support facilities. The company would get the same tower as the Imperator runs his militia from.”

“How can you afford all that?” asked Brook.

“The royalties on the merc clothing sales. But also because the planet and improvements are being offered well below what they should cost, in order to get us firmly based for the long term growth of protecting and supplying colonies into the long future.”

“I assume if you own the planet,” said Tom, “that you wouldn’t have any problem with us buying our own ships and basing them there?”

“None at all. But keep in mind, I’ve not thought about how we handle the company leasing space, and people buying dirt down below, or anything like that. At the moment I’m going to put off the creation of the city, so I don’t need to worry about a growing population that’s spread out. There’s a lot I’ve not even thought about yet. But it is the next logical step in our expansion, and I can afford to do it. Besides, it’s the only way to stop being hounded about buying one, and I’m sick of it already.”

“All hail, Queen Lyla,” said Tom.

“Oh fuck!” I exclaimed. “That’s not a happening thing.”

They all laughed, and I face palmed.

Twenty Eight

I caught up with Maya before heading to Haven.

All of the friendly corporations in the four sectors now had solid borders and defended entrance points to their space. Some of them encroached on the fifth sector’s space, but for now, no entrance from there was possible, to prevent any hostile action against them. The same where they encroached on other sectors outside the new cluster.

The rogue corporates were all sealed into their own clusters now, along with systems which were beholden to, or relied on them. The jump points to their homeworlds had been replaced, and the clusters joined up with each other, and linked to outside where the new big cluster would form in multiple places, all near friendly systems to the nearest of them. None of them would be bothering any of our friendly corporations again, nor the sector governments.

Traders caught on the wrong sides of jump point changes were progressively being moved. Ships heading to where there was no longer a jump point, in either direction, were contacted by an AI, and given the choice to change course for somewhere else, or moved permanently to the other side. While most of this was being done by jump sleds, some were done by mages who needed object jumping practice as well.

The rogue corporation traders were starting to find out that getting anywhere outside their own local space was going to take far longer than it ever had before, and a lot of places were simply impossible for them to get to now. The local media were still putting that together, but there was some questioning going on about the strange turn invading rival corporations had taken.

Before she went off to re-join the ferry and take over the day shift, I gave her a quick overview of what I was looking at buying, and the contract the company would be taking. She was totally amazed, but understood there’d probably be a lot of work for her and her trainees once things started happening, and we got her and them back to use.

It was spot on nine when I walked into the Imperator’s outer office with an ensign for an escort, and was waved in by Admiral Jane, who followed after me. Inside I also found the Knight Marshal, and Chief Burnside. They were sitting in lounge chairs, and Jon pointed me to an empty one, where I sat. Jane took the other one.

I knew of Burnside from the media, but hadn’t met him before. Jon did the honours, and he rose, came over and shook my hand, told me to call him Dick, then went back to his seat. He looked like he could give Doug a run for his money in the clothing department. He was wearing quintessential old school detective attire, where Doug still wore quintessential Texan whenever he could. Doug was a lot younger though.

“You’re buying the planet, and taking the contract?” asked Jon.

“Yes to the planet, and a tentative yes to the contract, but we need to reach agreement on all aspects of it, since we’ve not actually seen it yet.”

“Fair enough. You had things to bring up?”

“I’m thinking we postpone doing a city on the planet. I’m not ready for needing to form any sort of government, or be an actual leader, and probably won’t be for a long time. The resort is a good idea, I’ll have the house on the island, and we’ll need facilities for the company, especially the marines, built. I’m thinking most of the shareholders will want their own places somewhere down there as well, so if we can include them in the design and building phases, they can be done instead of a city.”

“No problems with that,” said Bud. “As long as the core infrastructure the city provides is done that various magic links to, the actual city itself isn’t needed.”

“What sort of infrastructure?”

“Sewerage and water supply for a start, and the power generation to power it. The city is positioned where fresh water is available, and it’s then fed magically to anything built where there is no easy access. Likewise the sewage system is set up on the outskirts of the city, and the resort and private homes elsewhere around the planet are magically linked to it. I’ll see if all of that can be done as a standalone where a city would not normally go. Maybe on a river where habitation is basically impossible.”

“That would be a better option. It puts off permanent residents beyond invited people for as long as is necessary.”

“We’ll work that out. Power for each location is included in the designs. Small scale building never had a problem that way. Cities need more though, and normally we include that with the rest of the infrastructure. It’s not an issue though, just a matter of scale.”

“Anything else?” asked Jane.

“Magicsat feeds for the whole cluster, or everywhere we’re expected to protect.”

“About that,” said Jon. “We were thinking of something a bit larger than I originally said.”

“How much larger?”

“There are colonies on Long Bar now, from our early planet auctions. A few of them are corporate headquarters already. The rest are colonies bought by governments. All of them have a jump point to somewhere else, so there’s also going to be colonies starting from that end as well when we open that door.”

“And you want us to police that end as well?”

“There are magicsats along the whole lower spine below Last Hope,” said Bud, “all the way down to Long Bar, and along it to where it joins the core. We’d like to put one of the same moons Karn received in your system, and link all those magicsats up to the computer core inside the moon. You’d then monitor all that space, and deal with any issues that arise.”

I was too stunned to face palm. They were talking about handing me a protectorate, not a small cluster.

“It’s not that much now,” added Jane. “Trip will be able to handle it easily, and he’ll get what help he needs to do it. And it will enable you to keep an eye on anyone who just keeps heading down the spine, or goes off to the sides of it.”

Most of the established sectors were mainly off the spine itself. I had no doubt the lower section was the same.

“It will all be in the contract,” said Jon.

“How many of those other colonies don’t have a station yet?” I asked.

“Why?” asked Jane.

“We’re thinking of converting civilian carriers into mobile basic stations. We’d want to know how many we’d need to do, or when new ones would be needed.”

“None you’d need to worry about now. You only need to worry about the planets we allow ad-hoc claiming on. And there’s none down there yet. We’ll hold off allowing that to begin until you get what’s needed done at your end. But while I’ve not checked in a while, I’m pretty sure we’ll find ships exploring beyond the colonies already, and maybe even people who think they’ve staked claims already.”

“What do we do about them if we find them?”

“You’ll get a copy of everything to do with claims, and what action needs taking under what circumstances.”

“Oh, joy.”

“It won’t be that bad,” said Jon. “We’ve been pretty open about how the claims work, and what would happen if people try to work the system.”

“What would?”

Jon pointed at Bud, and he just grinned. Enough said.

“How many of those ship type stations will you be putting in?” asked Dick.

“Four to start with, spaced out, but depending on how long they take to modify, and how fast additional ones are needed, probably one for each colony planet between Last Hope and mine. Then as things expand further, we add a new one whenever things get going somewhere else. Why?”

“We’ll supply the security people and their droid backups. I can also organise the admin sections to run them as stations, under whatever crew you have for the ship itself.”

“Will you be retaining any existing armament?” asked Bud.

“Not thought out yet, but probably. Most likely we’ll add mosquitos as well, so they’re not vulnerable to missile fire. But otherwise, they’ll not be expected to fight properly. We’d be using civilian carriers as a base for them, and sealing up the flight decks and cargo bays. Docking ports would be done using some of the launch tubes.”

“Ambitious,” said Jane. “There’s probably a market for something like that.”

“We thought there might be. But there’s also Sector Nine in Gaia where a string of them might make traveling the Badlands easier.”

“Have you talked to Snark yet?” asked Bud.

“No. We’ll get around us up and running first, before we expand any further. Besides, getting ships modified like that to sell is not likely to be all that profitable when you’re paying a shipyard to do the work. And we’re probably decades away from changing that.”

He said nothing, but his face suggested otherwise. I looked back at Dick.

“Who employs all those people you’re talking about?”

“I do. All you need to provide is accommodation for them. But with jump buttons, they can live on your home station, and work on whichever station they get assigned. You’ll get a major to run all the security, who reports directly to me. As the job grows, we’ll reassess who you need.”

“Military?”

“Dick is a brigadier,” said Jon. “But he’s a civilian, not military. Like you, we keep that side of things with a rank structure, so there’s no doubt about who’s in charge of any given situation.”

“I don’t even wear the rank,” said Dick. “Not my thing at all, but it does solve some issues, since the majority of my people float around where needed, rather than having fixed and boring jobs. We give the boring stuff to the security droids, under supervision of the local AI. And some of it is done by locals wanting fixed jobs near where they live. The AI also control the security and combat droids as well.”

“Who breaks up bar brawls?”

“Security droids looking human, mostly.”

“On that,” added Jane, “your station will come already setup with a core of restaurants and services, and people to run them, who will have been allocated accommodation already, and just need to move in.”

“How does that work?”

“We have people who take space on just about every new station we deploy,” said Jon. “My favourite Chinese place for example. We give them notice of a possible new station, and where it might be, and they usually sign up and start looking for staff. We’ve already done the pitch for the first station in the new colonies.”

“With your ship conversions,” added Jane, “I’m pretty sure we can arrange for basic chandlery, diner, and coffee shops for each of them.”

“Bob Derr will be interested in providing ship maintenance facilities on each of them as well,” added Jon. “The contract for your station though is a different thing. The front runner for that is Uchawi.”

“I’ll need to talk to her about that then.”

“Probably a good idea,” said Bud. “Aisha would like the opportunity as well, but you’re already working with Uchawi more than her these days.”

“Are you in with the extended responsibility?” asked Jon.

“I guess so. Send Trip the contract, and he can bounce it off the fuzzballs and the shareholders. But as soon as I get an invoice for the planet and what’s on it and over it, I’ll pay it, and you can get all that started. What sort of time frame are we talking for ownership and the infrastructure?”

“Ownership the moment you’ve paid,” said Jane.

“The station within a few hours,” said Bud. “The resort and your home within a day or so. If your people want the exact same bungalow as you’ll be getting, they can be done at the same time. All we need is where. More or less at the same time, we can put training barracks for a division down where Pete wants it.”

“That’s faster than I expected.”

“No point in waiting,” said Jon.

“Most of the magic is straight copying what already exists,” said Bud. “We’ve done so much of that in recent times, even different terrain is handled by the magic used. We just need what and where, and it all gets everything joined up, so even a house on an isolated island has its sewage and water joined to the main infrastructure automatically.”

“Okay then. The only other thing we’ll need is the moving of our debris in the Karn system.”

“No problem. If no-one has anything else to bring up, we can go to my office and talk about that and the other magic involved.”

“Nothing more,” said Jane.

“See you at Thanksgiving in a couple of hours,” said Jon.

“Sorry, what?”

“Thanksgiving is a lunch event. You should have received your invitation last night.”

“If I did, I didn’t notice it. Actually, after dinner I sat on a beach and did some thinking, then went to bed. I don’t think I even checked on emails, and nothing flagged as important to make me.”

“Well, you’re expected on Celeste in two hours. Good casual dress like you’re in now. No need for a suit, although there will be those who will be wearing them.”

“Not you, though,” said Bud, grinning.

“Nope, not me.”

“Or me,” I added.

Twenty Nine

“I can arrange a shipyard for you.”

“You what?”

Bud hadn’t warned me before moving us both to his office. It was a transfer to identical chairs, and I didn’t feel a thing. Just everything around me changed in an instant.

“I get the impression you don’t need station modules for doing ship maintenance. You need a proper shipyard so you can do your own modifying and upgrades, as well as ship maintenance and repairs for others passing through. The last readily available shipyard for those going down the spine is at Delhi, although the Beijing one is considered to be cheaper and faster. That’s a long way between decent help if something goes wrong.”

“I need to speak to Uchawi about how fast we can get a dozen Unbounds done, and the four stations we plan on starting with.”

“Karn’s shipyard is not working to full capacity, but it can’t handle that sort of volume. Plus you’re paying full rates for everything coming out of those bays. It would be better if you had your own shipyard.”

“The company can’t afford that. I guess I could, but I’m not convinced that’s a good idea.”

“I’m prepared to make a deal with you.”

“You happen to have a shipyard spare at the moment you don’t need?”

“I’ve been taking shipyards away from the Keerah for a long time now. I have already upgraded shipyards just sitting there doing nothing. I can provide you with one big enough to do the work on more than those sixteen ships at the same time, with bays catering up to the Ralnor battleship and carrier size. I can arrange for a bay big enough for your carriers to be added to it as well. It has Aisha running it now, but if you prefer Uchawi, that can also be arranged.”

“What will that cost?”

“Nothing. As far as anyone knows, you’re leasing it from Aisha. It will be yours, using your system resources, and you set the prices for anything coming out of it. I will want something though.”

“What?”

“In the event of dire need, your agreement to simply take any ship you have left in your POW systems, or your parking lot.”

“How do you define dire need?”

“You heard about the invasion near Terra by Sparta?”

“Enough to know there was one. Are you expecting another one?”

“Expecting, no. But they had no warning of it at all. Ships just turned up and started attacking. It could happen in many ways, including some militant empire that is off the jump point network that has a faster than light drive, or also uses magic to go places. One of my responsibilities, self-imposed mind you, is countering any such threat. I’m stockpiling what ships I can for such a need. And you’ve got access to far more than you can possibly do anything with in any reasonable time frame.”

“Are you that paranoid?”

