10 - Maxon (draft)

Maxon

Something went wrong. Or horribly right. Maxon wasn’t sure, because his ears wouldn’t stop ringing and the elevator shaft was suddenly far brighter than it was two minutes earlier.

The trio had positioned themselves a healthy distance away from the blockage and detonated the explosive. Given the amount of time it had taken Ellis to carve out the meager opening, the expectation was a muffled roar, followed by another round of cutting and sweating and cursing. Instead, the entirety of the elevator and a fair chunk of the exterior disappeared in an ear-shattering blast. It was impossibly loud for a single charge of such dubious origins.

“You cockstained wretch!” Wheeler yelled at no one in particular. To Veciennes, she demanded, “How’s it look?”

“Bad. You’ve attracted quite a bit of attention. The smoke is visible well into the Iris. There are two drones heading your way and a skiff catching up. Scanners are picking up half a dozen locals. Assume they’re armed.”

“How much time do we have before our friends arrive?”

“Not enough to get back to the Supersoul, I’m afraid. Twenty minutes for the drones, another ten to fifteen for the skiff, tops.”

Even at their fastest clip, the trio were at least two times that from the derelict craft’s makeshift entrance, Maxon thought. And rappelling full-bore down would likely result in the three of them in a broken pile. Too many obstructions, too many places where twisted metal would cut flesh. They’d join the rest of the bodies scattered throughout the ship.

“Captain?” Maxon asked.

“Talk it out,” she admonished. “The second we take down a drone, this place will light up even more than now. We could pick off the welcoming party if they split up once inside the ship, but let’s assume they’re on comms and that they’re smarter than that. They’ll leave a handful outside the door, just in case. Might send them searching for the skiff, which I can guarantee they’ll find. We hid it from long range sensors, not nosy locals.”

“They’d keep the drones around too,” Maxon continued.

“Can we hack them?” Ellis asked.

Veciennes answered, “I can try, but I can’t guarantee success. Not from this distance, not without knowing their security.”

Wheeler: “Give it a go. Back out the minute you think they’ve caught on. I want their eyes on us, not the Supersoul.”

“Acknowledged.”

To Maxon and Ellis, she asked, “Give me options.”

Maxon eyed the new opening in the side of the ship. “We can’t leave with nothing, Captain. Not after all this effort. I say we get to the other side. Hopefully the hull won’t be as damaged and we won’t be as exposed.”

Ellis grunted in agreement. “We’re too open right now.” He pointed to the distance, where the drones were coming into focus. They were on a direct course to the newly opened hole in the hull.

“Let’s move,” Wheeler said, motioning for Maxon to take the lead and Ellis following. She went last. She always did. “What’s beyond the med lab?”

“Medical staff quarters, surgery theater,” Ellis said, ducking his head to make his way through the blast opening. “I know these ships. I got a thing for history. They liked to keep the sick quarantined and the science close at hand. One way in, one way out, although that does mean they also have their own escape pods. They’d be ever further past. If they launched any, the bulkhead would’ve been sealed but as long as it’s just a door and nothing like the mess we just dealt with I can make short work of it.”

Maxon had a thought as he crawled out of the ruined elevator. “Are there any left? Any chance we can use those?”

“It’s likely we’ll find one. Problem is, there’s no juice on this boat. No way to trigger it.” Ellis replied.

Maxon took stock of the med lab. The hull was badly dented, but it looked to be from the initial crash and not Ellis’ detonation. Good. Provided the drones were on the larger side – and given the distance to travel, it seemed most likely – they wouldn’t be able to make their way through the jagged hole. They could still scan from outside the lab but probably wouldn’t be able to hit the whole room. Plenty of spots to hide.

Inside the lab, everything closest to the elevator door was blackened and ruined, including the various bones of the former medical crew. Whatever happened involved more than just their one explosive. Remnants of past attempts to get through? Had the crew in their final moments booby trapped the room? It seemed excessive, but then again, so did the damage they just caused.

The rest, however, was near-pristine. There were at least two skiff loads of salvage. No, this was more than salvage. This was wealth. He spied scanners, monitors, replicators, actual medicine. And past this room was more to be had. He was sure of it. Despite the approaching group, Maxon felt good. This was the score of a lifetime. Provided they lived.

Wheeler joined them. “We could set a trap. How we fixed on explosives?”

“Four left, Captain,” Ellis said.

“They all as dramatic as the last one?”

“I was as surprised as you were, captain,” Ellis stammered.

“Will you take a look at this!” Maxon said, distracted. He was poking through one of the storage lockers. It held bags of plasma. Dozens of them, all untouched. The sale of those alone would fix the cargo hold. Maybe also net them something tastier than nutri-tabs. Maxon couldn’t remember the last time he had synthesized food.

“Give me a minute to get us out of this mess. Ellis, you’re the Imperial warship expert. How many escape pods?”

“Something this size? For the medical staff I’d say maybe half a dozen four person pods, plus no more than two larger pods for transporting the sick worth saving. The Dzengharians weren’t too keen on mercy. If you were too far gone, you went down with the ship.” He started to wander over to one of the other supply cabinets.

Without warning, the captain grabbed Ellis by the arm. “Listen up, Ellis. You’re a trade and I don’t know you like I know Kongh.”

“Sir?” Ellis replied, confused.

“He’s crew and he’s family. You? You’re hired muscle at best.”

“I don’t know where you’re going with this, Captain,” Ellis said. He tried to jerk away but Wheeler’s grip was firm.

Maxon, not knowing where this was headed either, placed his hand on top of his blaster.

“I had half a mind to use you as bait. Crippled you, tie a charger to your back, detonate it when you got caught.”

“For fuck’s sake!” Ellis protested. He looked at Maxon, who shrugged. It was a good plan, and not particularly uncommon for pirates.

“Had,” Wheeler stressed. “You may not be Kongh but you’ve done right by us. I want you to know where I stood and where I stand. You’ve earned your share.” She released the Bellzatorian, who backed away warily. “All the same, you’re still not crew. You move against us, I’ll cut you down. Understood?”

“Yessir,” Ellis nodded. “I won’t disrespect you and yours. I’ve seen how good you have it and I don’t intend on messing with that. I step sideways without your approval, I get what’s coming to me.”

Wheeler nodded. “You’re good people, Ellis. Now you and Maxon check the next room and see what else we’ve got. Hopefully VC’s making progress with the drones.”

As if on cue, the Augment chimed in through the comms. “Success, Captain. Looks like they got lax with security protocols. I’ve got control of both drones. Not total but more than enough.”

“Good work, VC. Have them scan the blast site and report two dead scavengers. Blown apart from a shit detonator.”

“Unfortunately, Captain, if I report dead scavengers, they’ll expect to see some. I can’t disconnect the live feed. There are still eyes on us. At best I can make sure they see only what we want them to see.”

“Can you mask heat signatures?”

A pause. “That can be managed.”

“Maxon, give me those bags of plasma.”

“All of them?” That was a lot of money. A lot of a lot.

“All of them.”

“Captain?” Ellis asked.

Wheeler smiled. “How long can you hold your breath?”

####

The art of holding one’s breath is commonplace amongst pirates. Sneaking up on someone was far more effective when silent. And it was a matter of fact that even on the best maintained ship, things broke. On ones that had only nominal care, things went sideways more frequently, including the machines that governed the air, so learning to regulate oxygen intake was not only a good skill but an essential one.

Playing dead, however, was another story. The easiest and best way to do that was to hide under an actual pile of bodies and hope the blood and gore and general stench of death deterred anyone from poking deeper. But that wasn’t so much playing dead as simply concealing yourself.

So for Maxon and Ellis, the problem was lying in a manner that suggested they were tossed across the room, immediately bloodied and broken, without looking like two pirates laying on the ground, covered in half century old, semi-congealed plasma, and just holding their breath.

“For fuck’s sake,” Wheeler said to Maxon and Ellis, “you two look you’re just taking a rest. I need you bent.”

“I can only bend so much,” Maxon complained. There had to be a better way.

“Drones in one minute, Captain,” Veciennes said. While she had control of the drones, she had to give the impression they were still under someone else’s.

“Okay,” Wheeler said, “Maxon, you lay against the wall. Ellis, you lay crosswise on top of him, face down.”

They complied and Wheeler poured the last of the plasma over their faces. Better to conceal identities. And the rank stench gave extra reason to not breathe. Does plasma expire? Maxon wondered. What about the other medicine? If they escaped, was it just going to be with more broken stuff?

“Good. Hold your positions,” she admonished and crept back through the med lab and into the surgery theater. If this trick worked, there’d be little reason to send the drones further into the ship. The scouting party was another story.

It was difficult with the large Bellzatorian crushing his stomach with his weight, but Maxon did his best to remain still while Veciennes counted down the seconds until the drones did their scan and left. Only before they breached the derelict ship that he realized he was still actively looking for them. He steeled himself to keep his eyes vacant.

Don’t flinch, he admonished himself as the drones peered into the elevator shaft, their scanners illuminating the shadows, casting a green light over the twisted remains of the blast site.

The light crept up Maxon’s and Ellis’ bodies. A large goop of plasma was caught in Maxon’s eyelash, teasing his reflexes. His eye watered under the strain of not blinking.

The scanner came up to his chest.

Ellis twitched.

It could have been just a minor involuntary muscle spasm but for Maxon, it seemed like Ellis had been jolted by electroshock. He wanted to do something, say something, but the scanning light was now covering his face.

“VC, hurry it up,” Wheeler whispered.

Yes, please, Maxon thought. It was getting difficult not to exhale. Another glob of plasma spilled into his mouth. It tasted sour and sharp and foul.

“Scan complete,” Veciennes said. “You were pro. Transmitted images showed two dead bodies.”

“Get those damn things out of here,” Maxon said, doing his best to squirm out from under Ellis, who was massaging his arm and looking like he was going over all the ways his day could have gone better.

Veciennes said, “On it. Command has requested the drones scan the area for craft, so I’ll lead them off. I can keep them away from our skiff as long as I can but theirs has just arrived. They’ve got three on the ground, and three have just entered through the same hatch as you. I’ll keep an eye on the exterior group but you’re on your own with the trio heading your way. Sorry, Captain. Not a lot else I can do without drawing attention to the Supersoul. The good news is the ruse seems to have worked. No other forces are headed this way.”

“You’ve done well enough, VC. We’ve got about an hour until they get to us. That might even be enough time to figure out how we’re getting out of here alive.”

To Maxon and Ellis: “Talk it out. What are our next steps?”

“We don’t want noise,” Maxon offered, mopping himself off as best he could. “They think there are two pirates and they’re both dead.”

“Would they come up this far for a couple of bodies?” Ellis asked.

“It’s possible,” Wheeler answered. “Either because they need to confirm what the drones saw or because they’re curious about a part of the ship that has been closed off and unknown. Who knows, they may be looking for something to sell. They may be fanatics but that doesn’t mean they’re not opportunistic.”

“Let them get up here and take them out?” Maxon suggested.

“If they have open comms with the group outside, that’ll bring the rest of the continent over here. You were right the first time. No noise.”

“The escape pods. If they’ve been jettisoned, we could scale down the side of the ship.” Ellis said.

“Without our score?” Maxon gestured around him. “We can’t leave this. We can’t!”

“Maxon’s right,” Wheeler said. “I’m not willing to give this up. But I’d prefer to do it without a fight. I need better options.”

“Sorry Captain,” Veciennes crackled through the comms. “Looks like our new friends are good at finding skiffs. They’re ransacking it. Most of what you found has been tossed aside.”

“Most of that wasn’t worth our time or their effort,” Wheeler replied. “They’ve done us a solid. We have bigger and better to deal with. They fuck with the skiff?”

“Negative. It’s a safe bet they’re going to keep it. Even one as beat up as ours is worth something to someone.”

“The pods,” Ellis repeated. He was chewing on his moustache again.

“What about them?” Wheeler asked.

“I’m not sure. We can do something with them if they’re still there. I don’t know what.”

“Talk it out,” Wheeler said for the third time.

Ellis said, “If there’s an available pod, we can hide in it when the locals arrive. Might be they won’t come looking for us.”

“What if they’re wondering what happened to the two corpses?” Maxon countered.

Ellis frowned and chewed a little more. “We could load one up. I doubt the magnetic bolts are still intact, so we would just need to use the explosives to trigger a launch. Well, more like a kick and a drop than a launch.”

“Impact would be rough.” Wheeler said.

“We’d lose some stuff sure, but if it were packed tight, the loot would make it out mostly okay. Us too if we hitched a ride down.”

“That doesn’t help with the locals,” Maxon protested. “We’re attracting attention.”

“True,” Wheeler said, “but loading up an escape pod means we’re getting the goods out of the ship faster than if we were lug it down piecemeal. This is something. I don’t know if it’s what we need but it’s a start.”

She picked up an old handheld, the screen cracked and flaking pieces, and passed it back and forth in her hands, lost in thought.

“Maybe not existing pods. Maybe the ones that launched” she said, tossing the handheld aside. “If we have an open pod hatch and can get the Supersoul over here fast enough, we could get load up before the rest of the planet is up our ass. It could work.”

Ellis hurried towards the back of the med lab. “I’ll go check.”

“Maxon, you know the drill. Get me an inventory on what looks expensive, with a focus on portability.”

“On it.”

“See if you can find something to pack it all in too.” Wheeler pinged Veciennes. “What’s the range of their average fighter?”

“Planetary. They won’t chase us for long and they’re not going FTL. But there’s no accounting for who else is in town. Not sure what long-range ships are hanging about itching for a fight. We saw one already.”

“We’ll have to risk it. Start prepping for an emergency load ‘n’ go. You have a read on Statner? We need him back here. I need a distraction.”

####

Ellis was off by two. There were eight pods total. Half had ejected before the ship crashed and of the remaining, three were unused and one was sealed and stuck halfway out the launch tube. They pried the door open and discovered a quartet of Dzengharian medics, mummified from half a decade in an airtight container. Judging by their positions, it looked as if their necks snapped when the pod jammed. There were worse ways to die, Maxon thought, but better ways to be memorialized. The smell was not only unpleasant – arid yet musty, like overly spiced meat that had gone bad – but also had a way of lingering in the nostrils. Between that and the plasma, he wondered if he would ever smell something pleasant ever again.