“The Rawtenuga attacked the Long Bar end of the core without any warning after defeating the giants, and pushed back the Trixone all the way to Sanctuary. Then Sparta attacked somewhere else. We have so little of the galaxy under any sort of monitoring that almost anything is possible at any time. I’m just preparing for the worst. Jon and a lot of his people went through the Darkness war before that. It’s not really paranoia. I can prepare for such a thing, so I am. If it never happens, then I’ll be happy.”

“Let me get this straight. You’ll give me a fully functional shipyard on the promise that if doomsday comes, you can take whatever unused ships we have and throw them at whatever the threat is?”

“Yes. With the shipyard I’ll move your mountain of debris, and change your creation buttons to use it where it moves to, along with your system asteroids if anything else is needed. I’ll also put both company and public rifts from the shipyard to the station, and both will be added to the League freight network. You’ll have both tomorrow.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Say yes.”

“Yes.”

“Good. Tell Trip to pick out the ships for eight of the stations, and all twelve Unbounds. You’ll find the cost of the upgrades comes down dramatically, with the major cost items being the crystals going into each ship. You’ll only pay for what you have to buy instead of fabricate, or pay the royalty on. The crystals, by the way, are created by buttons as needed. Aisha will just bill you for the royalties, the same way you get billed on the royalty for the Fours now.”

He paused for a moment.

“You won’t be needing the modified station design then. Wait, just the fighter tower. Check what Karn’s trader station has. It’s basically like a carrier bolted on to the station, except it’s a normal tower. It’ll be a good place to park spare birds, train pilots from, or base pilots who jump to which ever Unbound needs to launch fighters. And as things get busier down the track, having local police pilots will become necessary as well. Dick will help you with that when the time comes, but having the launching capacity built in from day one is better. It’s up to you though, if you want it or not.”

“Just do it. I can see the wisdom in providing it. What about magic in the shipyard build processes? Is there any real difference in delivery times between this one and what Karn would do?”

“Karn uses a lot more mages, to be sure. But a lot of that is automated magic as well, and all our shipyards are using a lot of it, especially specific purpose buttons. Some of those are for the gathering of raw resources, and yours will have those buttons tailored to use the asteroids out in your outer system after your debris site. Your build time might be a little longer to deliver an upgrade than Karn or elsewhere, but not significantly. Plus you’ll get all of them out at the same time, where Karn might take a few weeks to complete all of them.”

Or longer. Most likely longer for sixteen or twenty major upgrades. I sighed.

“This is all getting a bit unreal.”

“Everyone who steps up to this level feels the same. If you want advice, talk to Dianne Keaton, Liza Pound, or Jodie Mills.”

“Dianne?”

“Rockmonster. She owns a planet out by Kelewan, where she runs ski lodges. Jodie has a station and a very large resort on Wonderland. And Liza has a planet and station as well she bases out of. None of them asked for it either. Their paths just led them there. Same as yours has.”

I sighed again.

“You know,” he went on, “that fits with your company naming theme.”

“What does?”

“Unreal. Sounds like a system and planet name to me.”

He grinned at me. My head rocked back and forth a few times as I thought about it. But it needed more thought.

“I’ll think about it.”

“Think fast. You’ll need one as soon as you send Jane the funds.”

Thirty

Lunch was a huge affair.

The Celeste resort had a ball room capable of dining well over fifteen hundred. By the time I’d updated Trip, told the others we’d be getting a shipyard and they’d all probably be able to afford their own Unbounds, then gone back to Camel to freshen up, I was fashionably late. The invitation had included a jump icon, and that had put me right next to the ballroom entrance. Some of my people were still arriving mixed in with locals, having been trolleyed here from the space port and the ferry.

Predictably, I found myself at a ‘high table’ with Jon, Bud, their other halves, Arthur and General Smith, and Lia Hunter, who like me, had no partner. I guess that balanced the table. Bud’s Anne was the only one I hadn’t met already, and she turned out to be some sort of analyst working for Aisha.

Chloe Hunter rose at the designated time after everyone was seated, and gave a speech which bored me silly, but I made an effort to stay with it. She explained the concept and history of Thanksgiving, which for them went back more than four thousand years, and explained what they were thankful about this year, and who they were thanking. Basically, us.

For the first time I saw her as a dynamic leader. Young for the role, but then Jon and Bud were the same basic age, and they had even more responsibility than she did. That she was bred for the job was also pretty evident. And the pride her mother felt in her was obvious. Her step up and learning curve since the coup had been pretty brutal, but she was handling it pretty well by all accounts.

I was thankful I wasn’t asked to speak. But in the spirit of it, I was also thankful I’d survived that last League mission, that there had been life after being shit canned, that I’d prospered when it could have gone the other way, and I was still alive thanks to someone I’d hated for a while. A lot had happened in a short time, and I was thankful I’d come through all of it in one piece, and hadn’t lost anyone in the process.

The food was explained as being traditional roast meat and vegetables, with appropriate additives and drinks. Dessert choices to follow. I hadn’t eaten a meal like this in a long time now, cooked with fresh ingredients grown on their own planet, if with a little help from some magic to speed the growing along.

It was a very enjoyable meal, and I could see a lot of my people had come, and were enjoying it as well. Conversation was general and light until nearly the end, when Arthur changed seats to sit next to me.

“I hear you have access to a lot more ships?” he asked.

“Yes. Just tell Trip what you need, and how many. Is the liner idea working?”

“The first couple worked really well, but we don’t have enough yet to keep some momentum going. That will improve over the next few days, but travel times work against us. I wish we had an alternative, but for now, it’s the best idea we can implement. We just need more ships.”

“Have your AI talk to Trip about what you need, and we’ll organize it. We’re now moving the crews to a planet as we take the ships, so there’s no problem about it. I do have an alternate idea though, if you’re interested.”

“Hit me with it.”

“Have you thought about doing rifts from Void station directly into homes or gathering places?”

“No. That rift is too well controlled. As soon as some people didn’t come back, they’d get paranoid about it. Maybe even want it removed.”

“Not if they don’t know it’s happening. That’s why I said into homes.”

“Doing separate rifts that far is too hard for our mages, and once it becomes known a lot of people are missing, they’ll clamp down again.”

“Isn’t there something about an existing rift making more, easier?”

That was something I’d picked up talking to Maya.

“Maybe. I guess I’ll ask. But the missing people issue is the bigger problem.”

“Can’t you disguise them going missing?”

“How?”

“Have them put their homes on the market through a friendly broker, be seen by neighbours to be packing their house up and moving the heavy stuff out, then just rift out with the basics which haven’t already been copied. Use droids to pretend to be them until they can just have vanished in the night. The moving vehicle offloads to an auction site in another city, any vehicle they own gets sold in the same city, and no-one needs to know they vanished at all.”

His mouth was hanging open.

“That’s brilliant. It won’t work for everyone, but it should work for a lot. It needs the rift side of it worked out, but maybe we can get a button made up for that, and the moving company keep it. Thanks for that. How did you get so devious?”

“My father called it thinking outside the box. My mother considered it bloody annoying.” He grinned. “I guess I was just born with that sort of mind.”

“And yet you went into fighters? How did that happen?”

“Seemed natural at the time. The recruiters probably channelled me that way though. And I did turn out to be a decent fighter pilot. Just a lousy squadron leader.”

“Your brain isn’t what I’d expect of a squadron leader. At least it’s being used properly now.”

“Something to be thankful for, I guess. Among other things. Sing out if we can help with anything. I’m not sure what’s coming next for us, but if you need us, and we’re free, we’ll be there.”

“We’re monitoring both Keerah and Ralnor space where we can for planets which need evacuating. That’s our speciality. Holding off attackers while the people evac. So if we need help, I’ll definitely call on you. There might not be any payment in it though.”

“The way things have gone for us recently, I doubt that will be an issue. And besides, I need to feed Brook someone to shoot at regularly, or she’ll party herself to death.”

He laughed, and the people around us did so as well.

Thirty One

Lunch went through to the middle of the afternoon.

As soon as I rose from the table, an arrow popped up, and I followed it to a suite in the resort. Pings from others asking if this was something I’d organized made it seem like all of us who’d attended had a luxury room for the night here. I certainly felt like I needed a nap. I’d eaten too much, for one thing.

On the bed I found swim suits laid out, and other clothes. All of it was in colours I’d wear as well, which made me think Trip had been consulted. The skimpy bikini was definitely my size, but hanging my arse out for everyone to see was not my idea of a good thing. I had no doubt Brook would be wearing hers though. The more modest bikini was better, as was the one piece, but I wasn’t in the least bit interested in swimming or sunbathing. At least, not now.

What was more me was the shorts and beach singlet options. The note that was with them said all of it was complementary, and there was a resort bag there to put them all in when I left. But for now, I needed that nap, so I swept them all off the bed onto the floor, and just laid down on it.

Sleep didn’t come though. Instead I got notifications of emails from Jane and Uchawi. Jane’s was the next clothing royalty, and Uchawi had sent me a completely new set of quotes based on having my own shipyard. She included what she called ‘mate’s rates’ for any of my people to buy one of the Unbounds from me, but that was problematical based on the company owning the base ships, and I realized we’d not taken that into account at all.

While I was looking at them, the invoice for the planet came in. It had been adjusted for no city, adding in a marine training facility, and the basic infrastructure located somewhere remote. It included the first dozen placements of the same bungalow I was getting. There was also some suggestions about tax collection, needed to fund whatever the planet and system needed to buy, hire, or employ, which gave me ideas for ship pricing for shareholders, or company employees.

If we sold a ship to anyone else, the price would be in the range of normal for that class of ship, and the sale would pay the normal tax, and the same to the company, with the selling price taking that into account. But selling to ourselves, all I needed to cover was the royalty and buying costs, plus a mark-up for the company to pay for something for the base ship, which then went into company shares.

The tax rate was suggested at ten percent on transactions the same as the Imperium used, with no other taxes or charges needed, so if I adopted that, then cost plus twenty percent satisfied the company and the system. But I needed tax advice now, and ‘how the hell do you run a system?’ advice as well. Which probably meant more fuzzballs, or Trip taking on more responsibility.

Someone needed to ask Jane how it all worked through her bank. I knew we paid tax already, so the whole tax thing was not unknown, but collecting it was a different thing. I had no idea if being part of the Imperium meant I had to pay tax to them. Did I need to set up my own bank? Ugg!

I sent a message to Trip outlining all of that, and asking if he wanted to get involved in it all or not. He sent back a ‘no problems’, and he would be chatting with Jane about all the ins and outs of running an independent system. It had been done often enough already that all he needed to know was how things worked, and how they flowed on into daily life. I told him we needed a price for completed Unbounds from my shipyard, and he responded he had the means of calculating one already, given some parameters I needed to give him.

His suggested price followed a different line of thought. There was the fixed costs of the crystal and the things we had to buy, then a shipyard share, a company share, and a tax share, based on some calculation I found impossible to follow. All three shares were the same amount. The result was around half of what Uchawi had originally quoted, and it made sure the shipyard had disposable funds of its own, as well as the system did. The company when buying would pay the same, but get their share back. The whole thing did my head in.

I told him to advise the shareholders, all of them including Angie’s and Pete’s, of the possible price for an Unbound, and if anyone was interested in buying one of the first dozen, they should let him know. Delivery times were uncertain as yet, but all of them would be delivered at the same time.

They were also given the opportunity to select a site for a bungalow style house if they wanted one. If I needed to pay extra for them, I would. I had no problems providing houses for shareholders to live in, as well as accommodation on the station for them and the company employees.

That led me back to the map of the planet, and the island which was going to be mine if I wanted it. It was larger than I’d thought, but not too large. The beach went all the way around, and it had its own water flowing down from the middling hills in the center of it. I locked that in with Trip. He came back that Pete had selected a place for the marines, and when I looked at it, it was in a remote place with variable landscape around it. I approved that.

I sent the payment to Jane, but with a note saying I might want more single bungalows once I heard back from shareholders. She responded immediately that was fine, and with a price for each. That seemed impossibly small for a full house, but then again, it was a mage doing a copy I was paying for, with the resources for it coming from my asteroid belts.

The nap finally took me, and a couple of hours later I was woken up by a room alarm, and received a ping from Trip suggesting I dress for dinner. All I needed to do was splash some water on my face, and towel it off. The arrow took me to a restaurant in the resort, where I found it was just our shareholders. We filled the place though, as Pete had more than the rest of us combined, and we were all there.

I was the last one to arrive, and conversation stopped as I walked in. There was only one empty chair, at the primary shareholder’s table, but I stopped where everyone could see me.

“I’m not sure what the rumour mill is saying at the moment, but I’ll clear a few things up while I have you all here. Yes, I’ve just bought a system with a habitable planet. It comes with a marine training facility, a resort based on something like this one, and some bungalow homes. The homes will be identical, but can be placed anywhere. Those who’d like to live on the planet should let Trip know.”

No-one said anything.

“The station in orbit will be Haven class, with some modifications. Everyone working for the company will get provided accommodation on it, and technically you’ll be citizens if you decide to live there. Lots of stuff to be worked out, and I’m not looking forward to any of it.”

There were some chuckles at that.