Half an hour had passed since they burst open the elevator shaft. The three locals were still ascending the ship but they either lacked the proper tools or skills and were making slow, loud progress. According to Veciennes, the other three outside had thoroughly gone over the skiff and were sorting through the salvage, occasionally arguing over pieces of interest. The drones had patrolled the Iris but curiously were unable to make it to the spot where the Supersoul was hidden. So far, nobody had noticed there was still a large gray area on the surveillance map.

And then there were the spoils. There were five containers packed and ready to go, each one holding about a two years’ worth of earnings. Even after Statner’s cut, they wouldn’t have to worry about work for quite some time. And if they managed to parse out the merch at a slow clip, they could stretch it out even longer.

Provided, of course, they could get it off the ship.

“Statner’s on his way,” Veciennes piped in through the comms. “Just dropped out of FTL. Patching him through.”

“Captain Wheeler!” Statner boomed joyfully. He sounded like he had bumped into her on the street.

“Statner,” Wheeler replied flatly. “We’ve got the goods but we need you to provide some cover.”

“Absolutely!” he beamed. “I see what you’re up against and I’m thinking we can repeat my maneuvers at the Battle of Periscope Haze. You would not believe what had happened. The troops on the ground were under fire by Imperial forces and needed an immediate evac. Fortunately my squadron had just arrived, much like just now, irony of ironies-“

“I’m sure it was magnificent,” Wheeler interrupted, “but we’re pressed for time. We’ve got twenty minutes to load up the Supersoul. The minute she heads our way, we’re going to have company, and we can’t get this done if the locals are shooting at us. Veciennes, get here as soon as you can. I need you downward from our location with the cargo bay open.”

“On my way, Captain. And just as you said, I’ve already been spotted. Looks like the same group of three that greeted us is headed our way. And much faster than the drones.”

“Heading planet-side,” Statner said and signed off. Maxon caught a whiff of dejection in his voice. He must have really wanted to tell that story.

“VC, those drones armed?”

“Light weaponry, nothing that can go against a star craft.”

“But it’s good enough to get rid of our three friends outside the ship. Do that.”

“Consider it done.”

“And clean out the decorations while you’re at it. We’re not coming back here, so we might as well give them something to remember us by.” To Ellis, she said, “Get one of your chargers and toss it down the ship. No sense in having them interrupt us. Then get back here and provide cover.”

“Yessir,” the Bellzatorian said as he lumbered off, fiddling with one of the remaining four devices.

“What happened to no violence?” Maxon said.

“We exhausted all the other options,” was the reply. It didn’t sound entirely convincing. “You and I are on loading duty. You think you can shoot the climbing cables into the bay? We’re going to need ziplines. At least two.”

“I think I can manage,” Maxon replied.

Behind them, a massive explosion and a slight shift in the ship’s position.

“Those chargers…” Maxon muttered.

Wheeler responded with a grim smile. “He must’ve been in a bad mood when he slapped them together. Or he’s just terrible at making them.”

“Captain,” Veciennes said, “There in two. Drones have taken out the guards out front and there’s not much left of their shrine. I set them to guard the entrance so if anyone else tries to come in, they’ll have trouble. But we’ve got fighters in less than ten. Statner?”

“I see them and should intercept in time. They have eyes on me?”

“One’s peeling off,” Veciennes replied. “The merc ship.”

“Someone’s sore about our last meet-up. He’ll be in worse shape when I’m done with him! Ha!”

“Don’t get too caught up with him,” Wheeler said. “The two on the Supersoul are the priority.”

“Bah!” Statner responded. “This is nothing. You’ll have clear skies in no time.”

From the closest exposed pod hatch, Maxon saw the Arkon scream past the larger of the three ships and do a barrel roll towards the two smaller ones that were coming up fast on Veciennes. The merc fighter’s tail caught fire and it jerked sideways as if shoved before plummeting downward in flames.

Like the Supersoul, the Arkon was a deep space cargo vessel, and yet Statner handled it like it was no bigger than the two planetary fighters it was up against. The wake of this ship pummeled the two fighters, causing them to almost collide. Maxon was impressed with the blasé recklessness. The other pilots must have thought differently as they pivoted away from the Supersoul and went after the Arkon.

“They took the bait,” Statner said, “but I see reinforcements are on the way.”

Veciennes agreed, “Three more just launched. Time is short. Captain, I’m in position. You good to load?”

Wheeler motioned Maxon over to the second opened pod hatch. The Supersoul hovered precipitously below the ruined warship, its cargo bay facing upwards towards Wheeler and crew. Gravity and wind were playing hell with the ship’s stabilizers, but it was almost still enough. Almost.

Maxon loaded the first climbing cable into its firing mechanism and aimed at the center of bay. If he was lucky enough, the magnetic bolt would strike the far wall and leave enough cable to create the zipline between the two ships. If not, there were two others left.

Kongh would’ve been much better at this, Maxon thought. While he grew up with firearms, his more recent experiences with them had been limited to threatening poses and a couple of skirmishes where he was firing blindly from behind cover. Kongh was the sort where the gun was an extension of his body. He would’ve nailed both shots already.

But Kongh was with Statner, most likely manning the blast turret that just took out one of the two original fighters. From the distance, he heard the approaching engines of reinforcements. It sounded like a lot of them.

Now or never, he said to himself and squeezed the trigger.

The climbing cable shot out in a graceful arc towards the Supersoul. Maxon kept an eye on the length of cable beside him, watching it rapidly dwindle as the bolt careened towards the cargo bay.

There’s not enough. We’re too short.

Faintly audible: the satisfying thunk of the bolt securing itself. It was enough, just barely.

“Captain!” Maxon shouted as he affixed the other end of the cable to the hull. “We’re attached!”

“Good,” Wheeler replied. “Launch another one. Ellis, get ready to transfer to the Supersoul.”

“Sir?” Ellis asked.

“You heard me. We need muscle to unload. You’re it. Clip yourself in and take a ride once the second cable’s all set. Try not to blow anything up.”

Ellis opened his mouth, then abruptly shut it.

Whatever he had to say didn’t matter. Maxon loaded the next cable. They all had to get off the ship somehow. He wasn’t looking forward to it either.

“We’ve got ten minutes, Captain, until reinforcements are here. They show no inclination to go after the Arkon,” Veciennes said.

“Quit fucking around, Maxon,” Wheeler said as she pushed the first of the cargo towards the zipline. “You heard VC.”

“Right,” Maxon agreed. He was just as lucky with his second shot. They were good to go. He started prepping the second zipline.

“This is definitely the stupidest idea in a day full of them,” Ellis muttered as he clipped himself to the zipline, stepped off the derelict ruin, and raced down towards the Supersoul.

Wheeler wasted no time in shunting the first container. It raced after Ellis, who managed to disconnect and roll to the side of the zipline before it crashed into him. He shot Wheeler a glare and then offloaded the crate.

“He’s good,” Wheeler said. “I may even miss him after this.”

“I wouldn’t mind him on the crew,” Maxon agreed as he pushed his container off. Unlike Wheeler, he opted to confirm Ellis was ready.

“You’re just tired of being last-on,” Wheeler said while sweating with the third container. It must’ve been the one with the replicators. “Give me a hand with this.”

“Could we handle a fifth?”

“Maybe,” she answered while affixing the carabiner. “But we’re trying to go legit. Not sure what’s out there for the good and proper and I’m not eager to take on another hungry mouth while waiting on something that may not exist.”

In the distance, another explosion.

“That’ll do, that’ll do,” Statner crackled through the comms, obviously pleased with himself. “Heading back to clean up your new mess.” The Arkon’s engines squealed and roared as it did another improbable turn.

“He’s good too,” Wheeler said, “But if I have to listen to his self-aggrandizing nonsense one more time, it’ll be too soon.” The fourth container whistled down the line.

The derelict ship lurched. Something had come unmoored with Ellis’ last detonation and with it was the climbing cable currently in use. It careened off the side and dangled from the open cargo bay of the Supersoul. The container plummeted to the ground.

“Captain?” Maxon asked.

“Let’s pick up the hustle.” She pinged Veciennes. “We’re out of time. Coming in hot with the last container.”

“Hotter still. We’ve got company.”

While Statner had again engaged the enemy and drawn the brunt of them away from the Supersoul, one was trying to get in a position where they could hit the Supersoul without damaging their religious icon. The proximity and turbulence weren’t making it easy, nor was the Supersoul’s automated defense systems kicking in. The ship’s rail gun began firing, but there was only one, ammo was low going into the job, and the targeting mechanism hadn’t worked in years. It was less cover than a blind hail of bullets.  

Indiscriminately so. A round hammered the hull above their heads. Maxon instinctively hit the ground, covering his head from the sparks and shrapnel. Wheeler ignored the fray and hitched the last container to the remaining zipline.

“Maxon, climb aboard. You’re going with the cargo.”

The Supersoul hit the enemy ship with a spray of bullets. It peeled off after firing in return. The Supersoul rocked with the impact and Maxon heard the zipline creak in protest.

“Captain,” Veciennes, “We get hit again and we won’t be able to make it off the planet without suffocating. We’ve over quota with holes.”

“Hang on, folks,” Statner piped up. “I’ve got this.” There was another explosion in the distance and the remains of another fighter fell from the sky. The Arkon strafed the fighter closest to them, which in turn backed away to get a better shot at Statner.

“I’m going with?”

“Think of it this way, if you get injured, we finally have the equipment to patch you up. Get up there and hang on.”

Maxon found himself 100% in agreement with Ellis. This was a world beater in stupidity. He climbed on top of the container, hooked himself to it, and shut his eyes as Wheeler pushed it over the edge. The world paused for a second, and then he found himself screaming as he careened towards the Supersoul.

9 - Dozier (draft)

Dozier

Consciousness came on like the tide, slowly flowing in from the darkness and then retreating. He was awake, then he wasn’t. There was a hush of mumbled voices, then silence.

If he spoke, it was in whispers not even heard by him.

He knew he was becoming… present. With each wave, it took less effort to hold onto that feeling of being in the now. But he felt the pull back into nothingness. It was comforting.

“He’s coming to.” A voice. Male. Unknown.

Dozier, fighting off a sleep so deep he wondered if he had died, wondered who they were referring. Then he realized they were speaking about him. He was coming to.

He had been gone. He had been out. There was a sense of misplaced time, as if he could tell that he had aged without warning. Time was a fluid definition in an age of space travel and lunar cycles and planetary days, but even so, Dozier knew he was older now than when he was last awake.

How long? He wondered. By what measure? A day? What kind of day, Eres or Imperial?

His limbs felt leaden from unuse.

Or was it more than that? A week? A year?

“Senator Dozier, can you hear me?”

I can hear you, he tried to say but it was a croak. His throat was so dry. He lifted his right arm – by Eres mercy it was heavy – and made what he thought was a thumbs up gesture. Everything felt foreign, as if during his slumber they replaced his body and haphazardly dumped his mind into it. Here, have at it.

“Can you try opening your eyes?”

Good question. Could he? He thought about it and gave it a go. He could.

The light above him was bright and sterile. He blinked cautiously – what were the odds the act would send him back into the depths? – and looked around. The room was bright and sterile. A hospital room. Complete with a doctor and a nurse, both looking over him with concern.

“How are you feeling?” the doctor asked, handing him a cup of water.

Dozier sipped the water and marveled at how rapidly it coated his parched throat. He felt it spread through his body like a magic elixir.

Water, he thought. Go figure. The one thing Eres had in abundance, even in the leanest years.

“I am in a hospital,” he croaked. “Why?” He struggled to sit up but quickly gave up.

The nurse leaned over and raised the back of the bed, bringing Dozier into an upright position while the doctor spoke. “You’ve fine now, but I have to admit it had been touch and go at the beginning. You were poisoned.”

“Poisoned.” The word seemed to hang in the air, awaiting definition.

The doctor nodded. “You collapsed right before the opening ceremonies.”

Said: You collapsed.

Unsaid: You missed the Grand Realignment.

“Everything was cancelled,” the doctor continued, as if she had read his mind. “although Minister Freeman carried on in your stead in a more private, secure setting. I watched the vid-clips. You should be proud. There wasn’t a dignitary who didn’t praise you to the heavens. All things considered, it went off without a hitch.”

Apart from me being poisoned, Dozier thought. Apart from that.

“Do they know who?”

“There’s an ongoing investigation that your security detail can brief you on. They’re on their way. My responsibility was bringing you back from the dead.”

“How… dead?”

The doctor considered the question. After a moment, she said, “Had this happened a month ago, we might not be talking. It was an unknown poison that required off world medicine. We were not equipped to deal with it on our own. In a sense, you saved your own life.”

Congratulations? Dozier thought. He tried to cut through the fog in his mind to recall what led to him waking up sickly and confused in an Eres hospital. If he even was still on Eres.

“There were others,” he said. “I had been notified by security that there was an issue.”

The nurse checked Dozier’s vitals while the doctor replied, “Yes. Forty-nine other cases. We managed to save a few but quite a number didn’t make it.”

“Fifty victims,” he said. One for each year of independence from the Empire, he thought. “How?”

“Again, I’ll let your security detail answer that. I’m not privy to that information.”

“I had a meat pie,” Dozier said, the words catching in his throat. “And some of that wretched Bellzator mold.”

The doctor chuckled. “Neither of those were the culprit. But I have to say, you’re brave if you had S’inghah. The smell alone…” She mock shuddered.

A knock at the door and Dozier’s team crowded into the room. The doctor nodded curtly and left with her assistant.

####

There were scores of excuses but little to work with. Whomever poisoned Dozier was a professional. While his collapse had stopped the event, there were no witnesses to the crime itself. The citadel was crowded enough that everyone and no one were suspicious. And not a single system escaped unscathed. At least one representative per was either dead within hours or in a condition similar to Dozier’s.

The only evidence had been in Dozier’s system, and medicine had flushed it away.

“What do we know?” Dozier asked Jordan. Again. With each iteration, he found it more believable, but he was still confused as to how it involved him directly. He was trying to bring the galaxy back together. Why him? Who was so opposed to progress? Whitman would have had suggestions, but he had been whisked off to a secure, undisclosed location.

“The base materials are off-world but they’re common enough to be found on most terraformed planet.”

“So even Eres II?”

“It’s possible. Provided Eres II has all the components.”

“Which they don’t?” The team had informed Dozier that not only had he been out for five Eres days but had been transported to the military hospital orbiting the planet.

“It’s a large planet, sir.”

“Surely there are leads.” He was appalled that so little had been discovered.

“It’s an even larger galaxy,” Jordan replied apologetically. “Minister Freeman has allocated all available resources and the Eres government is coordinating with the other systems.”

“All of them?”

“Most of them.”

“Who’s not on board? I understand that not everyone was pleased with what they got in the Grand Realignment but to the point where they won’t support a criminal investigation?”

Jordan shifted his position. “It’s political.”

“Political?” Dozier had a suspicion as to what was coming next.

“There is talk from some that this was orchestrated.” He paused. “By Eres. By you.”

Dozier sighed. “Theater for the event? A last-minute act to push Eres to the forefront of the Alignment?” It was a rhetorical question. While still wondering how and why he got poisoned, he understood the implications. Almost dying for the cause made good theater. But who would think that was a rational political maneuver? Especially when Eres had gained so much already?

“Correct, sir.”

“Which systems? I want a list.”

Jordan passed over his handheld. “Already prepared sir. There’s also a breakdown of support by system - who’s legitimately helping, who’s stonewalling. I can also provide current polling numbers, although you shouldn’t be concerned. The support for the Grand Realignment has never been higher. People are already seeing the benefits.”

“I’m not surprised but I am pleased. I’d like to see an analysis of how that’s playing out. What are the current gains and losses? What are the projections for the remainder of the fiscal year.”

“We’re working on that as well, sir. I can tell you that the grain shortages in Eres has almost been cut in half. If they can sustain the tonnage, we may be set for the rest of the year. We have Rhomalax to thank for that.”

Dozier shifted in his bed. He really needed to get up but was still concerned about how well he’d fare. The poison – cobbled together from the biowaste found in the massive terraformers and commonly found flora – struck his nervous system like a cruise missile. And whoever was responsible bound their concoction with a liberal amount of opioids. Dozier had been far too comfortable when his body shut down. No pain, just oblivion. He was still struggling to shake off the effects. The last thing he wanted to do was collapse in front of his staff. Best to be stoic in a hospital bed.

“Anything else I need to be concerned about?”

“A few systems are again voicing the need for a centralized military force to protect the trade routes. They are trying to use your assassination attempt as leverage.”

“They being?”

“Caladrone, Bellzator, Trillox primarily. They feel the current agreement of financial support for local jurisdictions is inadequate given what happened.”

“They feel we’re all going to be poisoned? There are a lot of people involved. It’s going to take some time,” Dozier quipped.

“Their argument is if you can be reached so easily, how safe are the trade routes? The piracy guild is still a force. The system warlords are still out there.”

“We had accounted for those. The warlords remain a concern, true, but as the Realignment pushes forward and we offer amnesty and employment to those pirates willing to make good, they will be less and less a worry. We’ve already seen this in motion.”

“True, sir, but there is still concern. All it takes is one critical strike.”

“The systems still have the capacity to escort the trade ships, correct? We haven’t lost our resources in the past five days, have we?”

“We have not, and we have not had any incidents.”

“Then this ask for a galactic navy will ultimately be unnecessary. What are the other systems saying?”

“They’re noncommittal. My guess is they are adopting a ‘Wait and see’ policy.”

Wait and see. Dozier should’ve have guessed. From the beginning of his crusade to create a new era of galactic prosperity, it was the default reaction. Every government was eager to reap the rewards but unwilling to be the first foot forward. Even the most basic of arguments had been met with hesitation.

Your system is starving to death. Join the Grand Realignment and we will help bring you back from ruin.

We’re going to wait and see what happens to the other systems first.

“Calladrone and the others – have they offered any suggestions as to who ‘owns’ this navy?”

“They have not.”

“So they want a navy but they don’t want the responsibility of maintaining it?”

“It would appear so, sir.”

“Or are they hoping someone would nominate them and spare them the embarrassment of asking for themselves?”

Jordan nodded. “That’s also a possibility. Calladrone and Bellzator in particular had the most stringent of demands.”

“But they were more concerned with their own sovereign independence. A centralized navy is counter intuitive. What do you think Trillox’ angle is?”

“Based on our intel, they have a genuine concern for safety. I would say their long-term goal is a restructuring of the galactic order.”

“A new empire.”

“Like Eres, they did benefit greatly from the Dzengharian Empire.”

“Speaking of which, what do they have to say?”

“They are, as always, just happy to be included. A seat at the table is more than enough for them.”

“We’re sure of this?”

“Completely. We have eyes and ears on them. Dzenghar understands their place in the galaxy.”

Dozier shifted his position yet again. He really needed to get out of this bed and get back to work. The thought of the Grand Realignment moving forward without him was tantamount to another poisoning. “We need to prove the futility of this ask. Summon the General Council.”

8 - Maxon

Maxon

Two hours in and it was clear to Maxon that this was a bust. The ruin of the derelict spacecraft was useless. Over the years, looters had had their way and what remained was junk better left where it lay. Components were either fried beyond recognition from the initial crash or oxidized by decades of being exposed to the weather. Scrape off the rust and crud and scoring and there’d be nothing left.

But they were there, and Wheeler refused to leave empty handed. There were parts that could be bastardized into the Supersoul, she reasoned, and scrappers would buy whatever looked even slightly decent. Load it on the ship and get to polishing, she ordered. Maxon acquiesced, but he thought whatever was patched onto the ship wouldn’t be much of an improvement and most of the black markets would laugh themselves silly at the paltry collection of junk they’ve wasted time gussying up.

This was almost as bad as the planet he left. Scuttling around the ruins of somebody else’s war, scratching out a piss-poor living with junk. At least back home he didn’t have to plummet from the sky and get shot at first.

Knock that off, he told himself as he pried open another access panel and poked around inside. There was always the risk of coming up empty. Big risk, big reward was the game. And sometimes the payoff was nil. Like these couplings, he thought. He tossed the panel aside, listening to it clatter as it bounced off walls. His comm buzzed – Wheeler was pissed there was fuck all on the ship, so she was pissed about just about everything, including when he was making noise when there were drones flying around outside – but it was what it was. Frustrating work made for foolish decisions, but as far as Maxon was concerned, the most frustrating decision was the one to come down to this miserable planet. He continued his climb.

By his calculations, Maxon was about three-quarters up of what remained of the ship. He was in the main passage, connecting the pulverized command center deep in the ground with the aft klicks above him. Given that the ship lodged itself at a near-perfect 90-degree angle, Maxon was ascending section by section via the magnetic climbing cable that he affixed to the damaged walls and wrecked traverse pods. His arms were beginning to tire, and he was all too aware that the higher he went, the less value he would find. Like most warships, the officers bunked at the bow and the enlisted were shunted to the ass end of the boat. It wasn’t likely that one of the non-ranking crew had squirreled away any treasure. Since he was starting to see daylight peeking through the jagged spires of the destroyed hull, he’d run out of cabins to search soon.

At least Veciennes had been silent since the salvage team touched down. So far, no signs of local trouble. To go through all this trouble only to face an armed and dangerous mob fueled by religious dogma might convince Maxon to go back home and live out his remaining days planetside. What was the point of being an almost-equal if there was nothing to share?

“Maxon, you find anything that you haven’t been able to drop?” Wheeler asked.

“Sorry for that, Captain, but there’s a whole bunch of nothing here. Everything under the surface was damaged one way. Up here it’s another. Looks like the engines took off most of end when they exploded. It’s a mess, and I’m running out of ship to search. I’ve been checking cabins for personal items but that’s a wash too.”

Wheeler sighed. “Roger that. Ellis found parts of the internal weapons system that may be of use. He’s loading the skiff. Keep checking but be ready to leave in less than 60 minutes.”

“Trouble?” Maxon asked.

“Not yet, but I’m running out of time to feel comfortable about this boondoggle. Any longer and we’d have officially wasted out time.”

“Sorry, Captain. This wasn’t what you wanted.”

“Nobody’s fault, Maxon, but thanks all the same. I think we’ve got enough to break even. Won’t go hungry anytime soon but I’d rather our bellies be a little fuller. Find what you can and get back to the skiff. We’re off this backwater shitheap as fast as we can.” She clicked off.

Maxon climbed another few meters, pausing at an elevator. The door had been blown outward with such force that the entryway curved. It looked like a grotesque mouth, Maxon thought. Based on the schematics Veciennes provided, this was most likely the elevator that led to the hangar and labs. He swung in and shined his light up and down the shaft. It looked clear towards the hangar, but the opposite end was blocked by what was presumably the elevator itself.

There were enough munitions in the hangar at the time of impact to blow a hole in the side of the ship. Worthless to even bother, Maxon decided, unless he wanted to take a good picture of the glass sea. But if access to the lab was blocked, this excursion might not be a total loss. He checked again. That was the elevator, he was sure of it, and it didn’t look like anyone had tried to cut through the base of the car.

Beats climbing, he thought as he slid into the elevator shaft and walked towards the obstruction. He pinged Wheeler: Lab may be intact. Checking it out.

####

The undercarriage of the elevator car was inundated with scratches and gouges. At one point in time, some intrepid scavenger had managed to cut a fist size hole. But whoever had tried to get through either gave up or was caught. Peering through the hole, Maxon decided the former. The force of the impact had crumpled the car. It looked like haphazard stacks of metal in there. Getting through one layer would only result in another.

But this could turn their fortunes around. Imperial medical equipment fetched a high price, almost regardless of quality. Maxon checked the schematic again and confirmed this part of the ship was the least damaged.

He opened a secure comm to the team. “Veciennes, I’m in the elevator shaft leading to the med lab. Can you tell me if there are any openings in the exterior at this location?”

Checking.”

Wheeler asked, “What are you thinking, Maxon?”

“This has been a ghost hunt so far, Captain, but we’ve been stepping on other footprints the whole time. People have tried to get here but the elevator’s blocked up pretty tight. If we had a day, we might be able cut through it. Could blow it open with explosives a lot quicker, but I figured you didn’t want the noise.”

“That’s affirmative. If popping it open with a bang was an option, somebody else would’ve done so already. And there’s too much activity outside already.”

“Maybe something bad in the lab itself we don’t want going up?”

“I’d like to think if that were the case, it would’ve dissipated by now. But if the lab is sealed, I wouldn’t bet on that. What do you have VC?”

“I’m not able to see any immediate access. Based on the drone activity, you wouldn’t have nearly enough time to cut through the hull.”

“Anything in there we don’t want to be breathing?”

“Doubtful. There’s nothing special about this ship. Standard battle cruiser, just another boat in the fleet. Nothing indicates they were fermenting poisons in their spare time.”

“So what do you say, Captain?” Maxon asked. “This could be what sets us right.”

“You don’t have to remind me. Ellis, what’s your take? You come from mining stock. Can you get us past?”

“Begging your pardon, sir, but I’m not comfortable making guesses on something I haven’t seen.”

“Indulge me.”

“This bird was built top shelf. I haven’t seen any cut corners in her design or structure. Elevator was probably reinforced a handful of times, so if it’s as crushed as the kid says, it’d take a good chunk of time to cut through. If we had the big digging tools, it’d be quicker, but we’d have to be on Bellzator for that to happen.”

“VC, we green?”

“For the moment, Captain Wheeler. Nothing and nobody on the radar.”

“And the drones – they running a consistent schedule?”

“Seems to be, yes. There should be another pass in about 30 minutes.”

“Okay. Sit tight, Maxon. Ellis and I are heading your way. Give us 15 to get to you.”

“Is that going to give us enough time to get out?” Maxon asked.

“We’re extending our stay. VC, I don’t care if it’s a stray animal running past, you let us know the minute we’re interrupted. Be prepared for a hasty retreat.”

####

Wheeler let loose one of the curses she picked up from Kongh. “You had to make this difficult,” she said.

“Earning my keep, boss.” Maxon replied. He knew that despite the obstacle, she was pleased. If luck stayed on their side, they’d be leaving much better off than how they arrived.

“Well, Ellis? Now you’re up close and personal. What do you think?”

Ellis, peering through the hole and poking around with a screwdriver, grunted in response. “This is flattened.” He knocked the undercarriage and listened. “Minimum air in there. They might as well have built a series of triple reinforced walls and welded them all shut on both sides.”

“How long to cut through?”

“Not on our timetable,” Ellis replied.

“So we blow a hole in it,” the captain responded.

“That we can do.” Ellis knocked on the undercarriage again and listened. “Thinking we drill another hole past this one and see if we have some space for a charge. If not, we keep drilling holes until we do. Best case we blow it out from the inside. That’ll give us room to pry through. Worst case we’re dropping the charge on the other side. Hope it won’t come to that. We’re awful close to the lab.”

“Then let’s hope for the best case. Let’s start cutting.”

####

The insurance trade with Statner worked in their favor – Ellis had a knack for cutting. He made shorter work than either Wheeler or Maxon would have. And yet it still took a painful amount of time. He was also right about the sorry state of the elevator car. It seemed like every hole led to another layer.

With Ellis insistent on earning his keep, Wheeler and Maxon were relegated to standing over him, on alert for any sign of company, watching the minutes tick past. They had been on the ship at least an hour longer than anticipated.

“You wretched whoreson,” Ellis muttered, peeling back another layer of metal and tossing it behind him. It was, by Maxon’s count, the fifth. He had busied himself imagining the various ways a standard rectangle could collapse in on itself, how many layers of obstruction it could create. More than five, easily.

“We closer to getting through or to wasting my time?” Wheeler asked. Whatever good cheer she had was gone. The longer they spent in the shaft, the more claustrophobic it became.