“The Knight Marshal is leasing me a shipyard. That will allow us to much more cheaply upgrade ships. The costing of that will need to be discussed by the primary shareholders, but Trip is working on the options already. The cost of an Unbound which was sent out earlier represents one method of calculating a price for us. For now, it’s a suggestion to allow those of you who were thinking of starting your own trader businesses to do calculations with. That also needs discussing.”

Nyle and several others were nodding. They included both pilots and marines. Could be some of them had the means to do it themselves, or they’d be forming their own shareholder groups.

“Arthur wants more ships, so the company will be getting more sales income soon, regardless of what’s already in the pipeline, and what comes next. As far as the company goes with all this, we’ll most likely be taking a long term contract with the Imperium to provide protection and supply for the lower spine all the way down to where Long Bar joins the core.”

That surprised almost all of them.

“Most of that space is empty of people, but it will start filling up from both ends slowly. The new Unbounds and some ships converted into basic stations will fulfil the contract, but also start helping colonists move down or up the spine. We can sub-contract any ships you want to buy with what you’ve stashed away from your shares to do that with, or you can run them however you want, and base them wherever you like, once we’ve built a ship to replace yours for the contract. None of this will change our core services though, so we’ll continue to expand anti-pirate activities between fleet actions.”

More nods.

“If anyone wants to move on to run your own companies, now is probably a good time to do that, or rather when the first dozen ships come out, whenever that is. I see it as an option, now that a lot of you can afford to buy your own ships. Shares can be bought out if need be, or you can remain as shareholders, but no longer working for the company. I don’t see any problems whichever way someone wants to go.”

No-one nodded, but it was obvious the idea hadn’t occurred to a few of them who would now start thinking about it.

“The station will be going in tomorrow. The buildings down on the planet a day or two after. There will be people arriving to live and work there, and who knows what that will bring. Trip can show you the planet so you can choose somewhere to live, or the station layout for the company tower, which will provide everyone with an apartment. Buying somewhere else or renting are probably options, so if anyone wants one of my tower penthouses, there will be some available, but at this point, for how much might take a while to figure out.”

That seemed to amuse a few people, but Angie, Darren, and Doug looked interested in that. I sighed before I went on.

“I need all this like a hole in the head, but it seems this was inevitable given the path I’ve been on, or so some people think, so just bear with me as I work some things out.”

“Is the system and planet named yet?” asked Darren.

“No, but I expect Jane will be wanting one very soon. I’m finding the whole thing a bit unreal actually, and that was suggested as a name which fits the company’s naming policy.”

“Unreal?”

“It’s a possibility.”

“Does that make us Unrealites?” asked Doug, and they all started laughing.

“What do we call you?” asked Brook.

“Colonel. Nothing has changed in that regard. Anyone calling me Queen or any such other nonsense will be transferred to the most boring thing I can think of for them to do. Like bridge watch on one of the ship stations we’re going to convert, that goes nowhere.”

“Ouch,” said Nyle, but he was grinning.

“Let’s eat,” I suggested, and finally sat down at the table.

Thirty Two

We jumped to my new system before breakfast the next morning.

Trip had chosen the jump in point to be a high planetary orbit, and all our ships arrived in a neat row pointing at the planet. We’d waited until all the captains were awake, and could get to their bridges, but not bothered anyone else. All the same, the primary shareholders came onto the bridge straight after the jump happened.

We waited in silence for a few minutes, and then a station appeared between us and the planet, in the normal orbit for a typical orbital station. I looked at Trip.

“Give me a moment,” he said. “Taking over the station needs an avatar to plug into the main computer. Right.” Station lights came on. “Okay, it will be a while before anyone can board the station. I need to check the systems, and it needs to heat up some. I think someone forgot a temperature setting when they did the copy magic.”

A station dot labelled as a shipyard appeared on the navmap, on the opposite side of the planet from us, and in a higher orbit again. A screen popped up showing it to us.

“Good lord!” exclaimed Darren. “That’s huge. When you said shipyard, I was expecting something much smaller.”

I was having much the same reaction, even though I’d known in principal how big it needed to be to cater for a Terran carrier, eight Ralnor carriers, and a dozen of their destroyers. Except there was actually thirty seven bays, with twelve each for Keerah battleships, cruisers, and destroyers.

Ralnor ships were the same basic size, and knowing those were the ships going in, I assumed the bays were known to take all of them. The smallest bay was for our cruiser size, which meant any civilian freighter would fit inside one easily.

Aisha popped up.

“One shipyard delivered, as per agreements. Shall I arrange with Trip to get the conversions started on the ships you want done first? He can jump them in while I get the fabricator resource stocks done, from your outer asteroid belts. The builder droids are ready to go. All I need to start work then is the new designs.”

“Definitely get started on the ships. Uchawi and Trip were doing designs, so consult with both of them. I assume the larger bays will do smaller ships?”

“Of course. You want more Unbounds done now?”

“Yes. We’ll need one for each jump point in this system to do picket duty, and may as well have a couple reserved for response duty. Trip will tell you if the shareholders want more than the dozen I was originally going to convert, so use the bays if there’s need and any left.” In theory, the carrier bays could each take three Unbounds. “I’m not fussed with the designs of the ship stations. We’ll use the originals as prototypes, and adjust them later if need be.”

“On it. I’ll have an estimate for delivery once everything is underway. We’ll need to talk about hiring people. I’m using some of my employees for now, but one of the things I’ve been doing is training people up to start working in new shipyards as they go online.”

“I’ve got people coming after breakfast to talk to Lyla,” said Trip.

“Oh, joy,” I muttered, generating smiles.

“Talking of which,” said Elsa, “we’re expected at the buffet back on Celeste. I managed to find out we all have reservations for the week if we want them. Given what’s happening here, and nothing more seems to be melting down in Ralnor space, I suggest we all take more downtime, and unwind.”

She was looking at me as she said it, so probably meant I needed to, even with whatever mind numbing boredom was about to descend on me. Maybe I would, but I’d actually prefer to park Camel down on my island now, and sit on the beach there for a bit.

“Everyone is free to go back to Celeste,” I said. “Unless something hits the fan, I’ve got no problems with actual vacation time. Just spread the word that once the station is operational, quarters will be assigned by Trip. It’s up to everyone where they sleep from now on, but they should keep up their ship quarters for when we’re deployed.”

“We have some discussion to do for that as well,” said Trip.

“Fine. Just schedule my day, and let’s get it all out of the way as fast as possible.”

“Confirmed.”

Elsa started chuckling at that, but the others started vanishing. She passed the ship back to the night shift, and vanished herself. Sprite looked at me from the console, saw my hand going for the button, and jumping down, heading for the rift to Camel. I took another look at the planet, selected the icon I’d set for the resort room, and pressed the button. From there I took the nearest travel car to the main buffet restaurant. The place was buzzing with activity when I walked in.

“Lyla. Over here,” called a voice, and looking around, I saw Jon waving at me.

It looked like he and Chloe had stayed overnight as well. Bud and Anne joined them at the same table before I got there, and we were also joined by Lia and Jane. I sat in the remaining empty chair, which was next to Jane. Since she didn’t eat, I assumed she wanted to talk.

“Everything to your satisfaction?” asked Jane, who was dressed in casual civvies, the same as all of them were. In fact, they made me look overdressed, since I was in second best again.

“I don’t know, I just got here.”

They chuckled.

“I meant with the delivery of your station and shipyard?”

“Trip is getting the station checked now, and Aisha is getting the shipyard resourced up. I’m not sure where my satisfaction fits into any of that.”

“Go easy on her, Jane,” said Chloe. “I remember how new all she’s about to go through was for me.”

Jane gave her a look which screamed ‘butt out’, but said nothing. Jon and Bud laughed. Lia just smiled, rose, and headed for the food. Anne followed her.

“Lyla,” said Jane, “go and get some food. One of my avatars and some other people will be in your Unseen office after breakfast, and we’ll take you through all the basics of owning a system within the Imperium, and the formal setup of everything needed. A lot of it is in place already, initiated by the sale, and all we need is to plug you into it, so to speak. It’s straight forward and painless, I assure you.”

That remained to be seen. The guys left for the food as well.

“I hope so. Mostly I just need people to run things for me.”

“We’ve got some coming for you to meet. But Trip can do most of the mundane stuff once he’s got the right routines for it. He’s getting those now. If he decides he doesn’t want to run a station and system, then we’ll find someone who does. By the way, you can expect a lunch invitation. There’s people you should talk to who’ve been through this before. Now, go and get some food.”

The last bit threw me, and I just looked at her for a moment, then rose and headed for the hot section. While I was checking out what was there, it occurred to me I couldn’t remember the last time I’d served my own food. But then, this was a vacation resort, and I guess this was how resorts did breakfast. Help yourself seemed to be the theme. So I did.

Nothing more was said about my system, and I gathered they were all going back to work from here. No-one said any more to me until I’d finished what was on my plate.

“That was a good idea you had,” said Lia.

“Sorry, what was?”

“What you suggested to Arthur last night. You were right about the rifts. The main one to Void station does act as an anchor for subsequent ones, and Gytte put in several more last night. We’re testing out the ‘moving out’ scenario today with families in different cities.”

“That was fast.”

“We had a couple where it was possible to do. The new regime has been firing people, and some of those who want to come here are among those now without jobs. That means relocating to where work is will be expected, and in some cases, moving away from where they are is actually necessary now. So if the test cases work, we’ll move ahead with the idea.”

“You won’t need the liners then.”

“Yes we will. There’s just as many people who are now taking jobs off world, and liners are the best way to get them there, where they can vanish as well. The more diverse we are, the less likely it will be noticed.”

“I guess so. But presumably they will twig to it at some point.”

“If so, we’ll need to come up with something else. For now though, I think we’ll be fine.”

That sounded ridiculously optimistic, but I let it pass.

Thirty Three

The morning turned into my worst nightmare.

Jane, Aisha, and some legal people were waiting for me in my office. A mind numbing hour later I was the formal owner of a system, which had bank accounts with the Haven bank to operate from, and an actual legal framework to use. The two stations also had their own sets of accounts. The legal code was bog standard Imperium, which Vincent, Earth, and now Celeste were using, only with me being the sole owner this time instead of a government. That actually made no difference, as the system owner was me, and everything just addressed the system’s government, which was also me.

The tax code was spelled out, and my worry about needing to pay the Imperium tax proved to be wrong. Tax was needed to provide future growth and infrastructure, and anything else needed at any time. Not to mention employing people, which I could now do through the brand new company which would operate the stations to start with.

The Imperium used a single transaction tax of ten percent, with no other taxes or charges. It made them something of a tax haven, but that was also why setting it lower than ten percent was not a good idea. It would attract every undesirable who wanted to minimize tax from all of human space. Or so I was told. I wasn’t sure I even wanted to do any tax, but that would just attract trouble if it got out. So ten percent it was.

Before they left, I was introduced to a fuzzball called White, who claimed experience in running the administration for systems. She, and it turned out she was a she, became my first official employee. Trip had an office ready for her on the station, and quarters for fuzzballs were already there, since one of the towers was dedicated to providing quarters for non-humans, especially smaller beings like the mice and fuzzballs, but also big cats and Ralnor.

His own office was next door, and both were in the main administration tower on the main docking level. Most of the station was going to be something of a ghost town for a while though.

After Jane and her party left, I authorized Trip, Aisha, and White to employ whoever was needed to run the two stations. Aisha vanished after that, but White had to wait while Maya came back from Ralnor space to do new rifts between the ships and the company tower. Once we had one in place, White went off with a Trip avatar.

According to him, people were arriving on the station through the Haven rift already, most of them to staff the businesses here. We didn’t have customs people in place yet, but Chief Burnside had them on their way, and in the meantime, Trip was monitoring what people were doing, and had some security droids on standby.

But the station was going to be substantially empty for a long time to come, so he was now going to do a list of suggested walling off and rifts to shorten people’s walk from the docks further away from where the initial stores and services were clustered. That assumed the docks would be used all around, which I wasn’t so sure about. But closing off large chunks of the station so people couldn’t just disappear into them was a good idea.

The military tower, which would now be the company tower, had more than enough accommodation for everyone, without needing any of the barracks. We discussed who got what sort of accommodation, settling on the primary shareholders, Elsa, Angie, and Pete all getting flag officer quarters, the second tier shareholders getting senior officer quarters, the flight leaders and majors getting squadron leader quarters, and the rest getting senior lieutenant quarters.

That would still leave the tower substantially empty. Even the next two hundred pilots and several more companies of marines we took on wouldn’t make much difference to that.

He and I then had a talk about what he wanted to do from now on. He was happy to take on the station, and in time learn the shipyard as well, but he wanted to scale down his ship responsibilities. To that end he was suggesting Warspite and Yorktown take over some of the ships, and Warspite’s Dean persona take over Camel. Apparently Dean was the fighter pilot avatar, and Camel was just an extension of what he was doing with a Spitfire or Tempest now. Which remembering that time he’d taken over from Trip, jumping me madly around, I could believe.

I told him to work out with each captain who took over running their ships, and I’d trial Dean and see if we got on. But I wanted one of his avatars on Camel when I was on the bridge, to deal with non-ship issues which might come up while I was there. Apparently that was what Bud and Aisha did. Leanne ran his ships, but Aisha was often there as well. Trip thought it would work for us too.