Ellis stretched his back. “We may have something. Looks like there’s enough of a gap to slip a charger in there. Might have to hammer it down a touch, which should dull the noise as well as do more damage. Whichever of you has the lighter touch can be my guest. I’m stepping back. Grace has never been in my skillset.” He held out his hands as if he were apologizing for their bulk.

“I’ll do it,” Maxon volunteered. “Just one charge?”

Ellis thought. “Two would definitely do it, but given the space we’re in we’d be making more of a noise than I’m guessing the captain would like. You get that charge deep enough, we should be able to pop a hole large enough to crawl through. Reach in through and you’ll find the gap. It’s to the left of the top.”

Maxon knelt and felt his way around. Ellis had a longer reach but Maxon was still able to find the spot. He grabbed an explosive from his pack and eased it into the space, getting it about halfway through before hitting resistance.

“It’s tight,” Maxon told the captain and Ellis. “I’ll give it a couple of knocks but I don’t want to force it too much.” The explosives were old and secondhand, possibly homemade. There was no guarantee they had the basic shielding of their more legitimate counterparts.

“Neither do I,” Wheeler responded, handing Maxon a hammer. “Treat it like you would your favorite grandparent.”

“Pretty sure I never bopped my Nona on the head, but I’ll do my best,” Maxon responded with a curt laugh. He was nervous, and that made him glib.

It was impossible to wield the hammer with his dominant hand, so he awkwardly twisted himself around and tapped the explosive. It shuffled a bit but was no deeper than before. Maxon shined his flashlight and peered into the hole. There was a visible scuff mark on the exposed side of the disc.

He reached in again and tried twisting the explosive. It rotated marginally, enough to move the damaged side out of range. He gave another couple taps, this time with more force. Reviewing his work, the explosive was lodged deeper, noticeably so, and boasted of a solid dent.

Maxon extracted himself from the work area. “It’s not all the way in, but the only way it’s going deeper is if I set it off. I’d rather not blow myself up, Captain.”

“It will have to do.” She pinged Veciennes. “We’re getting ready to detonate. Still clear out there?”

“Still clear. You’ve got at least 10 minutes before the next drone patrol.”

“Copy that. We’ll risk it and detonate now.” To Maxon and Ellis, she said, “Find safe cover. We’re making a hole.”

7 - Drazen (draft)

Drazen

The Valiant, or what had become of her, groaned. To Drazen, it sounded almost human, like dying cries. The thought pained him. He knew the ship better than he did anything else.

He knew that removing the majority of the shielding left it vulnerable to the Morass’ temperamental energy surges and gravitational pulls.

He knew that stripping the interior down to its skeleton left it even more defenseless.

He knew that jettisoning the engine core into the Morass was necessary. If it ignited, a ship that size would not only take out the Reach and the hidden armada but also might trigger the collapse of the nebulae. In a thousand millennia, they could name the protostar after his hubris.

He knew that it was like removing the ship’s heart.

And he knew it was an act of savagery, of desperation. There was no mercy in his decision. In a sense, it was worse than when he abandoned his family for this crusade. With his wife and child, he excised himself. Here he had to take stock of his decision.

What was removed from the Valiant had been used to stabilize the last few troublesome sections of the Reach. There were still issues – if he considered his command ship as her, the Reach had most decidedly become an it, and it had no qualms about protesting its existence. But it had come to learn its place.

And they were close.

But not close enough.

####

To journey to the near-center of the Morass, The Valiant had to run parallel to the Reach, so dangerously close that the crew opted to disabled the proximity sensors rather than hear their constant blaring. And The Valiant’s wake, even at the slowest speed, was strong enough to twist the Reach and cause more structural damage. A group of technicians were plugging holes in the third station. The number of honored crew from there was high enough to have them bolted around the mangled section like garland.

Drazen had fired all but three of his remaining probes deep into the Morass. Based on the returned numbers, the Valiant would land equidistant from the tip of the Reach and the hidden armada. Close enough to complete the handshake but not close enough to get on board the nearest ship.

“Check the handshake,” Drazen ordered. He was standing in the bridge, dressed in an exosuit. Despite not being grafted directly on the Reach, the Valiant was still generating enough power to disrupt the fragile balance. The last to go offline, even after environment, was the main display. Drazen had insisted they do whatever they could to keep it running. It offered visual confirmation of their prize – the Dzengharian armada. It was glorious.

“It’s holding,” Ensign Nelson confirmed. She was the only other person on the bridge. They had managed with thirty volunteers, including Drazen at the helm. To command a ship of the Valiant’s size with such a stripped-down crew should be eulogized. “Not very strong but we’re connected.”

“Can we maintain it?”

“If we can keep within acceptable power levels, I believe so.” She checked the console. “I’m seeing issues in Sector 7G of the Reach, sir. There’s a radiation spike.”

Drazen pinged the head engineer. “Sector 7G. Can we bypass it?”

“Looking into it, sir. We could conceivably shut down the Reach. Rebuild the connectors around 7G.” He paused.

“But?”

The engineer cleared his throat. “There’s a high probability that re-engaging the Reach would result in a massive power surge. Big enough to cause catastrophic damage. There’s no telling what would remain.”

“Understood. What can we do to manage the radiation spikes?”

“Honestly, sir, not much. If you want my honest opinion, we should get what we can and get the hell out of here. The Reach is a technological marvel, but we’ve been playing against the odds for too long. It’s not going to last much longer.”

“Define ‘much longer.’”

“Five days?”

Five days. Drazen looked at the blackened display. They were so close. He turned back to Nelson. “How close are we with bringing the armada online?”

She paused. “Not very. Their mainframes are still online, which is great, but so far we’ve only been able to ping them. They know we’re here and we know they’re there. But we’re so deep into the Morass that it’s impossible to remote into the ships.”

“Impossible.” He found himself unable to pose it as a question. It came out as a threat.

“Very unlikely,” Nelson countered nervously.

“The whole point of the Reach was to provide a link to the Armada so we can pull it out. Are you telling me we cannot do this? That a year’s worth of work was for nothing?”

The engineer said, “Sir, if we were at least a klick closer, I’d feel more confident. And even so, the Reach was theoretical. There was never any guarantee that this would-“

“If we got someone on board, would that help?”

The engineer paused. “Conceivably if we could get on board the closest ship, we could extend the handshake to that ship. But it’s not as simple as finding the on switch. These ships have been sealed tight for over-”

“I am fully aware of the complexities of battle cruisers. I just need to know if it’s doable.”

“We lack the ships.”

“We’ll use the shuttles.” There were two on board. Enough to transfer the crew to one of the capital ships.

“This far into the Morass, they wouldn’t make it. Not in their current condition. They lack the velocity.”

“Would they get close enough?”

The engineer paused again. “I’m not sure I understand what you’re suggesting. I’m not sure I want to know.”

To Ensign Nelson, Drazen asked, “What’s the closest ship in the armada?”

“Checking, sir. It’s a dreadnaught.”

“Pull all available schematics.”

“On it, sir.”

Drazen said the lead engineer, “If we can get a crew onboard, we can get the dreadnaught online. From there it’s a matter of spreading personnel to the other available ships and extending the handshake. But if we can only get close enough to the dreadnaught, will we be close enough to trigger its systems?”

“Conceivably, yes. It would depend on if we can bring the systems online from the shuttle. That’s still unknown. And how would we get the crew onboard?”

Drazen shrugged. “We will find a way.”

Nelson said, “Sir, schematics just sent.”

Drazen quickly reviewed them. The dreadnaught was a massive warship, build to be as effective in space combat as planetary bombardments. It boasted of six hangars, divided equally amongst the port and starboard. Based on probe data, the dreadnaught lay parallel to The Valiant.

“Ensign, how are your targeting skills?”

“What do you need, Admiral?”

“The starboard hangars. Given what we know of the ship’s position, can you hit one of them? Without taking the ship out? We need to open a hangar, not cleave it half.”

“Without proper visuals? Risky but doable. I’ll do my best, sir.”

“Do better than that, please.” Back to the engineer. “How can we increase velocity of the shuttle?”

“We can’t. They’re used up already. They can barely traverse the Reach.”

“If we cannot use the shuttles, I am ready to strap soldiers – engineers, even – to torpedoes and shoot them directly into the dreadnaught. Find me a solution.”

“I will try.”

“That’s a start. You have an hour.” Drazen shut off the comm and turned again to Ensign Nelson. “You’ve heard it all. What are your thoughts?”

“Begging your pardon, Admiral, but I don’t think I’m qualified to offer anything.”

 “We are in uncharted waters. The goal is for the good of Bellzator. Our part in this story can end at any time. What’s important is that we’ve mattered. Have we earned our place? We’ve done much, but I do not think we’re finished. So what are your thoughts?”

“We volunteered for this mission because we believe in the cause. We believe in you. But the engineer is right. The shuttles are trash. They were trash before the Reach and they’re still trash. You put a crew in one and hurtle it deeper into the Morass, they won’t reach the armada. You’ve just used up good people.”

“I appreciate your candor. Get me the number of torpedoes and exosuits. And a list of volunteers.”

6 - Maxon

Maxon

For Maxon, the three years aboard a pirate ship had dulled the excitement of seeing new planets. In his brief tenure as third almost-equal, he’d seen more than he thought possible. But most turned out to be the same – large, imposing orbs full of people who were either too busy scratching out a living to pay much mind to anyone else or too important to give a damn. Whether terraformed or naturally habitable, they were mostly interchangeable.

Iken IV was something else. The sky was red, impossibly so, and churned with a maelstrom of hues. Lightning crackled across like massive electrical currents set loose. It seemed less a terra class planet and more a gas giant. An angry, unforgiving gas giant. If the locals subscribed religious meaning to this, it couldn’t be good.

Veciennes called from the cockpit. “Captain, looks like the atmospheric show is going to give us some additional cover. Most of the satellites in our vector are weather trackers and they’ve got all eyes on the storms.”

“And Statner?” Wheeler, Maxon, and Ellis were strapped into the seats in the ready room. Per Wheeler, Ellis was not to be left unattended.

“True to his word, he’s dodging the missiles. Quite a number of them too. I have to say, I’m impressed.”

Ellis grunted. “Told ya.”

“What about aircraft? See anything yet or are they just throwing large, explosive sticks at our flyboy?”

“Just the missiles, Captain.”

“Very good. Bring us down quietly.”

“I’ll do my best, but it’s going to be bumpy. Ellis, let us know if this makes you homesick.”

As if on cue, the ship shuddered as it broke through the upper atmosphere. They had done rough weather landings before but never quite like this. The Supersoul buckled in the air, battered on all sides by severe winds. Maxon clenched his teeth and held tightly to his harness. Wheeler grimaced. Only Ellis was nonplussed.

“Yeah, it’s almost like being home,” he said. “Just like being on a Ring Station.”

“How are we looking, Veciennes?” Wheeler was trying to control her voice, but Maxon could tell she was enjoying the ride about as much as he was.

“Twenty minutes, Captain. Should clear up in half that. We’re almost through the worst of it.”

Something in the cargo became unmoored and crashed loudly, the noise reverberating through the ship. Hopefully nothing too important, Maxon thought. Or too messy. Even though Ellis was now technically the newb, he was temp and from another crew. He had no responsibilities apart from being a useful hostage.

The Arkon crackled through the comm. “Wheeler, they’ve either run out of missiles or got tired of them missing me. Looks like two craft are headed my way. Short ranger fighters by the looks of it. I can keep them occupied but there are more eyes out there than before. Be wary.” Engaging hostile local forces was more work than he expected. The braggadocio had left his voice.

“Acknowledged. Wheeler out.” She closed the connection to prevent anyone tracing them. “Suggestions?”

“Make a dash for it?” Maxon suggested.

“I don’t think we can make it down on our own without drawing attention,” Veciennes replied, “but we might be able to disguise our descent. If The Arkon can make it to the cluster of weather satellites we passed on the way down and take a couple out, we could match our descent with the debris. If he doesn’t destroy them outright.”

“That sounds less like we’re going to land and more like we’re going to free fall,” Maxon said.

“Correct,” Veciennes replied. “But at least it’ll make our current situation seem much more tranquil.” He couldn’t tell from where he was seated, but Maxon was pretty sure Veciennes was grinning.

Wheeler was not. She nodded grimly. “Open a private comm to The Arkon and let Statner know what’s expected of him. We do this now or we don’t do it at all.”

“On it.”

“Bet you wished you stayed on The Arkon,” Maxon said to Ellis.

“It’s crossed my mind. This might be the stupidest plan I’ve ever been forced into.”

Veciennes answered, “Akron’s on board and beginning her ascent. She’s got three on her – the two short ranged fighters and one larger craft. No local markings on that last one, so either one of the tourists is spoiling for a fight or they’re subcontracting planetary defense.”

“I don’t care either way, as long as Statner does what he needs to,” Wheeler said. “Maxon, keep an eye on our friend. I’m going to the cockpit to help Veciennes.” She undid her straps and lurched up the ladder, cursing when turbulence threatened to knock her off.

“This is definitely the stupidest plan I’ve ever been forced into,” Ellis said.

####

The Arkon screamed out of the crimson thunderclouds and pivoted towards the satellites. By all appearances, when the ship tore through them with a barrage of laser fire, it seemed as if the ship was creating a hole in which to flee the trio racing to catch up and not paying much mind to if she hit a target or not. One of the satellites exploded, and another was only glanced. It pinwheeled into a third satellite, and those two went offline. As they lost their orbit, The Arkon pushed past the planet, getting to safe distance and engaging its FTL drive. The two Iken IV craft and the third – indeed a bystander with nothing better to do than volunteer for some impromptu combat – maintained their pursuit. Unfortunately for them, The Arkon proved the faster and disappeared into the black.

####

Although heavily modified, the Supersoul was by design a deep space transport. As such, it had little in terms of style. It resembled a lumpen cigar with a collection of jagged sensors and arrays at one end and a haphazard assortment of fins encircling an almost comically large engine at the other. Buried somewhere around the middle were aftermarket missile tubes. It could host a crew of up to ten but could make do – and was better off, given the miniscule berths – with less than half that.