He popped up a screen mid-morning, and I watched something come out of the Terran carrier bay. A tug took it off to a position elsewhere on the shipyard, and it appeared to dock like a ship, except the scale was much bigger.

“What the hell is that?” I asked him.

“The big carrier bay has started making shipyard modules.”

“What for?”

“We’ll need some bays for converting or building corvettes, cutters, and shuttles. Then we need to be able to take civilian ships up to larger freighter sizes, without tying up the bigger bays. If we want to upgrade a human sized destroyer, a smaller bay is better than using one of the Unbound sized bays.”

“Okay, you’ve convinced me. Why are we building them instead of just getting them?”

“Because we can?”

I sighed. And probably because the smaller bays were not used much by Keerah shipyards.

“Fine. Do whatever you and Aisha think we need. If you need funds, let me know.”

“Actually, yes, you will need to transfer some into the Unreal account, and the two station accounts. The new station tenants will be paying Imperium standard rents shortly, but we’ll need to do crystals for ships sometime today, and the station will start ordering food and consumables for the company tower, and what the stores and services normally source from the station they’re on.”

I must have looked confused.

“We run the station’s basic chandlery, although a lot of that we fabricate as it’s needed by anyone. But some things we need to keep in stock that have to be bought, so I need a budget for setting that business up. Things like butlers, if someone wants one in a hurry.”

I nodded partial understanding, and he talked me through how much he wanted and why, and I did the transfers from my own funds. That was recorded to be paid back like a loan once the system entity could afford to. He didn’t think that was going to be very long.

Even sooner if I allowed apartments or land to be sold off. For now though, he’d wait for any interest, show people what was available, but not commit to sale prices until we’d talked again. What surprised me was he said there was a market for good views of planets and space everywhere, and new stations always had people interested in the best apartments.

That made no sense to me here, in this backwater world where the new colonies hadn’t extended to yet. I was expecting broke colonists to come through here on their way to hard living on undeveloped planets. Not people with money to spend looking for a new view. Trip was grinning at me though, so we’d just have to see.

After that we talked about citizenship. Jane had made it clear that anyone who moved here permanently should be granted citizenship, and as such, would then start paying tax to the Unreal system, instead of to where they had been a citizen before. All she needed, as the bank, was the list of citizens kept up to date, and the tax payments would be automatic. The company was being treated the same. So all income it made now would be generating tax for me.

That felt wrong in all sorts of ways, until Trip pointed I was providing rent free accommodation down on the planet for shareholders, and on the station for all employees. That was, in theory, lost income to the station. Not that I cared. I could provide free food to the company as well, and I’d not even notice the expense.

There was also the new station employees to provide food for, and they were getting accommodation in the central administration tower, along with their own mess. The stores and other businesses’ accommodation was in a fourth tower, which for now would be the only other place people lived, until it ran out of the accommodation spaces people wanted.

The Haven station design was capable of accommodating millions of people, but we’d be starting with only single digit thousands. I seriously doubted we’d ever get much more than double digit tens of thousands, over the course of years, but who knew?

One thing I hadn’t expected was to start talking about the seeding of animals. The planet had none, due to not enough time passing since the Darkness had wiped this area clean on their way to the core before finally being locked away. It did have some birds, but not a lot. So as planets along here were colonized, so too did animals need to be reintroduced.

Jane apparently had whole stations which bred animals for the purpose, as well as magic buttons which would take a sampling of animals from a settled planet, and seed them across a new colony. All I needed to do was okay the plan for this planet.

Exactly why I’d care was beyond me, but I let Trip lead me through the selections, and in the end I just told him to do whatever Jane thought was right. The only thing that really concerned me was there were no predators on my island, or anything which might decide my house was worth eating. Or me in it.

Except I amended that to anything that might hurt Sprite as well, just in case he took a liking to wandering the island. Thinking of him, I wondered where he was, and then saw he was asleep on one of the lounge chairs. I suggested a cat blanket get put there, and also in whatever office I had on the station.

That led into another issue, being where I wanted my office, and did I want this one and the administration one on the station rift linked to the one he thought I should be using on the top floor of the company tower. It was the same layout as used on Haven, and he said I should be using the same office as the Imperator used in the same tower.

The rifting was something Bud had worked out at some point, and it allowed everyone to enter the same outer office no matter which office they thought they were going to, and return to the same place after. I reluctantly agreed to it, mainly because using multiple offices for the different hats I was going to need to wear from now on didn’t sound at all like fun.

My own living setup was the last thing before lunch. I told him I’d look at the house down on the planet after it went in, and decide if I slept there, on Camel still, or in a modest apartment on the station. Wherever I did had to have full blackout, especially down on the planet because the time zones didn’t sync up.

The last thing I wanted though was the same quarters it was rumoured the Imperator had. I wasn’t going to be doing Jon’s sort of entertaining, for one thing. If any at all. And breakfast would be in an executive dining room now on the station in the company tower, so no-one would be entering my living space any more without an invitation, and I couldn’t think of a reason for issuing one.

Finally, Trip ran out of things to talk to me about, now, and reminded me I had a lunch date to go to. I hadn’t even seen the invitation, but he sent me a jump icon, and I used it without even knowing where I was going.

That was happening way too often these days.

Thirty Four

“I don’t think I’ve ever been so bored in my entire life!”

The others laughed. I’d found myself on Wonderland station outside a restaurant, and going in, the butler on the door had pointed me to a table where a group of women were already sitting.

The surprise was Gitte. Jodie Mills owned this station, so she wasn’t a surprise. And I recognized Rockmonster, although calling her Dianne was going to take a bit of getting used to, since she’d once substantially outranked me. The last person at the table was Liza Pound, and we actually exchanged smiles. How things had changed! I’d been greeted by Jodie asking me how my morning went.

“The same,” said Liza. “I felt like the actual planet had been dropped on top of me.”

“Ditto,” said Rock…Dianne. “I captured a base, and was informed I now owned the planet. Not that there’s much more than ice and snow on it, but the ski lodges are doing well now, and people actually wanted to buy somewhere they could build their own lodges.”

“I had to deal with being elevated to being leader of the planet,” said Gitte, “when I expected it to be decades before it happened. I’d already created a station in orbit before then, so everything wasn’t dumped on me at once. It just felt like it had.”

“I guess my experience was the least then,” said Jodie. “I was already out of the military, and having survived what turned out to be a suicide mission, the faeries rewarded me with the resort and station. That was enough, believe you me. But now things have settled down, I quite like it. As long as I get to go shoot someone periodically as well.”

“I think that’s what makes the admin bearable,” said Dianne. “The fact there’s a mission we can go vent our frustrations on happening on a regular basis.”

“Frustrations?” I asked. “I’ve not heard anything about frustrations yet.”

They all laughed.

“Why did you buy a planet?” asked Liza. “If not for the frustration factor it brings you?”

I glared at her, but couldn’t keep it up, and she started giggling.

“It was a combination of the Imperator and Jane making a good case, and wanting the endless barrage of ‘which planet are you buying’ spam from continuing.”

That made them laugh harder.

“That never ends,” said Dianne. “In fact, once your income spikes when people buy into your station or down on the planet, you’ll get even more of them.”

“That makes no sense. Doesn’t all of it come from Jane?”

The truth was, there were not that many, but when you looked at messages as infrequently as I did, it just felt that way.

“Yeah,” said Jodie. “They do. You still think what you just got is it, don’t you?”

“It’s not?”

“Hell no. You wait and see. Every ten or so systems down the lower spine, one of us will end up with a new colony there, and when we all have one, you’ll be invited to buy a second one. I’m just waiting for that to happen, and am a bit surprised it hasn’t already.”

“Me too,” said Gitte. “Jane’s already tried to get Karn to take a planet along there, but we don’t need another one yet. I figure I’ll be targeted directly in the not too distant future to buy one of my own.”

“Any idea when?” asked Dianne, looking at me.

“All I know is Jane and the Imperator are getting the next two, the first being about ten systems down from mine. So in theory, I guess one of you will get the pitch after the second one goes in, and the colonies get half way to the next one. So roughly thirty systems from where they are now, not including mine. But then, there’s the other end to consider.”

“Other end?” asked Liza.

“The auctions of planets along Long Bar, and the new jump points which connect them, mean colonists can go to them, and start back from there. It hasn’t been opened up yet, but Jon said it would be soon.”

They all took a pull from their drinks.

“You’re sure of that?” asked Jodie.

“Very. Give it say ten systems from the furthest out Long Bar auction planet, and someone will be asked to buy in ahead of them, I expect.”

“That could work for us,” said Jodie.

“How?” asked Dianne.

“I was going to suggest we put some rifts in between our stations anyway. I’ve got a themed resort, you’ve got skiing, Liza has crystal cave exploring,” I looked at her sharply and she nodded, “and Lyla will have sandy beaches, and the way I heard it, some spectacular mountain climbing.”

That was news to me. I made a note to get Trip to look into that.

“People staying at one of our resorts may have people with them who’d prefer to day trip to one of the others while their significant other gets on with their own pleasure. If we link up to make that easy, we can sell day trip passes to each other’s facilities.”

“And widen it with whatever is the highlight on any other planets we get pressured into,” said Liza.

“That was my thinking. I’ll have Charlie talk to your AIs about it, and see what we can work out.”

“Tell me when you do,” said Gitte, “and I’ll do the rifts for you. If you don’t mind, I was thinking of letting Syrinx and Tanith know what you’re planning. They both have splinter colonies of Karn and Kelewan, and probably have something they can add to the mix. They need the tourism more than you do.”

“No problems for me.”

“Whatever,” I said. “Talk to Trip and White. I don’t really want to know about it.”

“White?” asked Liza.

“Fuzzball. I’ve got seven of them working for me or the company now.”

She looked confused, so I pinged Trip for an image, and he sent one back. It had all seven of them, so must have been taken this morning. The background looked like it might be a fuzzball version of a lounge room. Liza laughed.

“I heard an odd thing about the Fuzzballs from Charlie,” said Jodie. “She told me, from one of the Gaia AIs, that the Fuzzballs thought they were all white until they met humans. Apparently only humans can see their colours. Which is why they adopt them as names so readily, since knowing them is considered a big thing for them.”

“I wonder what White thought when told she was actually white?”

“Maybe you could ask her,” said Dianne.

“Nope, I’m not doing that. Trip might if you can con him into it.”

“I’ll see what Charlie can do,” said Jodie.

“Uchawi will ask too,” added Gitte.

I had the feeling I was being punked, since this was just so pointless as to make me wonder why they seemed to be taking it so seriously.

“We better eat,” said Jodie. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve a full day of meetings only half done.”

“Oh, hell,” I said. “Don’t wish that on me, please.”

The laughing was interrupted by food arriving.

Thirty Five

“The shit just hit the fan.”

I’d been just finishing a really tasty lunch when Trip had called me back. I apologized for rushing off, agreed to host a lunch myself at some point, and jumped back to Unseen’s bridge.

“What’s happening?” I asked.

Elsa was already there, and about half the ship captains were up as hollos already. Sprite was back on his console pad.

“We’ve been contacted by one of the leadership factions in the fifth sector. A junior general is supporting the remains of the original leaders who were not in favour of the Keerah War, and they’re fighting in the capital system now.”

“What sort of fights?”

“All kinds. Army units on the planet and several stations are fighting corporation units, and navy ships are fighting corporation ships. No-one has an upper hand though, but the conflict is escalating, and what reinforcements both sides can call in have been.”

“Does the faction in touch with us have the support of the leaderships of the other four sectors?”

“I asked, and yes they do. Also the friendly corporations whose new clusters cross over into that space. We’ve been offered a contract which includes extracting some people from where they’re holed up, hitting the enemy fleet units, and taking the pressure off their army units both on stations and on the ground. The contract is up to our normal expectations, so they’ve obviously been talking to the admirals who’ve hired us before.”

“When do they need us?”

“Now.”

“When should they have contacted us?” asked Elsa.

Trip snorted.

“Yesterday. But both sides thought they had it sorted. It just didn’t go to plan for either of them. And once the fighting really started, civilians got involved as well. It’s basically the beginning of a proper civil war there.”

Pete and Angie had come in now, and I saw the rest of the captains were up as hollos.

“It could be what was planned for when that fleet arrived from Ralnor,” said Pete. “They just brought forward the time table with whatever they could scrounge up instead.”

“They scrounged a lot. And not all the military went with the side asking for our help either. We’re going to need to double check who gets shot at carefully on this one.”

I nodded. The surprise was this hadn’t kicked off sooner. My guess was though, the severe damage to the military station had shocked everyone. Or hidden the movement of ships and troops behind the overall shock.

“Recall everyone, and saddle us up.”

“On it,” said Trip.

“On second thoughts, if anyone happens to be too drunk to fly or fight, leave them where they are.”

There were some chuckles.

“Are you referring to me?” asked Brook, from behind me.

I turned, and looked at her.

“Not specifically. Are you?”

“I’ve got a lunch time buzz on, sure, but not so much I can’t fight.”

I took that at face value, and looked back at Trip.

“Show us the system, Trip. And where the fighting is going on.”

Screens popped up, and all the captains got them at the same time. They quickly divided up the fights according to appropriate response, and we jumped as a fleet to the jump in point for the capital planet.