But what it lacked in style it made up for in structure. It was, to use one of Kongh’s euphemisms, built like an iron whoremonger. It was sturdy and could take a beating. Maxon hadn’t experienced much in the way of combat but Veciennes had in the past made offhand comments skirmishes that they survived only by the integrity of the Supersoul.

Maxon tried to focus on that as it plummeted to Iken IV’s surface. A lesser ship’s hull would have crumpled against the pressure, he reminded himself.

“Not much debris left, Captain. We’re losing cover,” Veciennes warned. “No eyes on us yet. Three minutes until we can pull out of this free fall.”

“That’s about four too many,” Wheeler said. She sounded as ill as Maxon felt. Even Ellis had his eyes closed and was trying to control his breathing in tight bursts. It didn’t help that the twisting and turning caused a high pitch whine – almost a scream, really – that reverberated through the ship. Whatever had broken loose in the cargo hold earlier had either gotten itself lodged in a corner or was broken down to bits small enough to not make a sound. That was the only plus to this miserable experience. Maybe going off world wasn’t the best of ideas, Maxon thought glumly as he choked back vomit.

“Two minutes, Captain. Fair warning, it’s going to be rough when we level out.”

“How far from the crash site when we land?”

“Thirty klicks. We’ll be at the edge of the blast site, before the Glass Sea.”

“Scan the area. I don’t want to land in the midst of someone’s party.”

“Already done. We’re clear a hundred klicks in every direction.”

“At least,” Maxon panted, “nobody will see me throw up.” His stomach tied its existing knots into deeper, tighter ones.

Ellis, ever the conversationalist, grunted in response.

“Levelling out, folks,” Veciennes warned. “Brace yourselves.”

The Supersoul, which had been plummeting like dead weight at the mercy of a chaotic atmosphere, abruptly straightened out its flight path. There was a terrifying sound of steel plates grinding against each other as the hull roared in protest to this sudden change. Inside the ship, Maxon felt as if he were crumble into a ball, stretched out, then slammed against the wall before falling to the floor. All while strapped into his seat. He let out a slight whimper.

Ellis simply vomited on the floor.

“Goddamn it, Ellis!” Wheeler shouted as she unstrapped herself. She stepped over the remnants of Ellis’ last meal and climbed up the ladder to the cockpit.

“Sorry, sir,” Ellis replied, wiping his moustache. “Couldn’t keep it in any longer. Okay to get up so I can clean my mess?”

“Do it. If I even catch a whiff of that it’s coming out of your cut.”

Ellis stood up and the Supersoul, almost on cue, sharply veered right. The Bellzatorian was thrown against the supply closet.

“Supply closet’s to the right,” Wheeler shouted from above.

“I think I found it,” Ellis muttered. He yanked out the cleaner and got to work, vaporizing and then sanitizing the area. He scurried back to his seat, right before the ship swerved sharply to the left. Ellis looked at Maxon, who shrugged in response. It could’ve been turbulence, it could’ve been Veciennes fucking with the mercenary. Since it wasn’t Maxon’s vomit and Ellis wasn’t crew, it wasn’t his problem.

Wheeler descended from the cockpit and surveyed the room. She nodded at Ellis. “Sorry it was rough,” not sounding sorry at all. “Gear up. We’re on the skiff and out the door the second VC touches down.”

####

“The fuck of it all!” Wheeler cried.

They were in the cargo hold. The source of the calamitous noise earlier had come from here. It had been the spare fuel pods for the skiff. The magnetic latches had started fading months ago – they were at least five years past due for replacement – and during their creative descent into Iken IV’s atmosphere, they had finally broken down. Having banged around the cargo bay for a good twenty minutes, they had done considerable damage. It was a minor miracle that none of them had combusted before getting wedged under the skiff’s thrusters.

The skiff itself was banged up, more so than already, but seemed functional. The problem that Maxon immediately identified was that if they fired up the skiff, it was unavoidable that one or all of the spare pods would explode. Followed by the skiff. And then the Supersoul itself.

“Ellis,” Maxon said, “give me a hand.” He moved towards the rear of the skiff.

The two struggled to lift the skiff and dislodge the fuel pods but the craft was too heavy.

“Captain?” Maxon asked.

Wheeler sighed and pinged Veciennes. “We’ve got a problem with the skiff. She’ll fly but we have to clear ourselves of the Supersoul first. Instead of landing, angle the ship bow side down and open the cargo door. We need just enough room to clear the cargo bay without crashing headfirst.” To Maxon she said, “Standby to release skiff locks on my mark.”

Veciennes acknowledged and arced upwards before titling back down. “Opening cargo doors, Captain. Safe hunting.”

To Ellis and Maxon both: “Looks like we’re not done falling.”

As the cargo door opened, Wheeler, Maxon, and Ellis shielded their eyes. The Glass Sea was more like a vast mirror, reflecting the heat and light from Supersoul’s engines. It was impossibly bright and Maxon felt as if he was standing right in the midst of the ship’s wake.

“Maxon, release the damn locks!” Wheeler cried.

Maxon complied and the skiff lurched forward, sparks flying as it scraped down the cargo bay. The fuel pods clamored beside them. Ellis, Maxon noticed, was praying quietly to himself, eyes watering either due to heat or fear.

The skiff cleared the cargo bay and arced toward the ground. Wheeler waited for the pods to tumble below and then gunned the engine. As the skiff corrected its descent, the Supersoul veered up. Miraculously, the fuel pods didn’t explode.

“Mark that position. We may need to come back for those. If they’re still usable,” Wheeler said. “Let’s hope they’re not buggered. Pack heavy and only what’s necessary on the first pass through the salvage site and we can check on the second run.”

Once past the Supersoul, their eyes adjusted to the view. The Glass Sea was a marvel. The cataclysmic impact of The Instigator had not only baked the earth but frozen it in place mid-blast wave. It was a disaster stuck in time. There had been massive avalanches in the area, and the majority were petrified into permanent waves that loomed over the landscape. The ground had convulsed with massive ripple effects, forming concentric circles that emanated from the epicenter. The surface of the earth shimmered with the imperfections, causing reflective light to dance as clouds passed by overhead. And even though the crashed ship was visible, a spire in the distance, the ground would lead the way. The glass darkened the closer you came to what remained of The Instigator. It was a guide and a warning.

The skiff sped over the ground on a direct approach to the ship, its internal computer adjusting the altitude to compensate for the uneven ground. The air felt stale to Maxon, even though the maelstrom above was still raging. It felt too still, like they were caught in the split second before the FTL drives engaged and were waiting, just waiting for something to happen.

Finally, the ship, or what remained of it. It had crashed into the earth nose first and miraculously held its form until the core reactor exploded.  The Instigator had cracked down the middle, with one section shattering. The remnants of the hull were thrown across the Glass Sea. What was left was a jagged spire that reached to the sky.

Wheeler decelerated the skiff. The ground was littered with corroded flotsam from the ship. Scattered amongst the detritus were abandoned campsites. Closer to the site was what resembled a makeshift altar, positioned off center from a semicircle of crucifixes, each adorned with a corpse of varying degrees of decay. As they neared the ship, Maxon realized the altar was fashioned out of the command console and a section of the main deck. The crucifixes were also scrap and some, like the bolted remains they hosted, were newer than others. The ship wasn’t so much a guide as it was a lure, Maxon decided.

Wheeler cursed under her breath. “We heard the stories. This is sacred ground. And anyone who thinks this is a place of worship isn’t right in the head. You see someone with the gleam of God in his eye, you shoot him dead. Understood?”

Maxon and Ellis nodded.

“Keep track of your time. Veciennes is monitoring the area. She’ll let us know if someone’s coming, but it’s up to us to get back to the skiff. If you’re lagging, you’re left behind, and you’d better learn how to pray. If we’re lucky, they didn’t realize we’ve landed and we’ve got ourselves a day or two. But let’s assume not.” She pinged the Supersoul. “Veciennes, you settled?”

“Affirmative. Found a quiet spot for the Supersoul. You’ll have periodic drone fly bys but scanners aren’t picking up anything else. Looks like the ships that went after Statner went home. Going silent unless anything changes.”

“Sounds good. Give the cargo bay a once-over. Those damn pods were knocked all over the place. Put together a list for Kongh when he gets back. Wheeler out.”

Wheeler parked the skiff in the shadow of the wreckage, partially concealed behind debris. They would have to ascend the site with grappling hooks to reach the closest access point, a doorway about 20 meters up.

“Okay,” Wheeler said, “Let’s do a quick recon and then get to work. The clock is ticking.”

5 - Dozier

Dozier

The system of Eres boasted of one sun, one habitable planet, and six others made so through terraforming. The engineers were instructed to make the Eres II through VI as close to Eres Prime as possible but distinctly lesser. There were certain dogmatic expectations that came from living in a system name after the god they believed was responsible for the entirety of the universe. Eres created Eres Prime according to His designs, so who were the scientists to think they could improve on such?

Along with the singular planning of the planets, there was an abundance of nations, cities, and structures named after the All-Knowing, Benevolent Eres. For example, the Citadel of Eres was the largest building in Eres Major, which was the capital city of Eres Principal, which itself was the largest continent on Eres Prime. It was joked that the most difficult job in Eres fell to the poor bastard tasked with finding new and clever ways of interjecting their God into a building name.

The Citadel of Eres was naturally the ideal location for the Grand Realignment. The theologians had long ago ceded their power to the religion of commerce, and Dozier’s gambit was the opening ceremony to a new era of prosperity.

And not just for Eres. Dozier was adamant that the day would highlight the potential wealth for all involved (and, of course, a not-so subtle warning to those still few on the fence). Given the decades of malnourishment, following the opening ceremonies would be a banquet. Dozier had insisted on signature dishes from the associated systems. The banquet hall was lined with Jhoddan meat pies, Alegorn goulash, grains from the fields of Rhomalax, wild Bern that had been slow cooked in its own blood for days until the meat was tender, greens from all corners of the galaxy. Even Bellzator, a hardened ice backwater that toiled under the shadows of gas giants, brought their lone delicacy – a thick mildew scraped off the walls in the lower depths of Pagos, their lone planet’s sole city, and sautéed with fiery spices.

Watching the servants busy themselves with the array of food, each platter demanding its own unique set of methods to maintain freshness, Dozier marveled at the amount of S’inghah the Bellzatorian faction brought. Pagos had to be lousy with mildew, a thought that made Dozier’s nose twitch and skin crawl. He knew once the Grand Realignment was set in motion, he would have to make good faith visits to all the systems. Bellzator was the one he dreaded the most. Dozier cared little for the cold and less for underground cities. And one with a seemingly rampant, edible fungus? No thank you.

Dozier spied Minister Freeman, leader of Eres Prime, and waved him over. The Minister, dressed in his most formal and regal attire, was busy preening and glad-handing with whomever was in reach. He had supported Dozier’s gambit from the beginning but, as a simple political calculus, kept quiet until it looked like the gamble would pay off. And now he was doing his best to convince the galaxy he was as important as Dozier. He was a jackass, but appearances were everything today, so he was also a necessary one.

“Minister,” he said, shaking hands, “my thanks for your presence.” A nonsense greeting but there was an audience around them. Formality reigned supreme in the land of the diplomats.

Freeman smiled in response. He knew the score just as well as Dozier. “I would be derelict in my duties to have missed this. You’ve done well for yourself, Senator, and for all of Eres.”

“The day is not over, Minister. There is always the opportunity for my – our – work to unravel. You’ve heard the speeches. There are still grievances to address.” A group of delegates from Farron passed by. One shook his head at Dozier and Freeman. That Farron asked for little and got much in return made the slight that much more egregious. Whitman was right - once a hand was extended in wanting, it rarely pulled back. There was always a need for more, more, more.

“With respect to our galactic partners, they are small compared to the overall complexities. And yet I have full faith that you and your team will resolve them in a manner that’s satisfactory to both the aggrieved and to Eres.” There it was. Freeman’s mantra: Eres’ needs come first. Always.

“I would not sacrifice so much for our home worlds for the sake of these complaints. The Grand Realignment is great because of its purpose, not because of its members.” That was a favored line from Dozier’s opening remarks, but one he had been advised to cut. It was a bit too on the nose and more than likely to aggravate the easily aggravated, of which there were still many. But Dozier was proud of its poetry and didn’t want it to go to waste, even if it was used solely on this preening, self-interested fool.

“True words, my friend, but ones best spoken quietly. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link,” he continued, speaking louder as another group of delegates passed by the two, “and today we’ve forged a chain most unbreakable.” With that, he walked over to the table and began serving himself, starting with that noxious goop.

Ever the politician, Dozier thought. He could almost hear the gears ticking in Freeman’s head, calculating words and tone, measuring each delegate in terms of self-interest. If he judged, it was on the obviousness of Freeman’s actions. After all, Dozier had done the same in the past and leveraged those skills in the present. But Freeman preened with the subtlety of a lonely child demanding praise from its parents. It was embarrassing to witness and it was embarrassing for Eres. Freeman was the best the system had to offer?

For now, at least. The court of public opinion had not yet offered judgement. As the Grand Realignment moved forward, it would make sense that the architect of a new era of prosperity be called to lead Eres.  Dozier would answer the call graciously.

####

The opening ceremonies may have been perfunctory and a display of excess, but they served as a poignant reminder of what was lost when the Empire crumbled. There was a mix of the exotic (the Ry’Gee delegation had somehow decided that a “traditional fertility jousting competition” was the right move and Dozier wondered when he would be able to close his eyes and not see that violent mashup of sexual horrors) and the familiar (most of the other systems leaned towards choreographed dances or parading what was left of their military) to the various performances. The underlying theme was “We may be different as cultures, but we are not so unlike as a people.”