Pete got screens with planet and station locations on them, and he quickly gave orders dividing his companies up among them. The rescue jobs were scheduled first, with the rest of the locations ordered by the desperation of those needing support.

It turned out he’d been busy while others were relaxing, as he had another company signed up and based on Unbroken now. Then I found out Angie and Darren had already signed up another hundred pilots for the same carrier, and had been interviewing on the beach. The mice were all going to launch as well though, so it was almost up to full strength with them. Their Uglies had been moved to the hangar on the station this morning, pretty well as soon as life support was normalized.

The area around the orbital and the severely damaged military station was a general fighter melee. The military had several carriers nearby, being engaged by rogue cruisers, and it was obvious the corporations had shipped in last generation fighters in bigger numbers on freighters.

The problem was going to be friend or foe, since the birds looked very similar. But Trip said the models were identifiable, and the red dots would be definitely reds. Not having AIs on fighters was suddenly a problem, but Trip was adamant he would feed the correct identifications to every fighter and ship. With him not running any of the ships, he had the capacity to do so now.

With everyone allocated a target, I walked through to Camel, and buckled up. Maya appeared, and did the same. Sprite jumped up onto his pad, and sank his claws in. Trip appeared as well, and sat at the front console on the left.

Dean popped up as a hollo, half way between Trip and Sprite, and grinned at me.

“Target selection has been updated,” he said. “I’m on all three Camels, so if you don’t mind the risk, I can take all three of you in against a larger ship than a destroyer first off. There’s a nice juicy ship with degrading shields you can bag before we go to our normal work.”

“Whatever. Just point me at what I shoot. And tell everyone to shoot to kill, and only poke if that’s the most appropriate action at the time. It’s not a criteria now. In fact, we can use more debris than we need hulks.”

“Ready,” said Trip.

“Go.”

Thirty Six

Camel jumped.

I had hands on the controls and was ready for anything, but was shocked at how close Dean had put me to a kilometre and a half long ship. I pulled the guns trigger and gave it full torpedoes as well, and what part of it was in front of me vanished.

“Clean kill,” said Dean. “Between the three of you. Jumping again.”

This time the destroyer was further away, and I gave it a full torpedo salvo, which ripped the middle out of the ship. The target lock changed, we jumped, and I flinched as Camel passed over the top of a Ralnor cruiser at combat speed, and I gave the civilian destroyer in front of me the full guns.

“Whoever that was,” said a Ralnor voice, “thank you.”

Camel jumped again, but nothing was in front of us.

“The cruiser had lost all guns down that side,” said Dean. “We just saved it, and there’s not much left of the destroyer. The next destroyer is giving …”

We jumped, and I flinched again, this time as we went over a large freighter which was taking fire from a destroyer, and again, I gave it full guns. This time we took a hit from the destroyer’s guns, but I saw the middle of the destroyer simply vanish. Then both remaining sections vanished as well.

“Sleds,” said Trip. “Too dangerous to leave the ends here.”

“Whatever,” I snapped. “Keep me moving.”

We jumped again, appearing behind a fighter, and I gave it two taps on the image recs button, and shifted to just fire the front guns next time. The target lock shifted, so I went into strafe, lined it up, and fired them. It exploded, and we jumped.

From there it was all fighter action, me strafing to pick off several at a time, then Dean moving me to go after someone else. I lost track of what was going on anywhere but right in front of me, but started realizing we were picking rogues off the friendlies rear ends more often than not. Thankyous followed most of them, although I had no idea how Trip was picking their coms up like that. But maybe with him being secondary, he now had time to do that?

We appeared off to the side of a freighter at one point with it locked up, and seeing it had very little in the way of shields, I poked it, and the second set of image recs did the trick, and it went dark. A moment later, it vanished.

“Surviving crew is on the POW planet,” said Trip. “That one is now parked, and the change to the magic button is confirmed as working.”

We went back to picking off fighters, but not quite as frantically as before. Mainly it was just when someone needed someone picked off their six. Several of the thankyous came from mice voices this time.

And then there was nothing left to shoot at, and Camel parked back on the flight pod of Unseen. A few seconds later, Brook and Herb were parked as well. Neither had taken any damage. I looked at Maya, and she had her eyes closed, and appeared to be talking to herself.

“She’s directing the movement of ejected pilots,” said Trip. “Since we can’t tell who is who, all of them are going into one of our marine messes, and the combat droids there have orders to stun anyone who starts fighting, or pulls a weapon.”

“Whatever. Are we done?”

“Yes,” said Dean. “Unless you want to deal with the reinforcements in the next systems straight away.”

“Any urgency?”

“No. A military fleet will tangle with a corporation one in a few hours’ time, but until they do, there’s no urgency. The corporates may turn around and leave when they hear we’re here.”

“We can hope. Fine. I’ll be on Unseen then.”

I unbuckled, rose, and went through the rift a few steps behind Sprite, leaving Maya where she was, still eyes closed and muttering. Elsa looked around at me, nodded, and turned back to her screens. Unseen jumped, and appeared nearby a Ralnor carrier, which was starting to recover its few survivors. Fours started heading for us.

By the time I’d made myself comfortable again, and downed half a drink, the other two carriers were back as well, and all the Fours were RTB. We were pointed at the military station, or what was left of it. A bit less than half was simply missing, with mangled wreckage all along the destroyed edge. Damaged ships were docked on the other side, and the station itself still had some shields. The orbital hadn’t been damaged. But it looked like a lot of freighters had docked there after being shot at themselves.

Jodie appeared off to one side in a safe spot, and looked around, settling her gaze on me.

“All those needing rescuing were pulled out successfully,” she told us. “My people are holding the main admin section of the government building down below, and Pete is working around behind the people still attacking it. The leaders are up here somewhere.”

“Has the admin been getting you down?” I asked her, smiling.

“Something like that. Charlie found out you could use an extra battalion, so we came. Hope that isn’t a problem?”

“Why would it be? If Pete’s happy, I’m happy.”

He looked happy, or at least, his hollo did. He was in his combat suit, and appeared to be running.

“Someone doesn’t like not-crocs,” said Trip, and a screen popped up showing them running after what looked like several companies of routed Ralnor troops.

The view was from above, but it switched to what one of the lead not-crocs was seeing. I was surprised by just how fast the big lizard like creatures could move, as they were almost keeping up with the hoppers who were bounding away as fast as they could.

Then the lead hoppers started going down, and combat suits appeared in front of them. Between the combat suits in front and the not-crocs behind, most of the hoppers had a really bad day.

Another screen replaced it, and this time it seemed civilians were firing on a platoon of Lufaflufs. They were going down steadily from stunner fire from our people. I saw a jacket go brown, and one of the Lufaflufs vanished before he could be hit again. A short time later, the firing stopped, and that Lufafluf appeared again, with a new jacket on. The platoon started running down a deserted street.

I pulled my attention back to space.

“Arthur’s on the military station with some Celeste mages,” said Trip. “The fighting there is over, and they’re doing running repairs where the temporary seals are not good enough. Tod is on the orbital, and coordinating with the brigadier who called us in. Apparently he survived because he was on the orbital the day the military station was bombed. Pure fluke, and after the assassinations were over, it left him the senior army officer in the system.”

“Shouldn’t one of the carrier admirals have taken command here?” asked Elsa.

“There are none. They died in the bombing. It was very well timed to take out all the senior officers. That’s one reason why their fleet was doing badly. All that’s left here is second rate captains with very little real combat experience.”

“Hence calling for us,” I added. “Is there anything not being handled at the moment?”

“Some isolated fights between civilians arguing politics, or at least that’s what it looks like to the brigadier. They’re on the bottom of the to-do list, and we are all fully engaged right now.”

“Do they need fighter support anywhere?”

“The mice are down there now,” said Angie, from behind me. She walked up where I could see her. “They were directed into hitting assault shuttles, and once they were done, started answering calls for image rec poking of enemy positions.”

“So they’re enjoying themselves then?”

“More so than the rest of us did, yeah.”

Maya walked in through the rift, and took the seat she usually used here. She looked tired.

“We had to move several hundred ejected pilots,” she said. “It seems an abnormal number of them were choosing drifting in space to being destroyed with their fighters, mostly before we got here. A few of them were almost out of life support before they were moved, but they all seem to be okay.”

“The senior Ralnor military pilot down there is asking when they can be returned to their carrier,” said Trip. “Actually the first thing asked was if their carrier had survived, and I assured them the ones still fighting when we arrived still were. Debris suggests they lost one before we arrived.”

“No corporate carriers?”

“They didn’t use them. There’s a lot of freighters that look like they delivered fighters though. Some are trying to exit the system, I think.”

“Put bug bots on them. If they delivered fighters, and belong to one of the corporates doing the attacking, then send someone out in the bombers to poke them.”

“Will do.”

“Anything else we need to deal with?”

“The general wishes to meet with you as soon as it’s safe on the orbital station.”

“Set it up.”

Thirty Seven

That happened an hour later.

After the bombers had dealt with the fleeing freighters, and we’d jumped out and clobbered the corporation fleet which had begun firing missiles at the much smaller military fleet, both of which were headed to the same jump point. This time it was mainly cruiser sized Q-ships we had to deal with, and we simply jumped in just inside their effective range, and clubbed them until they died. Several were poked, but it was more an accident than design.

The fighting on the station had stopped by the time we jumped back, and Trip received a jump icon for me to use. By then a butler had brought me my Ralnor waistcoat, and before using the icon, I put it on, and let it seal up at the front.

The room I appeared in looked like a luxury conference room. As well as the general and some of his officers, there was also a group of civilians. And Arthur, with Guinevere and Mordred. There were no chairs at all. Arthur and his captains were already standing at the table, and he waived me to join him. The Ralnor who were not already standing there, took their places as well, although the junior officers stayed back.

“General Cowan,” said the general. “I’m glad you could come.”

He introduced the civilians by name, but they didn’t translate. It seemed they were the only survivors of the sector leadership, at least from this faction. There were thought to still be about the same number from the war supporting faction, but no-one knew where they were at the moment. They were here because we now had a ferry docked, as they’d been on Unseen until the station fighting stopped.

“You live up to your reputation, General,” said one of the civilians. “We should have called on you sooner, but no-one knew just how big a problem we had here until the military station was blown up, and even then, it wasn’t until troops attacked from freighters no-one suspected carried troops that things went bad so fast. And then we ourselves were under threat, and we lacked any military guidance until the general was finally able to contact us. He recommended we contract you. Fortunately, you were free.”

“Some of us were surprised you came,” said another civilian.

“Why?” I asked.

“You’ve been branded pirates, insurgents, and spies by the high command on Ralnor, and a lot of people, even on our side of things, believed it. I’m glad to be proved wrong, but some of us need to completely reassess all of our beliefs now.”

“Civil war does that to people,” said Guinevere.

“We only go where we’re wanted,” I said. “If you need us for more once the fighting is done here, you only need to send a new contract. We’ll leave you with faster communication protocols to use next time.”

“We’ll need you again,” said the general. “There’s fighting going on in a number of systems we know about, and at the least, we’ll need you to move fleet units and troops to those situations for us. We’ll also want our fleets at the Keerah front who we know support us back. I understand you offer that service?”

“We do. Just tell us what you need moved where, and we’ll work out the best way of doing it.”

“Before we lost contact with Ralnor,” said the first civilian, “they said they were sending a major fleet to take control here. We’ll need you to deal with them, if you can.”

“We already did. You lost contact with Ralnor because the direct rift was removed. Immediately before that, the fleet was removed, and the crews are mainly incarcerated on a POW planet now. That threat was neutralized. So also were obvious corporate fleets on their way to attack other corporation headquarters. The only corporation warships left would be those which were being used in defensive ways, or those not obviously heading for a target. Like the ones which attacked here. They missed our gaze, sorry.”

“Not your problem,” said the general. “It looks like you’ve done more than we were aware of already. We need to determine what insurrection is still going on, and how to handle it. When we know what we can and cannot deal with, we’ll send you a new contract.”

“We’ll look forward to it. What do you want done with the debris out there? We’re collecting any of our own destroyed ships, but if you wish, we can clean the entire system up before we leave.”

“We’ll be glad if you can do around the stations and the planet. We’ll need any salvageable warship hulks, which I understand we need to pay you for.”

“Do you want them parked near your shipyard?”

“You can do that?” asked a civilian.

“Sure. It’s not a problem. If you need some completely intact corporation style warships, we can supply them as well. Just specify what you want, and we’ll quote for them. Troop ships as well, if you need them.”

They were looking at us strangely now. Some of them might have been reappraising that ‘pirates’ word again.

“We will do that,” said the general.

Thirty Eight

By five we were back in the Unreal system.

Trip was still moving ferries and jump sleds around, but our part in the fighting was over, and although there was still other planets with fighting going on, we were done for today. The sector capital had been secured, and the opposing faction’s leaders arrested.

It was a really strange situation. The sector government had prevailed in an insurrection, in a sense, since the military had mainly supported the status quo, but the sector itself was now officially in insurrection according to Ralnor. It was so arse end about as to make you wonder if reality had somehow been warped. At least it wasn’t my problem to sort out.

Part of what Trip was doing now was bringing fleets back from the frontier. By necessity whole fleets had to be moved at the same time, so as to not leave ships behind which might be branded traitor and fired on. But not all the ships were loyal to our faction, or their captains were not, and those ones were being left behind. Trip had been given a list, and was confirming each ship by bug bot before moving the fleet.

By the time Trip finished, the sector military would have troops at the other hot spots to back up what had already been moved there.

Maya was not happy finding out an entire new sector had been added to her work pile. We expected to hear from new friendly corporations wanting their own clusters soon enough, and the extra space involved in completing the big multisector cluster meant days more added to the task. She’d gone back to her ferry to change the order of tasks, so the new outside threats were blocked first, and the known hostile corporation’s headquarters temporarily isolated.

Most of us went back to Celeste, and either hit the beach again before dinner, or just flaked out for a nap first. Not me though. I went into my office on Unseen, on my way to Camel to drop off my waistcoat, and stopped dead when I saw the size of it. Trip was standing there grinning at me.

“While all the fuss was happening, Gitte dropped past and did the office link up magic. This is your military office on the station. As you can see if you look out that window.”

He was pointing up. I looked up, and found there were windows instead of a ceiling, and they merged into the windows in the wall. Part of the view showed the planet below. The whole office was about three times larger than the already large one I’d had, but so was everything in it. The conference table was huge, and there was the same amount of chairs at the table also in the lounge chair area. He’d been correct. It was identical to what the Imperator used. I even had the same overly large desk.

“She also did the main tower and walkway closures, which the travel cars no longer go to either now, and rifts to get people who are docked well away from the small retail and service area there quickly. The rifts are all labelled on the other side as to which dock they go to.”

“Thank her for that.”

“I did. The Knight Marshal turned up several hours ago as well, and created your bungalow. I did a virtual walkthrough video of it for the others who’ve not decided if they want one yet, and had a couple say yes as a result.” He pointed to the far corner, where there was an unlabelled rift. “That links to your lounge room down there. Shall we?”

“What made him do it today?”

“I think he wanted to test that the links to the core infrastructure worked. He’d already put all of that in. It’s in a pretty useless valley in one of the mountain ranges, with the only good thing there being the river being used as a water supply. With your bungalow in place, he was able to test everything worked.”

“Thank him too.”

“I did.”

While we’d been talking I set a jump icon for behind the desk chair. He indicated the rift, so I walked over there, and stepped through. And stopped dead, with my mouth dropping open. He came in behind me, and had to step sidewise suddenly to avoid bumping into me.

“I took the liberty of raiding your storage area, with the help of the Knight Marshal, and the butlers have been placing your furniture here in preference to what would normally be brought. The bed is brand new and exactly what you sleep on now, but most of the rest is what you had before you packed it up to join the Imperium. If you don’t like this, I’ll get a storage shed put in out back, and move it all there. One of the spare bedrooms has boxes in it with the rest of what wasn’t put out.”

I looked around slowly, and managed to get my mouth closed again. The only things not from my storage was a cat tree the same as the one on Camel, what looked like one of Sprite’s tunnels, and some toys. Trip followed me as I had a look around in every room. The spread of things was a bit thin, so I’d need some extras if I bothered using some of the rooms, but I’d need to see how I lived in the place first.

The bedroom had total black out the same as my Camel bedroom did, and the en-suite bathroom could be similarly blacked out. There was a cat sized rift in the bedroom door to let Sprite in if he wanted to come here, but without letting the light in as well. Whoever had done that not only had magical talent, but knew about cats as well.

Trip told me there was a Vincent lady who was making a living doing cat rifts. She couldn’t do long ones, but cat and dog rift-doors were now her speciality. They let nothing in but cats or dogs, and only they could see through them. Copies of Sprite’s dirt tray and eating arrangements were in the kitchen, and the utility room off it.

The front door looked out towards the beach, so I walked across the sand to the edge of the dunes, and looked out over the ocean. The day was hot, but the house had been cool. I was overdressed, and headed back inside before I needed to take anything off. There I was greeted by a butler and a drink, and reminded I was expected on Celeste for dinner.

I went back to Camel through the bedroom to bedroom rift, and told Trip I’d sleep down there tonight to see how it went. He promised to make sure the butlers had everything ready, and the clothes I hadn’t used in my hotel room would be brought there, in case I wanted them. It reminded me I’d need to actually go and shop for appropriate beach and hot environment clothes.

He jumped with me to the hotel room, gathered up the clothes which were now spread back out on a made up bed, and jumped out carrying the hotel bag they went into. I went out to the travel car, and it took me to where dinner was tonight. It was the same place as breakfast this morning, only the arrow took me to a table where the primary shareholders were sitting with pre-dinner drinks.

I sat in the only empty chair, and a butler put a drink in front of me. They all watched me sip from it, and then take a bigger mouthful, before putting it back down.

“I’ll be sleeping in my new place on Unreal tonight,” I announced. “The first bungalow went in while we were in combat. Trip said he was sending you all a virtual walkthrough. I’m going to see how I sleep there, before deciding where I will normally.”

“Won’t the floor be a bit hard?” asked Pete, grinning.

“Trip has it furnished already. He emptied my storage where I used to live, and the butlers did a reasonable job of putting most of it out. Anyone who hasn’t decided on having one and where to put it, can have it created tomorrow when the resort goes in, if you let Trip know tonight.”

“Trip reminded us already,” said Angie. “I reminded him I’m a space gal. I’ve got my eyes on one of the penthouses on the station.”

“I’ve already asked for a specific island,” said Brook. “The house going there is somewhat quaint and old world feely, but it suits what I need. If we don’t go into combat again in the morning, I’ll be going shopping for furniture and clothes. Down the track I’m going to want to buy that island from you.”

“I need the clothes too,” I added. “And some more furniture and stuff. If your island is anything like mine, it’ll be hot a lot of the time, and very little of my old clothes and stuff for the bedroom is summer oriented. I’ll probably update all my towels as well.”

“Hot stuff is exactly what I want. Plus I’ll need all the furniture. There is no way I’m having ‘Imperium normal’ in my beach shack. I’m glad I held off on the other options now. This is going to be much better.”

“Shall we go and get something to eat?” asked Elsa, pointing at the hot food section.

Thirty Nine

I was surprised how many people were wandering around the station.

There was only a single coffee shop open as yet, but it was doing a good trade. Trip took me on a walk around after dinner, starting with showing me the rift arrival area, which was near the central lake. The lake itself had water in it, but nothing as yet growing around it. All the same, it was impressive. Some gardener was coming by tomorrow to talk about what needed doing. Apparently she had a mage work partner who encouraged things to grow once planted. White was organising it already.

The arrival area fed into a customs checkpoint, but for now, it was only being monitored by a few security droids. They didn’t have suits either, so looked a bit more menacing than usual. No-one seemed to care. The rifts were already in place to Wonderland station, Karn’s trading station, the Ski Lodge station, and what was being called Crystal World. As well, there were direct rifts to the Haven and Bud’s World orbitals.

There was a trickle of people going in and out of all of them, with those arriving heading straight out to the retail area. There were other rift points provided for, but not yet put in. As we watched, a group of Keerah walked out of the rift from Crystal World, and startled a few people, who promptly apologized. The cats took it in their stride, I guess knowing this was a human station where big cats were not really expected yet, and after looking at the view overhead, headed for the docking ring.

Trip mentioned it would be a couple of days before the station’s hotels were in operation. Negotiations were in progress with several hotel chains, but White was going to retain one of the pre-built ones for budget accommodations. It was the nearest one to the retail area, and would be the first one operating. It was also mixed species accommodation as well, so any future cats, or even Ralnor, could stay if they wanted to.

We followed, and there I found this part of the station was overlooking the planet, but also had a good view of the nearest nebula in the distance. There was an information kiosk between two docking bays, and we stopped to watch a couple using it. It told them the planet was not available to visit yet, but showed them white sandy beaches, and some quite rugged looking mountains which would be available for hiking and climbing in the near future. One of the images had some rapids showing, and Trip mentioned they were thinking about using them for tourism as well.

The signage behind the kiosk advertised the Unbound Mercenary Company, and proclaimed this as their home base. The docks on either side were occupied by ferries, but the airlocks were closed. On either side of those were battlecruisers. Out some of the windows not pointing at the planet could be seen the ship park, and that was getting a fair bit of attention.

Businesses were setting up all along here, with a lot of smaller cargo droids moving pallets around, and Trip thought most of them would be open for partial business tomorrow. We even saw a pair of Imperium security officers sauntering around, and talking to people. They nodded to me as we went past.

The military section was locked away behind a wall with a rift in it, with a checkpoint in front which had two security droids, and also two combat droids. All of them had obvious stunners. Trip showed me a plan of this level, and the military section was actually a quarter way around the station from here, and that’s where the rest of our ferries and battlecruisers were docked.

Here there was a lot more material advertising the company, even more than outside our Haven office, and it looked like the business area right next door was going to be our public office until the area from here to the military section was opened up. Trip said the proper office would be right next to the checkpoint there, but it could be quite some time before that happened. In the meantime, this office would link to the Haven and Karn ones. And the Haven office now had a rift for local deliveries to go straight to the company tower’s receiving area.

I wasn’t sure why they’d started this far away, but I guessed it was about keeping civilians away from the military area until it was fully functional. It turned out I was wrong. This area was where most of the premises for the first tenants were located, and all they needed to do was move in and setup, with no building required first.

We went through the rift to the company tower, and apart from the fact this area was a ghost town, it was identical to Haven’s military tower and surroundings. I took his word that accommodation assignments would be ready for occupation in the morning. He showed me the marine running track main entrance, and as far as I could tell, it was identical to Haven’s, although Trip said that would change. It was customary for the tracks to mimic what was on the planet below, and this one would be changed as soon as possible.

We took a travel car to the top of the administration tower in the center of the station, and stepped out into an empty space that looked huge.

“This is your official quarters,” he told me. “I know you won’t be using them any time soon, but I thought you should at least see them.”

I sighed quietly, and let him give me the tour. In my opinion, a large family would get lost in here, and I had no idea how the Imperator lived alone in this massive amount of space. Trip informed me Bud had a similar place to live, but only used part of it himself. It seemed like madness to me. My bungalow was going to be too big, and that was tiny compared to here.

From there I button jumped back to my living room on Camel. Sprite was playing on his tree, but stopped when he saw me. I went over to him, and he graciously let me pat him. The purr wasn’t up to what I knew he could do though.

“Well Sprite, I’m sleeping somewhere else again tonight. You can stay here on your own, or come with me. You’re choice.”

He looked at me as if listening, but not understanding.

“Will you let me pick you up?”

His expression and posture didn’t change, so I took a chance, and gently picked him, and when he didn’t object, carried him through the rift. When he didn’t want to jump down, I did a quick walk around the rooms to show him everywhere, and then stopped next to a window which looked out towards the beach dunes. He seemed mesmerized.

Finally I put him down on the identical tree, in the same spot he had been, and sank into a chair. A butler brought me in a drink without me asking for one, and put a couple of treats in front of his nose. He sniffed them, then ate both.

After a look I couldn’t interpret, he leapt down, raced out, and I listened as he made his own way around the house. I’d finished the drink by the time he came back in, and watched him jump up onto the chair with his cat blanket on it. He started kneading it, his purr got louder, and after going around in circles a few times, he settled and looked at me. His expression seemed easy to interpret.

“This will do very nicely,” he seemed to be implying.

And maybe it would. I went to bed at my normal time after catching up with the mail, and found all my clothes were there when I went to hang up what I’d been wearing to be cleaned. Trip seemed to be making assumptions, but I don’t have enough for putting them back to be much of an issue if tonight didn’t work.

The room now had one extra feature which hadn’t been there before. Visible from the bed was now a status screen, which showed all the ships and units, their status, and where they were. The only ships not showing they were docked or parked at Unreal, were ferries still being used in the fifth Ralnor sector, and the one still at Celeste. That one would need to be swapped tomorrow for one leading to the company tower of the station, where the rifts to each ship now were.

Just after I turned the lights out and confirmed there was now total darkness, there was a thump from the foot of the bed, and a weight settled against my leg.

The purring kept me awake for a little while, but I finally dropped off to sleep.

Forty

The status screen popped up with the lights the next morning.

I’d slept really well, and woken to find Sprite was still asleep on the bed, but not against me now. The status screen showed me several of the battlecruisers were away, one in Ralnor space, and another in the Badlands. That was good, as it meant the captains had found some work, and gone after it. That needed to be encouraged.

I did the needful in the bathroom, changed into shorts and singlet, and went for a walk along the beach. It wasn’t first thing in the morning here by any means, and instead of a bright sunny day, it was threatening rain. Still hot though, and humid. I walked for about ten minutes, retraced my steps, and then went in for a shower. When I looked out a window just before leaving, I saw it was raining heavily now, and I’d not heard a thing.

We were still using the Celeste resort to eat in, so I used the room I’d been assigned to jump to, was relieved to find it hadn’t been allocated to someone else, and took a travel car to the dining area. I was the last of the shareholders to arrive, and told them I’d had a walk on the beach this morning.

“Even I might be tempted to do a bit of that,” said Brook. We all looked at her strangely. “What? Beach walking is therapy, not exercise.”