And yet, there were outstanding issues. Every system had a list of wants and needs, but it was impossible to acquiesce to them all. Concessions had to be made. Jhodda was particularly hard hit by the loss of trade routes. They were eager to join the Grand Realignment, almost comically, desperately so, but not without significant aid. What was the worth of the Grand Realignment, they argued, if those in power were unwilling to lift the less fortunate? The Jhoddans had seen the new construction on Eres, the towers gleaming in the sky, the sure signs of progress and wealth. They knew the past and the present were at an inflection point. And they expected more than what was realistic.

Dozier took a sampling of the more appealing food. Had the banquet preceded the final negotiations, Dozier thought, Jhodda’s demands might have been better received. Their meat pies were divine. It was a shame there were so few of them. Jhodda had over farmed their natural resources. It must have been a challenge for them to the minimum needed for today.

And had the delegates gotten a whiff of S’inghah, Bellzator may not have been allowed in the room. Having simmered for hours, the dish at the far end of the table was threatening to overpower everything else in the room. It was a powerful funk. Dozier caught the eye of the server manning that section. He motioned discretely at her. Do something about that. They would be scrubbing the stink of flavored mildew from the walls for weeks. The server got the message and adjusted the air filtration.

“It’s a bit much in smell and taste but it grows on you. Eventually.” Dozier turned to face Lattish Belforth, the lead Bellzatorian delegate. She had a plate piled high with the stuff. Dozier forced himself not to wince. The stench was so pungent; it was as if it had assumed a physical form.

“Of course, the problem is once you acquire a taste for it, not much else can match the flavor.” She motioned to Dozier’s plate of more conventional foodstuffs. “There’s a lot there to admire but not much to enjoy.”

“If today has taught us anything,” Dozier countered, “it’s that we all have something unique to offer.”

Belforth laughed. “You’ve got a gift, that’s for sure. Flowers must grow every time you speak.”

Dozier bridled at the insult but kept quiet. After all their initial hedging and demands, Bellzator had joined the coalition with little fuss. But until the day was over, nothing was truly settled. He wasn’t going to risk Belforth screwing everything up at the last minute because he took offense to her churlish comments.

“I grew up in the shadow of war,” he said. “I was surrounded by dead ends until I discovered my gift for speech.” Unknowing, he lapsed into regional colloquialism. “It’s done right by me.”

“It certainly has. I may be younger than you, but my parents lived through the same. We all have come from the same place. The tragedy of the Dzengharian Empire made orphans of us all. It’s time we all came home. To your health.”

“And to yours,” he replied. “Are you enjoying yourself?”

“I am. It’s been so long since I’ve been outside of Bellzator. I had almost forgotten what natural warmth was like.” Like the rest of her delegation, she was dressed in layers of light fabric of various blues. Pagos had one season, and it was cold, unrelentingly so.

Dozier laughed. “To me, it’s almost chilly. You don’t want to know how many hours of debate there were over what was the right temperature for the room.”

“Let me guess – what you settled on pleases exactly no one.”

“Close. I think one of my assistants thinks this is the ideal.”

“That doesn’t bode well for your Grand Alignment, no? If one cannot find a solution for the ideal temperature, how do you expect one to reform an empire?”

Belforth was smiling, but Dozier wasn’t sure if she was kidding or not. The stink of her food wasn’t helping matters either. It retriggered his hangover. The meat pie he had so recently enjoyed was now sitting heavy in his gut.

“Nobody here is talking empires,” he countered. “There are enough systems that insist on maintaining their sovereignty, despite the hardships the loss of the empire had inflicted upon them. The Grand Realignment has no intention of changing that. In fact, I feel that runs counter to what we’re trying to achieve. What the Grand Realignment stands for is an end to the mistrust of the past fifty years. Eres and the other founding members have shown what is capable, but without the rest of the systems, we’re meeting only a fraction of our potential.”

“So an empire of commerce.”

“An empire where there’s no consolidation of power isn’t much of an empire? We all benefit from the Grand Realignment.”

“Some more than others,” Belforth noted.

“For now, certainly. I won’t deny that Eres and the other founding members are in a better place than Bellzator and the like. All this was possible only because of our work.”

“You do realize that there’s a concern that Eres is positioning itself as the new hub of the galaxy. That by your design, this is indeed an empire of commerce and that we will again be at the mercy of a foreign government.”

“There’s always the risk of corruption. The Dzengharian Empire proved as much. The rebellion that followed as well. That is why we rely on vigilance. And trust. We are responsible for each other’s destinies. Eres is as reliant on Bellzator as Bellzator is on Eres.”

Belforth handed her plate to a passing servant and put her hand on Dozier’s shoulder. “I’m not surprised so much of your plan is based on faith. Even after all these years, that remains the guiding principle of Eres. ‘We walk in the footsteps of the greater god,’ no?”

Again with the passive-aggressive insults. “Without the teachings of Eres, I doubt we would be having this conversation. I take pride in my beliefs. And aren’t we all walking in the footsteps of the greater good?” That should shut her up, Dozier thought.

It did not. “We have our gods on Pagos, but a long time ago I considered them morality tales to be told to recalcitrant children at bedtime. When you live in a hollowed-out rock, it’s better to believe in each other than invisible people who live amongst the stars. I suppose that’s why there was the rebellion. Did the architects of the Great Uprising ever see Dzengharia? What were the local magistrates serving the Emperor but inarticulate, incompetent priests, failing to convince the masses that there was a single person out there with their best interests at heart?”

“Bellzator thrived under the Empire. You were amongst the greatest beneficiaries. Without this support, life has been hardscrabble for your people. I’ve read the stories about the dismantling of the ring stations. You’re cannibalizing your own future to save the present.”

She laughed. “’You’re cannibalizing your own future to save the present.’ Oh my, that’s delightful. You really do have a gift. I don’t disagree that we were in a much stronger position under the Empire. But that didn’t rely on faith. What the Empire provided for us was in proportion to what we did for them. There was, pardon the pun, empirical evidence. What does Eres Himself benefit from all this? Is He pleased that every other building bears his name? Will Eres take its spoils from the Grand Realignment and build even more monuments? Or will you proselytize the far reaches of the galaxy, terraforming everything to your god’s liking?”

“After the half century of darkness, the galaxy could use some faith. But rest assured, Eres has no intention of trading your gods for ours, no matter how heretical we may find them. What we want – what I want – is a galaxy united through open markets, rebuilding together.” His head was again throbbing, his stomach was unsettled, and he resorted to recycling lines from his speech again. Not even good ones, either.

Bellforth must have senses as much, or maybe she felt like she had needled him enough. “Bradford, this was the best debate I’ve had in a long time. Conversations like this give me hope for the future. Truly, I admire your faith in your work and you should be proud of what you’ve accomplished. Along with the flowers that grow in your wake.”

With that, she left Dozier.

####

Dozier adjourned to the bathroom to wash his face and apply a meditab. The talk with Belforth had left him disjointed and uneasy, and the sudden resurgence of the hangover added a sour taste in his mouth. The meditab did its job, though, and his headache again receded. He made a note to discretely use Nutritabs throughout the rest of the day. Their lack of flavor would work to his benefit. They would deter any naseau. He rinsed his mouth and reminded himself that real whiskey packed a hell of a stronger punch than the synthetic variety he had grown accustomed to.

Another thing he would have to abstain from, he thought. Not that he intended to drink to excess tonight – that would be a disastrous look for not only him but all of Eres – but there would be toasts. Glasses would be raised. He could manage with sparkling ale, he supposed. And, he thought as he quietly belched, a wide distance from Bellzatorian cuisine.

Dozier rejoined the main ballroom, mingling amidst the delegates and offering the same measured responses in conversation. He spied Belforth from across the room. He noticed that she had tucked a flower behind one ear. She caught him looking at her and touched the flower, smiling mischievously. He wasn’t sure if she was flirting with him or just poking fun. It had to be the latter, he thought. She was at least twenty years younger and while at 64 he was still – barely – considered middle aged, he was showing his years. If she had any physical desire for a man with thinning hair, weak eyes, and hunched shoulders, it had to come with caveats. Although if she thought that bedding him would give Bellzator leverage, she was less of a diplomat than he assumed. At this point, there was little he could do by himself that would impact the outcome of the deliberations. Not without drawing attention to himself. And that was the sort of corruption he was steadfast against.

No, she was simply toying with him, with his pride. That much she made clear. Dozier resolved to keep himself in check. The Grand Realignment was born of ambition, but personal humility would sustain its life.

His comm pinged. It was the head of security.

“Sir, you need to come to the command center.”

“What is it,” he asked.

“It’s better to discuss in person. We’re seeing a number of people getting sick. Very sick.”

Dozier thought of the rank Bellzator dish. “If it’s food poisoning, summon a doctor and keep it discrete,” he said. Belforth was weaving her way through the crowd towards him.  His guts clenched and he broke out in a cold sweat. Did he catch it too? And was the crowd actually so thick that Belforth had to weave? At second glance, it seemed more like she was walking a direct line towards him.

“Sir, we’ve done that. Again, it’s better that you come here.”

“Fine,” he sighed. “On my way.”

He nodded at Belforth and held his hands up. “Apologies, but I’m needed elsewhere at the moment.”

She responded with a wry grin. “Are we already out of alignment?”

Another rumbling from his guts. What did he eat? “Nothing of the sort,” he said with what he hoped was a reassuring smile. Whether the hangover, the food poisoning, or just the stress of the day crushing down on him – or all three, he thought – Dozier felt inadequate and disarmed, incapable of even basic etiquette. “Despite the extravagance, this is still very much another workday for me.”

“I don’t mean to be rude, but you’re not looking well,” Belforth said, grasping his arm. “Do you need a meditab?”

“I, uh,” he paused to focus on the sudden clenching of his stomach, “took one already. Please, you must excuse me.”

Brusquely, he stepped back, shaking off her grip. Whatever the root cause, that action was the tipping point. The room went blurry, and Dozier collapsed to the floor, twitching.

4 - Maxon

Maxon

Once the Resistance discovered that while it was exceptional at taking down an empire, it was terrible at governing, it was next to impossible to find someone who had actually been part of it. Culpability was nil. If the destruction of the Empire was a crime, there were no witnesses.

Except for Vance Statner.

“I was a general in the Resistance, you know,” Statner said to Captain Wheeler, Veciennes, and Maxon. Kongh, having crewed on The Arkon for a spell and therefore had his fill of endless self-promotion, busied himself in the engine room. Supersoul was small and old, and sound tended to carry through the poorly insulated walls. Maxon noted that whenever Statner made a particularly egregious claim, the response from down below was the knock of a wrench on metal. Statner so far hadn’t noticed, most likely because he was incapable of stopping his unfettered bullshit.

As he liked to recount (and had done so, by Maxon’s count, twice so far), he made his bones with the Resistance, starting as a pilot and ascending to the rank of general. His quick rise was in part because a military comprised of disgruntled volunteers from a multitude of systems with no formalized training tended to chew through soldiers at a rapid clip and in part because Statner was indeed as hot shit a pilot as he frequently, relentlessly said he was. That the Resistance was treated as the lingering memories of a bad dream was immaterial to Statner. He had been a general, and the more you allowed him to rhapsodize, the closer he came to being the single greatest strategist in military history.

“I’ve heard,” Wheeler said. “Now about the plan…” Statner and one of his crewmembers, a Bellzatorian mercenary who wedged himself in the far corner and nervously chewed on the fringe of his enormous moustache, had been on the ship for over an hour and so far had discussed only Statner’s legacy. The mistake, Maxon decided, was the liberal amount of wine shared.

As if Statner could read his thoughts, he waved his empty glass in Maxon’s direction. Given the size of the ready room, he came close to shaving off Maxon’s nose.

Maxon glanced at Wheeler, who nodded curtly in consent. He poured more wine.

“We had so many different systems, it was next to impossible to keep them all in line,” Statner continued. “The leaders – if you could even call them that – couldn’t run a brothel, let alone a massive government. Every day, there was a new problem, someone bitching about who cares what. And as for their military planning –“

Clank! echoed up from the belly of the ship.

“– they just didn’t get it. You need talent to spot the weaknesses in a fleet as powerful as the Dzengharian’s. They didn’t rule for centuries because they were nice. They had strength, they had cunning, they had training. If they weren’t so damn blasted corrupt, they’d still be in charge and we wouldn’t be here.” He gestured broadly towards the room. Given the cramped quarters, it was amazing that his hand didn’t brush up against anyone.

“But history is what people make of it, and we choose to take down an empire. It’s a bit of a shame that it didn’t work out as intended, but you and I, we’ve both done well by ourselves. I’m shocked it took so long for our paths to cross.”

“And yet here we are,” Wheeler said.

“Here we are,” Statner agreed cheerfully, not catching Wheeler’s tone. It seemed to Maxon that the man assumed his audiences hung on to his every word. That sort of cocky obliviousness was probably why he was such a good pilot. He had no idea that death was always staring him in the face.

“Now you’ve reviewed the data Veciennes transmitted? You’re good with the planetary defenses?”

“It’s nothing. In fact, it’s not much different than the strafing runs we used to do on Terradyne. I can knock out the systems easily enough and deal with any fighter brigade they throw at me.”

Clank! Clank!

Statner paused and cocked his head. “If there are problems with your ship…” he began.

“The ship is fine,” Wheeler countered. “And more to the point, we’re ready. I take it he – “ she motioned to Statner’s burly associate – “ is part of my away team?” Missions like this always had shared crew. It limited the risk of double crossing. Usually.

“Ellis is all yours. I’ll take this one per our agreement.” He nodded at Maxon.

“Our agreement was the standard exchange, not who we exchanged. Maxon stays with me. You’re getting an old friend instead.”

Clank!

 #### 

In the cargo hold, Wheeler checked the guns Maxon had checked, then passed them back to Maxon to vet once again. She had been caught ill-prepared with faulty gear once. That was all it took to instill a solid level of paranoia.

“Why not me?” Maxon asked. He wasn’t particularly eager to spend more time with Statner but was still curious as to why Wheeler picked Kongh. His mentor had left with Statner earlier, glowering and not speaking. Even Statner had caught the sense of grievance, eschewing the usual grandstanding and instead offering a vague promise of not keeping him too long.

“Even if he’s still half as good as he says he is, Statner’s been coasting on his reputation for years. I need somebody there who knows how he operates. If things go south, Kongh’s better positioned there than here. And you’ve got enough experience to lead the salvage op.”

“Got it.” Maxon relieved and eager to prove his mettle.

Wheeler turned to their temporary addition, who was busying himself tying gear down to the skiff. Large enough to transport three people plus spoils, it was what they were taking to the crash site. “Ellis, you got a problem with any of that?”

Ellis paused chewing on his moustache and cleared his throat. “No, ma’am.”

“I stand on tradition here. Make it ‘sir.’”

“Yes, sir.”

Wheeler asked, “How long have you been serving under Statner?”

“’Bout as long as Kongh’s been with you. I swapped in for him, more or less.”

Maxon wasn’t sure, but he guessed Ellis found a place onboard The Arkon by carving one out for himself. Through whomever preceded him.

“What’s your opinion of him?”

“He’s been good to me and the crew. I know you and your man don’t think highly of him, but Captain Statner’s treated us with respect. Sure, his favorite subject is himself, but I’ve seen enough to think he’s earned the right to crow. And he pays fair, or fair enough. Better than I’ve made on other ships, and better than what I could’ve made back home.”

“Bellzator, right? Mining family?”

“Pretty much everyone there is. Would’ve been foolish to bet on anything else.”

“Speaking of betting, you think your captain’s going to turn on us?” Unsaid: Are you expendable?

Wheeler couldn’t have expected the mercenary to answer truthfully but to Maxon, it looked as if Ellis put some thought to the question. “Not that I’m aware of. Captain Statner needs this job pretty bad. It’s been rough out there. He pulls this off, he’s likely to polish his reputation enough to get jobs that aren’t as sideways looking as this one.”

“You think this is a bad idea?”

He shrugged. “There’s not much salvage left out there. At least not what pays.”

“What jobs have you been taking?”

More mustache chewing. “Cargo runs. That sort of thing.”

“That sort of thing?”

“Pretty much. Sir.” Ellis hadn’t been that willing to open up to Wheeler, but now he was outright cagey with details. Maxon could guess well enough that Statner and the crew of The Arkon were running point for some local warlord. It was lucrative business if you could find the right patron but even then odds were high you wound up being an errand boy on a short leash. Pretty easy to wind up with a price on your head if you displeased your boss. Maxon could see how someone as vain as Statner would leap at the chance to start over again. A big score could buy him out of whatever shit deal his ego coaxed him into.

“What about salvage runs? How many have you done?”

“More than I can remember. Left home close to twenty-five years ago. Been doing this ever since.”

“And how many of those involved people actively trying to kill you?”

“About the same. It’s the business.”

“Then you’ll do fine. Once Statner descends into the atmosphere, we’re off to the races.” She activated the comm. “Veciennes, you hear from our legend?”

“The Arkon should be entering atmo in an hour. Maybe less the way he’s approaching. Has he always been this reckless a pilot?”

“As long as I’ve known him, yes,” Wheeler said.

“I’m not sure if I should be impressed or concerned,” Veciennes replied. “Beginning our approach.”

Veciennes nudged the Supersoul towards the planet. Unlike The Arkon, which was careening towards the planet at a speed that suggested one or more larger, heavily armed ships were in fast pursuit, the Supersoul arced into the upper atmosphere gracefully. The goal was to hide amidst the cover of assorted satellites. Provided all eyes remained on Statner, they’d land without too much of a fuss.

3- Drazen

Drazen

The Reach was failing yet again, and Grand Admiral Carter Drazen seethed as his shuttle skittered alongside the sprawling monstrosity that stabbed inward into the Morass. They were approaching the portside of the last dock, where an engineering team was making emergency repairs. Again. An electrical fire had broken out. Again. The systems team was making excuses for electromagnetic interference. Again.

“Time to arrive?” he asked, knowing the answer. When he spoke, he was calm and direct. To be so he needed to be focused. To be focused he had to move past the claxon of “again” blaring in his head. So he asked easy questions.

“Eleven minutes, sir,” the helmsman responded.

“Status of the latest incident?” Drazen turned to Evans, his chief lieutenant.

“The fires are just about out. Reach integrity should be restored within the hour, at which point we will be able to reconnect with the fleet.”

“Good. And the next segment?”

“Underway, sir, but progress has stalled. The basic hull has been formed, but we still lack the material to complete it.”

In the final hours of the Dzengharian Empire, the powers-that-be saw the writing on the wall and wisely decided it was not in their best interest to allow the Resistance to accumulate any more firepower. It was better to tuck fleets away in the more unhabitable parts of the galaxy. The Morass, a semi-connected series of nebulae dead center in Bellzator space, was one of presumably many, and by far the best and worst of hiding spots. It was a void in space, a dead zone.

But the hidden armada was a known unknown. It was the single most guarded secret of Bellzator high command. The issue was how to get to it. Probes launched into the depths went offline before transmitting data. Finally, the question was asked: instead of using probes as glorified missiles, sent off into the void until collision or loss of power, what is they were launched at specific distances? There was a chance they could daisy-chain a connection outside the Morass.

Thus the Reach. A bridge from hospitable space to the unknown, unforgiving center of the Morass.

The initial sections were built from available material – derelict craft, decommissioned warships, scrap from the abandoned ring station that traversed one of the two gas giants in the system – but as Drazen’s team plunged deeper into the Morass they were faced with a shortage of materials. They begged, borrowed, and stole wherever they could. The further the Reach went, the more haphazard its design became. Ships lost to the nebulae were welded together into ungainly waypoints, with thick cords of steel wrapped around like exposed tendons. Work was done as fast and as efficient as possible, typically at the expense of safety. It became a perverse tradition to weld the corpses of those who died in the line of duty to their part of the Reach. What you gave to the Reach was all you could give.

“We were too optimistic when we started this endeavor. Hindsight being what it is, we should have built smaller at the onset. The reality being what it is, we must continue to improvise.”

“The Science Division has noted it will require a minimum of three more stations before we reach the armada.”

He did the math. To withstand the gravitational fluctuations within the Morass, the ideal station length was 750 meters. For the past few stretches, they had dwindled down to 500 and the results were as expected. Circuitry was failing daily and never twice in the same location.  Hulls in the more recent sections had a tendency to collapse without warning, triggering events all the way down the line to outside the Morass.

“Do we have the materials on hand?”

“We estimate capacity for one and a quarter stations, but the quality is… lacking. We’ve used up almost everything inside and outside the Morass. We’re down to satellites, probes, and detritus.”

You could scuttle the Valiant, Drazen told himself. That alone could bridge most of the gap between the Reach and the small fleet of warships the Dzengharian Empire wisely tucked away in the semi-connected nebulae in the center of Bellzator space. To trade his command ship for superior technology and fire power was a logical choice. Drazen was above all a practical man.

To Drazen, the universe made sense when broken down into manageable components. Then you could see the bigger picture. It was logical that once the Dzenghar fleet was rescued, Bellzator would leverage it to their advantage. To rebuild the system would take significant investments, so it was better to lay claim on resources through strength of force. If there was a lesson learned from centuries under Dzengharian rule, it was that it was better to be at the top of the food chain. If there was a single guiding principle to Drazen’s plans, it was “never again.” And if that meant grafting The Valiant onto the Reach, so be it. It was a decision made of reason.

And was that such a bad tradeoff? The Reach was finally close enough to prove a full inventory. The Dzengharians had left a bounty of superior firepower: capital ships – including two A class dreadnaughts, destroyers, assault carriers, planetary orbitals, ground assault vehicles, and scores of light fighters. Even if they were in less than stellar condition, it more than tripled the size of the system’s current navy and provided them the strength to impose their will. Drazen was a firm believer in peace through superior force, and he looked forward to putting it to practice.

“How is the Reach integrity overall? Can it withstand a capital ship?”

Evans paused, a look of concern on his face. The Valiant was as much a home to him as it was his commanding officer. “It’s possible. But it’s also just as possible that the ship would permanently sever the link back to the fleet.”

“How possible is possible, Evans? Is it a fifty percent chance we ruin everything by being too eager? More? Less?”

“About even, sir. We’re tenuous at best right now, and that’s on good days. Given the electrical issues in the furthermost Reach stations, I would assume the worst. It’s just as likely that we take the entire structure down with a power surge.”

“More smaller craft?” Again, an answer he knew but asked anyway.

“Commandeering any more private vessels runs the risk of attracting unwanted attention. There is already considerable outcry already. Our fighters could make it, but we would have to cannibalize them all to complete the Reach. We would be without any small craft.”

“And defenseless,” Drazen replied, “until we extracted the armada.”

“And provided their small craft are operational.”

“Which remains an unknown.” So close. They were so close. These final obstacles were maddening.

“Sir?” Evans hesitated.

“Yes Evans?”

“There is the Grand Realignment.”

“Go on.”

“We will be one of the central hubs. It’s arguable that we need additional supplies to reinforce our last remaining Ring Station. In order to handle the influx of traffic.” He looked hopeful.

“Excellent idea, Evans, but one we’ve already debated. Eres and the other principals have committed to building out the resources and we have committed to what we need for our military purposes. Given the newness of the agreement, there will be limited opportunities to take more than the bare necessities. Besides, there is the larger issue of what to do when it’s noticed our command ships are located around this nebula. Questions will be asked. That is why we need to be set before the trade routes are reopened.”

As if on cue, another fire erupted in the Reach. The shuttle shook briefly, disrupted from its flight path. As klaxons blared, Drazen noted three forms had been ejected into the void by the blast.

Drazen seized on an idea. “Signal the Valiant. Upon my return, we’re to evacuate all non-essentials and staff only with the barest minimum. Volunteers only. Strip her down to the essentials needed to make it to the outermost point of the Reach. There should be enough scrap material on the Valiant to reinforce this station as well as complete the handshake.”

“Sir, I’m afraid I’m not understanding. As I said, the Reach itself may collapse if we graft the Valiant onto the Reach.”

“You are correct. It is too risky. But we can use the Reach to send her close enough to the armada. Use the probes to calculate the best possible trajectory. The Valiant must be in close enough proximity without triggering system failure.”

“Sir, that’s almost as risky. If the ship cannot complete the journey. the crew may very well die.”

“Evans, as long as we’re stuck battling this,” he gestured towards the station, which appeared to have lost shielding in the last explosion, “we are at a disadvantage. Extracting the armada is our sole purpose. Without it, we will remain at the mercy of the other systems. Reforging the empire in our image is not a grand idea. It is a necessity.”

“I understand, sir. But wouldn’t it be prudent to use another ship? Not the command ship?”

“There may yet be a need for the other vessels. We are at the eve of war, Evans. We all must make sacrifices. If it takes The Valiant and her crew to give us the armada, it will not be in vain.”

Drazen was no longer seething. He had renewed purpose.

2- Dozier

Dozier

Despite going to bed later than planned and drinking more than intended, Senator Bradford Dozier woke promptly at daybreak. Too many years of regimented structure, he thought sadly, reaching for a meditab and water.

But it could be worse. Provided he didn’t squander the extra time by throwing up, it would give him an opportunity to prepare for the day. He had been working towards this most of his adult life. The Grand Realignment was finally here. After half a century of a galaxy sliding backwards into pig ignorant anarchy, there was finally a glimmer of hope. By Dozier’s hand, the old trade routes were re-opening and long-term contracts were being signed. Economic growth was more than a possibility – it was a reality.

But first, he needed to steady the riot in his gut and the throbbing in his head.

Dozier slapped another tab on his neck and closed his eyes, focusing on his breathing. The tab dissolved, further dulling the pain. He clenched and unclenched his fists as his stomach churned. Did he eat last night? Based on the angry waves of bile, he guessed not.

He may have passed back out as when he opened his eyes again. It was brighter in the room, and he no longer felt like he had been scraped off the bottom of someone’s boot. Just kicked repeatedly by one. Was there still time to prep? He wouldn’t know until he got up, which he still wasn’t sure he wanted to do.

The Grand Realignment, he reminded himself. It was going to happen with or without him, so he might as well get moving and make sure it went off as he had planned it.

He managed to get in and out of the bathroom without stumbling or vomiting, so he made his way to the small kitchen of his apartment. On the opposite side of the room was a couch. On the couch was a large lump of blankets in the shape of his uncle, Whitman. The cause of the hangover.

Dozier crept by him, partially wanting to wake him but more inclined to be on more secure footing before attempting conversation. He loved his father’s brother, but Whitman could be single-minded in thought and deed. If Whitman was going to wake up and continue his diatribes from the night before, Dozier wanted to be caffeinated.

Speaking of which, he had coffee. Real coffee. A first in a long time.  He brewed a pot.

How many years did he have to reuse synthetic coffee grounds, carefully drying them out for another brew, ignoring the pungent stench of expired fabricated food? They made it stink so you know you should recycle it, not reuse it. But as supply was overshadowed by demand, the health warnings disappeared from the news feeds. Nobody wanted to be reminded of the risk. Not when there was nothing for it.

And when the material for synthetics dried up, he and everyone else on Eres Prime was forced to switch to nutritabs. A meditab was one thing but getting sustenance from something you slapped on your neck? Like he was some sort of deep-space grease monkey? It would have been laughable had it not been so sad.

Coffee brewed, he poured a cup and sipped it, relishing the freshness, the naturalness. The hangover receding, Dozier felt more confident going into the day. He tapped the implant on the side of his head and pinged his admin, whom he knew would answer before the second ring. He might as well be an Augmented given the little amount of sleep he needed. “Jordan,” he said, “how are we looking?”

“We’re good, sir,” was the reply. “The Bellzator dignitaries arrived late last night. They were the last of the lot.”

“And everyone’s ready for this morning?” It was a ridiculous question. Of course everyone was. His poor physical and mental states were ganging up on him, giving him the jitters. Why had he drank so much last night?

“Everything’s all set, sir. When should we be expecting you?”

He checked the time. Damn, he did oversleep. “Momentarily, Jordan. Give me forty-five minutes and I’ll meet you in the center hall.”