That struck me as quite funny, and I couldn’t hold it in. It started the others off as well. She looked annoyed, rose, and headed for the food. The rest of us watched her go.

“I’m going to remember that one,” said Nyle.

“Me too,” added Darren.

None of the four of us were much into actual exercise. That was one of the first things we learned about each other when we were first put together as a flight. Not being forced to do any was an actual good part of not being military anymore.

Nyle was the only one who actually did any, but in the gym, not on the running track. He enjoyed his time in there, so didn’t think of it as ‘exercise’, and it was ad-hock rather than organised, so wasn’t really ‘training’. I wasn’t sure who needed the shrink, but someone did.

We followed Brook to the food, and about half way through eating I saw both the captains who’d been out working come in with their night shift people. One of them came over to Elsa.

“Chalk up another notch for Uncaged. Two bogies attacking one of Snark’s convoys are now poked and parked. I saw there’s a Ralnor civilian Q-ship parked next door too.”

“Good work,” I said. “That’s what I like to wake up and see going on.”

“Just don’t bother me with it before breakfast,” added Elsa. “Pass the word that as long as the contract gets approved or the bounties are legit, you warship captains can take any work suitable without needing my approval. Just run it past Trip and whichever fuzzball is doing contract review at the time.”

That sounded like we’d picked up some more fuzzballs. The work load for them was expanding though. Instead of two ships looking for work, we now had eighteen, if you didn’t count Camel. I wasn’t exactly looking for work for myself these days. But I knew Brook was.

“Will do.”

She nodded to him, and he went to the table where the other captains had left an empty seat. They all started listening to him.

“We probably need to think about redoing the share structure for single ship jobs,” said Nyle.

“It should be fine,” said Darren. “The captain and crew get what the merchant crews get on these single ship jobs. We get the owner’s share, and the captain and crew get the rest. Since there’s only three of them on some of the ships, and up to nine on the others as the recruiting of crews goes on, that’s big shares for each crew member, especially if they capture a prize.”

“Did we set it up that way?” asked Elsa. “I wasn’t sure.”

“The full fleet actions are handled differently to the single ship actions where the captain and crew find the work themselves. Reward for initiative, and all that. Give it a bit of time, and we’ll probably lose some of those crews to buying their own ships.”

“Are we going to lose people soon anyway?” I asked.

“Not that I know of,” said Elsa.

I looked around at the rest of the primary shareholders. They all shook their heads. I gave Angie and Pete second looks.

“We’re all staying,” said Angie. “I think all of us have put in for an Unbound, but we’ll hire crews to run them.”

“Several of my people are doing that as well,” said Pete. “I wanted to talk to you about something else, when you get time. But those who do buy into a ship won’t be leaving. Just creating a possible future should they be forced to stop being a marine.”

Even with our level of protection, that was still a possibility. It only took one pulse too many to render you unfit for life. Let alone being a marine or pilot. Having a backup plan in place would make that happening a lot easier. Not to mention the other income stream.

Case in point, Dreamwalker. The man had lost his sight on his first carrier launch, and without any sort of backup had done it hard for years until the Trixone War started, and Jane had plucked him out and given him technological sight again. No-one wanted to be reduced down to that level if they could help it. But it was the risk we took every day.

“You may as well come back to my new office with me after we finish here.”

“Thanks, I will.”

I finished eating before saying anything more, then looked around the table, getting their attention.

“The company tower should be operational by now. I’m thinking shareholders and majors should eat in the senior officer’s mess on the station from now on. It’s on the top floor of the tower, and designed for senior flag officers and guests. Since we don’t have any, they won’t be upset by us using it.”

They all smiled dutifully. I guess it was funnier in my head.

“I’m getting Trip to check me out of here today, but the rest of you can stay as long as you and Celeste want to. The same goes for everyone else. Once the resort on Unreal is up and running, we should start using that instead. It will need beta testing before we start trying to attract people to it.”

“I’ll pass that along to my people,” said Pete. “I’m about played out here myself anyway. If my bungalow goes in today, I’d rather be there setting it up, and exploring around it. Besides, my people need to look at the training facilities when they go in.”

“Did you use the track this morning?” asked Nyle.

“We did. We divided up for all the entrances, and no-one overtook anyone. And since it was the same as Haven’s, that ninety degree turn was known and expected.”

“It’s still there?” asked Darren. “I always thought that was a bit nasty.”

He had that right. If you were not paying attention, you slammed into the wall that didn’t look like it was there at all, with no warning. I’d heard stories of big cats nutting themselves on it, and needing a care unit after. Only the suits stopped permanent injury. But running into a wall wasn’t a threat it was designed for, so it didn’t activate until you actually made contact too hard.

“It’s still there, and on the new one as well. I think I might put some better warnings on it though, if you don’t mind?”

He was looking at me while saying the last bit.

“Sure. Or get it removed. I don’t care.”

He smiled at me, but I had the feeling it wouldn’t be removed. Just changed when the terrain was changed. Marines didn’t want it too easy, and that laugh when someone ran into it was just too hard to give up.

Forty One

Trip and another man were waiting in my office when I jumped in with Pete.

“This is Major Dennis Andrews,” said Trip.

“Call me Denny,” the man added. “Chief Burnside appointed me as security chief for the new lower spine. I’ll be operating out of an office in your administration tower, and I’m told I’ve got digs there as well. I report to you, but technically I work for Dick.”

“You don’t need to report to me at all,” I told him. “Just keep Trip in the loop with whatever is going on. This is Lieutenant Colonel Pete Dunne. If you need troops at any time, or combat droids beyond the ones stationed on the stations, talk to him.”

“Nice to meet you,” said Pete, and they shook hands.

I swear that handshake was more of a strength sizing up than a welcome, but I didn’t let that show on my face. Security and marine shared some of the same mindset, and both of them needed to be fit and strong when the shit hit the fan.

“You too.” He looked back at me. “How soon will the stations you’re making out of ships be in place?”

I looked at Trip.

“Several days,” he said, “probably. I can show you the designs if you like.”

“Already seen them. I just need to know when to have people ready to move in on them. I figure two security people per shift per station should be enough to start with. If they’re all going live at the same time, then I’ll need to arrange the accommodation here for them today.”

“Arrange that with Trip,” I said. “Have you met White yet?”

“Next thing on my list of things to do. I can’t say I’ve met a fuzzball yet.”

“White is handling the accommodation side of things,” added Trip, for my benefit. “And will oversee all the stations with me. At least for now. Apart from how they look, there’s nothing different about them as far as dealing with them goes. Think ‘bean counter’. The whole species seems to have that mindset.”

Or at least the ones who went to work in admin did. It would take visiting one of their planets to know if it was general to them all.

“Will do.”

He seemed amused.

“If we need more security droids for backup,” I said, “just get them fabricated or purchased. And if White needs more help, just find it.”

“We have the fabricators for most of the droids we use now,” said Trip. “The only ones we can’t fabricate are butlers and maids.”

Maids? A popup told me they were a lower level kind of butler, designed just for changing beds and clearing things away. The hotels used a lot of them instead of butlers. I’d never heard of them myself.

“Whatever. Welcome aboard, major.”

“Denny, please. We don’t use the ranks most of the time. Civilians won’t even know I’ve got a rank. I’ll just be Chief Andrews to them.”

“Welcome, chief.” He chuckled, and nodded. “Was that all you needed?”

“Yes. I’ll get started on what my people will need.”

“You do that.”

Trip led him out into the outer office, and I waved Pete to a lounge chair. A moment later there was a surprised yelp out there, followed by a streak of fur as it shot through the doorway, and totally missed landing on the chair which was now in a different place.

Pete lost it. Sprite’s expression showed real surprise that the room had changed, and I’m not sure he even registered the outer office being there at all as he went through it. He looked around, saw us sitting somewhere different, raised his tail and head high, sauntered over to the chair, and jumped up into it.

“You’re not fooling anyone,” I told him.

He turned, gave me a rear paw flick, and then did three circles before settling down. I guess that was going to be his chair from now on.

“Where did he sleep last night?” asked Pete, as he sat.

“My bed down on the planet. He seemed to like it down there. But it’s obviously not going to keep him there. Looks like he’ll continue to go wherever he likes.”

“He doesn’t look upset about Nell not letting him in.”

“I thought that too. So maybe Nell was right. As soon as Trip stopped telling him to be with Nell, he started making his own choices.”

“I didn’t think anyone could get a cat to do anything it didn’t want to.”

“True, but there was probably some magic involved we’ve not been told about. Like as not, whatever it was has been removed now it’s no longer needed.”

“Could be. Anyway, how much of your planet have you seen?”

“Almost none. A few images is about it, other than my beach. Why?”

“Because some of us have been using the magicsat feed to look closely at some areas. We came up with an investment idea. Several, actually.”

“What kind?”

“There’s a number of places along rivers with rapids which will be exactly what hard core white water people will want to experience. We’re thinking of building some rift joined top and bottom of the rapids lodges, and run them as a tourist venture. The rifts will make getting the boats and people back to the top easy.”

“You said several?”

“The other idea was lodges for mountain climbers and hikers. There’s a range where everything from novice to hard core climbs are located, and with some lodges in the right place, we can offer that sort of tourism as well. There’s also some skiing in some places too. If you approve, we’ll get some experts in to appraise the rivers, climbs, and ski slopes for difficulty and level of danger.”

“So you want to set up a tourism company, and put lodges wherever people will find something they like doing?”

“Yes. It will probably take a while to setup and trial, but I’ve got some of those white water people and climbers in my companies. They’re all enthusiastic about trying what’s down there. And rather than invest in ships, we’d rather invest in land and lodges, and what is needed for top class tourist activities.”

“You look sane.”

He chuckled.

“Well, there’s some doubt about some of my people, but I like to think I am. It’s a long term investment. If you’ll allow us to try it.”

“I’ve got no problems with it. But I’ve no idea how you buy land down there at the moment, although presumably White will have an answer for you. You might consider doing the first one of each as a lease of the land, and make the buildings movable by magic. Just in case you get the places wrong to start with. When you prove a place works, then you buy the land.”

“I’ll add that into the mix. So it’s okay to go ahead with a feasibility study?”

“Sure. And you can tell people if anyone comes up with ideas for tourism or whatever, they should just run with it until it needs actual approval, and then take it to White and Trip. Hell, if someone wants to run a farm down there, they can go for it. Someone will need to sometime, if for no other reason than backstopping the new colonies before they can support themselves. There’s probably other things people might want to do.”

“If I need to know about it, Trip and White can bring it to me. I wouldn’t be surprised though if both of them have all the processes in place soon for any idea people want to pursue down there. Or here on the station as well.”

“What’s needed on the station?” he asked, looking puzzled.

Trip popped up.

“There’s several hotels, plenty of business types we don’t have setting up yet, and things like the station trolley service. Whoever runs that will cover all the ship stations as well, with their own rifts between them.”

“You maybe need to post a list of opportunities people can invest in.”

“The station bulletin board and nets will be up shortly, and everything this type of station normally has and currently doesn’t will be listed there. I’ll ping everyone when it’s available.”

“Good. You might find some of our other people might be interested in investing here, once they know the options available.”

And that had never occurred to me. Good thing it had to Pete.

“I don’t need to know,” I told them. “Just make sure no-one bites off more than they can chew, and if they need a silent partner, I can probably be persuaded if the plan is good. It’s going to take a long time before this station is more than a frontier one road town though, and people shouldn’t be building things which require a major population until we finally have one. If we ever do.”

“I think you might be surprised,” said Trip.

And maybe I would be, but not today.

Forty Two

I had to get Trip to shift the status screen.

It was on the wall opposite my desk, but that wall was quite a distance away now. Instead he set it up as a permanent pop up, like a wall on one side of my desk, with enough room to walk between the two easily. Of course, you could just walk through it if you had to.

“What’s Unblock doing?” I asked him.

I’d seen the system name change for the battlecruiser between the wall and the new position, and hadn’t recognised either of them.

“Doing a patrol along the Sector Nine Badlands corridor for Snark. It’s a several day contract for putting in an appearance near whatever is moving along there. The captain is using it as a training exercise. They’re pretending to do attack runs, while also not spooking anyone.”

That sounded unlikely, but whatever.

“What if we need them?”

“Snark allowed for that. The contract will pick back up after whatever action takes them away. And if necessary, it can be shifted to another ship.”

“Good. Once we’ve got more Unbounds, some of them could do the same thing. Probably better than using the battlecruisers. Especially there.”

“I think Snark is taking the opportunity of honing the task, in anticipation of us doing a lot more as we get more ships. All the ships he has are being used for convoy escorts as they get repaired. But my guess is, he’s coming to the end of his investment funds. Hence exploring how to get us to do the boring work, and how little he needs to pay for it.”

I chuckled.

“Probably right. Keep an eye on what’s going on there. Whoever the pirates are will likely get identified at some point, and if so, going after them might be a job for us.”

“We should get some more Camels made. They’re more than enough for going against a single destroyer, and Brook has me looking out for pirate ones threatening anyone. Once the smaller shipyard bays are operational, we could get the building licence for the Gunbus, and build more Camels. Maybe see about getting permission to build the actual Gunbus as well. They might sell in Gaia, since they’re basically old tech now.”

The Japanese were still using some of them there. It was, after all, where mine had come from. Even the original Camel upgrades might work there, from the version before adding the crystals. But we had access to Terran tech now, so a new Gunbus design with better Terran shields and power generation might work better, and still not violate the transfer of technology limitations.

“Talk to Uchawi, and whoever runs the shipyards in Hunter Prime. I would have thought they’d be building the Gunbus themselves, but they don’t, so maybe there’s a reason for that. Maybe talk to Jane as well, in case the design hasn’t been released to Gaia yet. In fact, just follow any such ideas up, and see where they go. All I want to know is what’s worth doing, and what it will cost.”

“Will do. The Knight Marshal will be here shortly. He’s coming in person to see to the rest of the building.”

“How much extra do I need to pay for bungalows?”

“I’m still waiting on a few to commit. It won’t be too many more. I think most of Pete’s shareholders want to go in on his tourist ideas, and as part of that, from the sound of it, they’ll build themselves a town somewhere. They want wilderness, not beaches.”

“Probably a good idea. All I need is the invoice for the extras.”

“You’ll get it.”

He walked out, and left me sitting at my oversized desk, feeling like a total fraud. I looked around the room again, and for the first time saw my Ralnor waistcoat hanging on a hook next to sidearms and a pulse rifle. It looked like Trip or someone had thought I might need to gear up from here. The waistcoat, probably, but I hadn’t worn a sidearm or picked up a pulse rifle for a while now.

Still, at least I didn’t have to put up with the ego wank display the military people did. That was something I was very glad to have left behind. If the waistcoat and sidearms was all I had to put up with, then that was a good trade.

I settled down to catching up with my mail properly. And the first thing I did was add White to the priority list, as paying attention to system, planet, and station matters was the downside of being a system owner. Having bought it, I needed to stay on top of it now, even if I didn’t want to know the details.

But it made me think about the company. Maybe I should be the landlord now, and let Elsa head the company? I’d just be a captain among many then. She ought to be an admiral now anyway, but to do that, they’d have to promote me to a general, and I didn’t want that. We’d need to address it though, sooner or later. Sooner if we added more ships to the fleet. I was aware there was a contradiction in my thinking, but, whatever.

Adding Camels could be done easily. Another six would simply fill the empty parks on the two other carriers. They either had or were going to get Cobras, I’d lost track and it was Pete’s concern anyway, but six corvettes each was the safe limit. Although with jumping out and back in, technically we could get ten in, if the ferries got their own dedicated… Actually, they didn’t need a carrier. They could dock at the station until needed somewhere.

So in theory, we could build a fleet of thirty Camels if we wanted to, ten per carrier. Something else to consider. But what the hell would we do with thirty Camels? Three could be replaced by an Unbound. Five of them could be replaced with another battlecruiser. And it wasn’t as if we had a shortage of those hulls either. Or a huge number of small warship targets to aim them at.

I sighed, put such things aside, and went on with processing the mail. White was sending me progress reports, and I quickly decided I wanted a summary of results, not ongoing reports. So I told Trip to intercept the reports, and only give me a summary when he deemed I needed to know something. The last thing I needed was to be buried in administration details. He said he would, and sent me one. I sighed again.

“Bureaucracy getting you down already?” asked Bud, and I jerked, and looked daggers at him. “Sorry. I need to make a noise when I arrive unexpectedly. But I keep forgetting.”

“Wear a fucking bell or something!” I exclaimed, and he laughed.

“And have court jester jokes thrown at me? No that won’t be happening. I’m here to get your colony started.”

“Did you get an updated list of where the houses are going?”

“Yes. No problems last night?”

He sat in one of the chairs opposite me.

“None. Everything worked properly, if that’s what you meant.”

“It was. How did it feel to be the only person on a whole planet?”

“That never occurred to me. I wasn’t alone though. Sprite decided to stay as well.”

“You’ll get a mage master through in the next day or so about the seeding of animals here. Some has already been done, particularly birds, but some decisions need to be made as well. You need to be involved in that.”

“I wouldn’t know the first thing about balancing an ecosystem.”

Especially one which had presumably started doing its own rebalancing after the animals all vanished.

“That’s not really the issue. I’ll let the mage coordinating for your planet explain it to you. The same one will also want to talk about farming, and accelerated crops.”

“That can all go to Trip and White. I’ve already said if anyone wants to do farming, they can. I get that as the regional hub here, I’ll need to backstop the colonies with whatever they need until they’re self-sufficient. That will mean fresh food as well. It won’t be me running such things though.”

“The mage will check in with you and Maya first, regardless. Now, any changes to what I was sent regarding the marine compound, resort, and residences?”

“Why would I know?”

He chuckled.

“Let’s see how long you can get away with that attitude, shall we? I think George has a pool going on you.”

“Why?”

“I think it keeps him amused. Anyway, Aisha just confirmed Trip had sent us the up to date specs. So if you’re ready for a colony, I’ll get on with it.”

How could anyone be ready for something like this?

“Does anyone actually say yes to that question?”

He laughed, then closed his eyes as if to show he was concentrating. Trip popped up, and screens came on showing parts of the planet. In what seemed like an absurdly short time, everything in the contract was visible on the screens. He kept on concentrating though, and I sat there waiting for him to finish. Finally, he did.

“I’ve put in the rifts joining this station to the resort and marine compound. There will be mages and a small army of butlers checking everything down there before you can move people in, but my guess is by mid-afternoon, everything will be declared ready. The people will come through your Haven office, and the butlers through a special rift from the station which fabricates them.”

“Are they staying?”

“The mages, no. The butlers, yes. The resort alone will need an army of them and maids.”

“I’ll expect the invoice then.”

“All included. The only extra is the additional houses.”

“You must have wanted someone like me doing this pretty badly to undercharge like you all have been.”

“Part of it was a test to see if you’d step up. Those of us with the incomes we have get added responsibilities. Believe me in the future, you’ll shoulder part of the burden we do now. Getting you started like this is just a courtesy. But now you’re here, it will be interesting to see what you do with both the system, and the responsibility to the colonies.”

“More pools?”

“Maybe. Anyway, you’re making a good start. When are you going to add those stars back on again?”

“No time soon.”

“You’ll be too big an outfit for just being a colonel soon. Some would say you are already.”

“They can say whatever they like. It doesn’t make it so.”

“True.” He rose. “Good luck with everything.”

“Thanks.”

He nodded and vanished. Trip walked in from the outer office, and his hollo and the screens vanished.

“When do I tell people their new homes are built?” he asked.

“When the teams have verified they’re ready for habitation, and the jump icons are ready for them. But tell Pete the marine compound is ready for him to look at. How are we going to run the resort?”

“It’s a copy of the one on Celeste. We’re getting some of their key people to set up the staff for it. White knows a fuzzball she recommends to run it, but that might step on the toes of the Celeste people. We’ve also had some interest from actual resort companies who’d like to bid on running it for us.”

“Let them bid, interview the fuzzball, and let the Celeste people get things started so our employees can beta test the facilities. We can make permanent decisions in a week or two.”

“Good enough. Just a reminder of lunch time. You’re using the executive mess here for the first time. Everyone is starting to arrive now.”

“Anything else I need to deal with right now?”

“Plenty for after lunch.”

“Oh, joy.”

Not if I could help it. Retail therapy awaited.

Forty Three

“Welcome to the executive mess.”

There were smiles and nods to that. All the primary shareholders and ship captains were here. So was White and Denny. The only one not here but should have been was Maya.

“I trust those of you not moving down to the planet are all moved in to your accommodation here?”

There were mostly nods, but a few shakes.

“If not, then by all means take the time this afternoon. Even if you’re sleeping on your ships, the station accommodation is still yours. If any of you have families, and want to relocate them here, by all means do so. The same applies to your people. If they need bigger quarters for them, or additional ones, just ask Trip and White to accommodate them.”

I saw expressions which seemed to confirm some had been wondering about that.

“If some of the families work elsewhere, and need rifts put in to get there quickly, get Maya involved. She’s still busy with the Ralnor situation, but our needs come first.” I turned to Trip. “Make sure she knows she’s eating here, will you?”

“Will do.”

“If anyone thinks we need a store or service here we don’t yet have, also tell Trip and White. We may be able to entice them here. Likewise business ideas people might want to invest in. We’re building a colony here that will be supporting other colonies in this region. So we’ll need to fill in the gaps one way or another.”

“No-one should feel any pressure to contribute though. If people want to invest, then great. If they don’t, that’s no problem at all. Now, the resort will be declared ready later this afternoon, and for the next few days we’ll need to beta test it. But it will probably take a few days for the people setting up the staff to get things functioning properly. If you get requested to spend a night there, please do. And let everyone know the beaches are open for use any time anyone is off duty. The pools and bars will follow as they can.”

Lots of smiles now.

“I’ve not been told how long our welcome lasts at Celeste, but I recommend we end staying there at the same time our own resort goes fully operational. At that time the ferry will be brought here anyway. If you have questions or suggestions about anything, address them to Trip and White. If you need help finding off fleet mission work, see Nade and Red. Some of you have been out there already, but all of you should be looking for any mission appropriate to your ship class. You get paid better if you find it and deal with it yourself.”

Now everyone was smiling.

“That applies to marine companies as well. If you find a mission which also needs ship and fighter support, just organize it through Trip, Nade, and Red. We’ll have a lot more Unbounds soon, so we can allocate fighters and ships as we need to for a mission. Their main purpose will be supporting the colonies here, but at least until we do a second build of them, it should be possible for some of them to be available for missions that suit that ship class. We’re a full service company, so look for whoever can use any of our services.”

“Any restrictions on where?” asked Darren.

“No. Most places along the spine, and anywhere in the League in fact, where a contract is being offered, or there’s a bounty on the ship or people. Anywhere in Ralnor space we monitor, or Sector Nine in Gaia. Hunter’s Run might also have some work available for jump ships, or whatever passes for a mercenary guild there might be worth joining and monitoring.”

“Just stay out of the ex-Imperium sectors?” asked Doug.

“If they’re offering a contract, and we’re acceptable to them, I don’t see any problem. But obviously we don’t want to go into those areas looking like an invasion force. So if battlecruisers or battleships are needed there, I guess Elsa and I need to know about it first.”

I looked around to see if there were any more questions, but no-one said anything.

“We better eat then, so we can all get on with whatever the afternoon has for us.”

“Oh, joy,” said Brook, sounding very like me.

Practically everyone laughed, including me. As far as I knew, she had shopping on her list of things for the afternoon, and I was planning on going with her.

If Trip let me.

Forty Four

“You better see this,” said Trip.

We were about half way through eating.

“It’s addressed to you, Lyla, but I think everyone needs to see it.”

“Who died?” asked Darren, taking in his expression.

He didn’t answer, but screens popped up so everyone could see one of them. The one I called middle-Admiral looked out at us, even though this was a video.

“General, we received news from Ralnor I thought you should know. This isn’t from the government, and it’s been routed through sectors adjacent to ours, but media reports have finally caught up to us since the direct coms to Ralnor were removed.”

He looked concerned more than anything.

“I believe your people say, ‘you called it’, or something like that. It seems that our situation has been repeated all across Ralnor space. In some places, the leaderships prevailed, and in others the corporate usurpers are now in control. Some sectors are as yet unaffected, but in others, full scale civil war is now raging.”

He paused for the impact to sink in, and certainly the expressions I could see ranged from nods of acceptance to surprise. I kept my face neutral. It was the worst possible news in one way, but vindication of what I’d been saying, and also good news for the future of the company.

“We’re reaching out to the friendly corporations and governments around us now, and expect to be passing contracts on to you shortly. For now, the five governments have decided not to expand our space any further, at least until you’ve finished the agreed upon border work. But others will be needing your help.”

He managed a smile.

“So I’ll offer you what I also believe are your words.”

I had an inkling of what was coming, and finally smiled myself.

“Saddle up!”

Lyla Cowan

will return in

Unreal.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to –Jeff- for the designs of Camel, Unseen, and the Excalibur Mark Four.

And Egosoft for the original cover background, from their game X4: Foundations.

A Message to my Readers

As so often happens, we’re now well beyond any original ideas I had for Lyla and her people. But there’s so much happening in the background, and Lyla is such a great way of looking at it all, that the series has to go on.

The Wonderland mission was covered in Soldiers of Fortune.

For the final answers about the Darkness history and how it impacted the new lower spine and Long Bar region, read the Dragon Host series.

If you’ve enjoyed this book, I hope you will take the time to leave a review on the Amazon site. All reviews are greatly appreciated, as they help assist purchasing decisions by other readers.

Sales and reviews help me to focus on my next challenge. I'm a full time novel writer and as such, sales and KU reads pay my bills, and my ability to continue writing is dependent on sales of this series, and what comes after.

As well as individual book reviews, I hope you will visit the Amazon series page, and leave a series review. The series page can be accessed from any book page.

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Also by Timothy Ellis

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Read the universe in this order

The Hunter Imperium Timeline

The Hunter Imperium Universe Series in the order written:

The Hunter Legacy

A.I. Destiny

The Spacemage Chronicle

The Hunter Imperium / Imperium Spacemage

Destiny’s Timemage

Old Magic

Imperium Galactic

Dragon Host

Killer Bunny

Unbound Mercs