Dozier was relieved Bellzator made good on their promise. They had been cagey through the negotiations, but their location was key. Any of the other seven could have dropped out without much fanfare, but too many routes went through the Bellzator system to not bring them into the fold.

Oddly enough, their demands were less financial than sovereign. What were the regulations, what were the concessions of privacy, who ultimately had judicial control over the routes? Dozier was used to that guarded mentality – most of the systems had an overdeveloped sense of self-interest post-Empire – but Bellzator took that to a new level. And since none of the half dozen contingency plans Dozier and his team worked up were even close to optimal, they had finagled under great duress a compromise. There was a black hole of oversight through that region of space, but a majority of the old routes were re-opened.

From the couch, a groan.

The way Whitman was going on last night, you would have thought he was the architect behind the Grand Realignment. And the way Whitman was drinking, you would have thought he was the younger man. From the sound across the room, the 76-year old might be feeling his age.

Dozier poured another cup for his uncle and walked over to the couch, staring at his uncle.

The youngest of his father’s six siblings, Whitman and Dozier had been simpatico since day one. The 12-year gap in age made them less uncle and nephew and more like siblings. As Dozier was an only child with a widowed parent, it was a kinship he relished. He had been born in a curious time – who thought empires could fall? How could something so abstract impact the Dozier clan so personally? Whitman knew how to translate confusion into comprehension and sadness into rage.

“Here,” Dozier said, placing the cup and a meditab on the modest table besides the equally modest couch that was in the modest apartment in the modest part of Eres Major, the grandiose-yet-unimaginatively named capital of Eres Major. Modesty had been Dozier’s default setting since joining public service. There were no affectations to him. He was as he appeared. Modestly modest, doing his modest best to make the galaxy a better place.

Whitford groaned again, sat up, and grabbed the cup of coffee. “What time is it?” he asked.

“Early, but I need to get moving soon. How are you feeling?”

His uncle grinned. “I’ve been better but it’s been a long time since I’ve had real booze. You knew the right places.” He eyed the meditab but let it be. He had an unnatural aversion to modern medicine.

Dozier shrugged. “It’s part of the Grand Realignment. There’s been a steady influx of goods for the past few weeks. There were some on the committee who insisted we not share with the locals and reserve it for the ceremony. I argued that doing so made everything less for the people than for the elites. We’re not reopening the trade routes for the few in charge. We’re doing it for the families that have struggled for the past fifty years. We’re doing it for those who’ve been forgotten.” The words were familiar, but Dozier couldn’t decide if it was because he had said as much sometime during the celebration or because it was part of the same stump speech he had been giving the past fifteen years.

“So you said last night. I believe that got us a free round of drinks too.”

Dozier almost replied with “Everything was free,” but that wasn’t quite right. Dozier himself had sacrificed quite a bit in the past decade and a half. The Grand Realignment was his child and it had not been an easy birth. He had given up quite a bit to bring it to life, starting with any semblance of a personal life and continuing with a gradual scraping away of morals and scruples. But that was old news to both and an uncharacteristic indulgence in self-pity, so instead he shrugged and said, “It was unnecessary.”

“People are happy again. Unlike your father, the majority of the galaxy did not support a bunch of shit talking rebels who knew exactly fuck all about anything other than breaking things. You’re bringing us back from anarchy. We’re embracing civilization again.”

There it is, Dozier thought. He was not the only one armed with a greatest hits of talking points. The difference being Whitman leaned towards the emotional. The war didn’t just break the empire – it fractured his family and while Dozier occasionally wondered how much responsibility for that particular tragedy stemmed from Whitman’s obstinance, it was never more than a fleeting thought. Dozier lost his father as well. He just managed the loss better.

It helped – if “helped” could ever be the right word – that Dozier’s father, as kind and caring a parent as he could be, was hopelessly lost to the idea of the Resistance being on the right side of history. Between the oldest and youngest brothers was an endless stream of arguments, a stalemate of ideologies, and a young child torn between a father who should have been infallible and the relative whom he idolized. His father may have won the battle when the Empire fell, but the detritus left in its wake made Whitford the ultimate winner of the war for Dozier.

“I’m not arguing with you, Whit. I’m just saying we have so much more to give back to the planet. And to the galaxy.” We’re arguing with platitudes, Dozier thought. It’s too early for this.

“The false modesty looks good on camera but less so right now.”

“There’s nothing false about it,” Dozier snapped. “I take great pride in what I’ve done. But I’m also not going to preen about and demand adulation. Not now. Not when there’s so much more to accomplish. We’re not even half done. The journey-“

“-is only beginning,” Whitman interrupted. He paused, then held up his hands. “Forgive me. I shouldn’t have made you defensive. Not on today of all days. I’m proud of you, Bradford. That’s all. You’ve done amazing things. It just wouldn’t kill you to take a victory lap once in a while.”

Dozier sighed. “There’s time for that once the Grand Realignment is in place. Right now I need to shake off this hangover and get started on the day.”

Whitman got off the couch. “Tell me you have actual food to go with this coffee.”

Okay, Dozier thought, maybe I can flex a little. “Just take a look,” he replied with a grin.

1 - Maxon

Maxon

Maxon Davis could always tell when Veciennes cut the FTL drive on the Supersoul as it sounded very much like a large container of loosely packed scrap metal colliding with an even larger container of glass baubles. It was disquieting at first – something had to be wrong with that racket – but Maxon learned to appreciate the noise. It meant the boredom of FTL space had ended and another mission was to begin.

Not that the recent missions were much to talk about. With talk of the old trade routes being reopened, Captain Wheeler was focused on making a name for herself in the salvage business. This meant frog hopping across the dead ends of space, finding planets ruined by the old Galactic War, left to rot, and hoping there was something of value. Given that some fifty odd years had passed since the Dzenghar Empire had been torn apart, the odds were higher that anything that could have been of worth had been picked clean long before Maxon was born. It has been easier when they were pirates.

The crash-boom-crash orchestra subsiding, Maxon slid out of his berth and steadied himself on his feet. Even after three years, the FTL transition left him feeling wobbly and unbalanced. It reminded him of his place on the ship, as the last-on. He was hired as an apprentice – rescued if he was being honest, considering the dead end existence he had been sleepwalking through - and by all measures had proven his worth. But despite graduating to full-time crew member, an almost-equal, he remained at the bottom of the rank, the first-out. The only way that would change would be if Veciennes or Kongh left, either on their own volition or jettisoned into the dead of space. He couldn’t see either choosing the former or Captain Wheeler opting for the latter. They were too good a team.

“Maxon!” the captain’s voice squealed from the comm. It needed repair, as did most of the Supersoul. And like most of the ship, it did not receive any. There was always something more important that was breaking. “Come to the ready room.”

“On it,” Maxon replied. Wheeler sounded excited, a rarity for the last handful of cycles. Might be that they weren’t heading out on another garbage slog.

Maxon exited his cabin and made his way to what was either lovingly or laughingly called the “ready room.” The Supersoul was a pirate ship and space not dedicated to flying, eating, or sleeping was reserved for scavenged goods. The exception was the small boxy area that intersected the ship’s quarters, the engine room, the actual cargo hold, and the cockpit. It had enough room for a table, three chairs, a couple of overstuffed storage lockers, and, as of late, arguments.

Wheeler and Kongh were seated; Veciennes remained higher up in the cockpit. As an Augmented, she typically jacked into the ship’s comms and made her opinions known when she deemed necessary. Maxon had heard of her type prior to joining the Supersoul, but his knowledge was third- and fourth-hand rumor – they lacked emotion, they needed expensive drugs to prevent their bodies from rejecting the cybernetic implants, they suffered psychotic breaks and could turn on you at any moment. In truth, Veciennes was comfortingly mundane.

“What’s the name of this place?” Kongh asked, motioning for Maxon to sit down. He was Maxon’s handler and mentor when Maxon joined the Supersoul (another reason to be grateful for Wheeler – the idea of training apprentices was laughable to most of the piracy guild). The early days were tense, with Maxon knowing little more than the difference between his ass and his elbow and Kongh feeling the best way to learn was to fail often and painfully. But now Maxon viewed him as an older, gruffer brother, one just as quick to share a drink as cuff him in the back of the head. The two were the forward team, the ones responsible for finding profit in a guess.

Veciennes rattled off a quick hit of facts. “Iken IV. Terra class planet. Deemed historical and off limits. It’s an isolated planet broken down by three major geographical groups, all of them with varying degrees of mistrust to anyone who’s not them. They don’t trade off planet and they don’t tolerate off worlders.”

“Historical?” Maxon asked.

“Battle of Tyrant’s Fall. Did you learn anything in school?” Wheeler quipped.

“The school closed shortly after third year. Was converted into the merc recruitment center you found me.”

Like most kids with little to no prospects on a planet with even less, sanctioned, legal career choices typically were limited to prostitute or mercenary. Whores made more money, but life expectancy was about as bad as that of a hired gun, especially on a broken-down dirt world like Maxon’s. As a merc, there was at least the luxury of wearing clothes when being shot at.

Wheeler continued. “So you learned something, just not this. Right. Tyrant’s Fall was when the Dzenghar Empire tapped out. Not the first major battle that they lost but it was the one that made everyone realize that the snake had no head. One of their ships – The Instigator if this file is right – damn near ruined the planet when it crashed. Apparently, it was the shitshow of all shitshows.”

“That’s all good and fine, but why is it off limits?” Kongh asked. The inflection showed how little he thought of that designation. For him, things were off limits only if he didn’t care about them.

“The wreck of The Instigator caused major ecological damage,” Veciennes replied. “The ship did a hell of a number when it hit the earth. Grassland turned to sand, and the sand turned to glass. Once a year the atmosphere freaks out and pretends it belongs to a different planet. When the empire surrendered, the major governments of Iken IV came together for the single time in its history to demand they be left alone. The empire and the Resistance both agreed. It’s still one of the few laws left in place following dissolution of the Resistance.”

“And still obeyed,” Maxon marveled.

“Mostly obeyed,” Wheeler said. “Which means odds are high that there’s something better than the usual scrap down there. Still, no promises – we’re not the only lawless ship out there.”

Kongh grunted. “No, we’re not. So why are the odds so much better for this than any of the others we’ve wasted time on?” Another question Maxon was glad Kongh asked. Their last few missions cost more than they could earn.

“What remains of the local population near the impact site view the ship as a religious icon,” Veciennes said. “If you wanted to know who on the planet hated strangers the most, those are them.”

Wheeler added, “Remember The Heart of Every Country? Evans took on a salvage commission a year ago. They got close to the site, but they were meet with surface to space missiles and a small fleet of fighters, if you can believe that. He figured it wasn’t worth the headache and took off.”

“Evans thought that?” Kongh responded. “Huh. I don’t figure him as someone to turn tail without reason.”

“He probably didn’t expect a buttoned-up planet to be that well-armed,” Maxon quipped.

“Religious belief can lead to mania,” Veciennes said. “Zealotry’s not that far off.”

“It usually is,” Wheeler said softly, as if to herself.

“Zealots. With weapons.” Maxon said. “Kongh, do you want me to do a weapon’s check?”

“Smart thinking, kid. VC, what’s the crash site like?”

“It’s on the southern hemisphere of the planet and is mostly desert, with the Glass Sea being at the center of the crash. Radiation levels are on the low end of safe so nothing that would kill us in the short term. Right outside the Glass Sea is the pilgrimage encampment, but that’s a bit of an understatement. It grows from the ruins of the cities in that area and runs all the way around the circumference of the Glass Sea. Locally it’s known as the Iris.”

“So the entire area is surrounded,” Wheeler noted.

“Mostly. While the Iris is huge, there are uninhabited sections. There are a couple where we can land with a reasonable expectation of not being found.”

“Reasonable?” Maxon asked.

”Within an acceptable margin of error. It’s just math,” Veciennes replied.

Just math. Maxon’s education started and stopped with counting packages of imported goods and the longer he did it, the lower the total became. The galaxy had run out of things to tally by the time Wheeler scooped him up.

“If we can find a good spot, we can use any abandoned shelters as cover,” the augmented continued. “But since the Iris overall is still makeshift with more temporary structures than there are not, it’s also very easy to hide munitions and warriors from drones. If we’re hiding ourselves, they’re hiding even more.”

“Are we talking one religion or is it a bunch of competing oddballs?” Wheeler asked.

“Mostly a single unified belief system – their god threw the ship into the earth as a warning of going off-world – but there are offshoots of varying extremism. Therein lie the pockets in the Iris.”

“And they’re all isolated, right? This isn’t a unified planet.” Maxon said.

“There is no centralized government, but like I said, there’s a deep-rooted mistrust of outsiders. The exception would be tourists,” Veciennes replied.

“Tourists?” Kongh asked.

“Correct. During the dry season, which they’re in, there’s a high likelihood of volcanic activity around the equator. Turns the skies red. It’s apparently quite the sight. The inhabitants relate significant religious meaning to it. It draws its share of acolytes, which the local governments mostly condone. Money talks.”

“And fervor travels,” Wheeler said.

“I’m sure it does.” Kongh shook his head. “So we’re going to an off-limits planet to steal some old tech that may or may not still be there and if we have time, take in the sights amidst a bunch of whack-jobs and off worlders. How we getting in?”

Wheeler sighed. “Given the size of the planet, there’s no way we can land in a less crazy area and get to the wreck without hiring local transport. That’ll take time and money, neither of which we have. I don’t have to tell you we’ve been bleeding coin. We need a good, fast change in luck, so going direct is the plan. Anything else is more trouble than its worth.”

“More trouble that STSs?” Maxon asked. This was unbelievable.

“More trouble than I want.” Something in Wheeler’s voice told Maxon to drop it.

Kongh muttered a curse in his native tongue. Maxon wasn’t sure of the direct translation but it was something along the lines of “Your mother’s wasteful and sad teats.” Normally such colloquialisms made Maxon smile, but nothing about this plan sounded easy or safe, even by piracy standards. There were risks, and then there was outright stupidity.

Wheeler glanced at Kongh, frowned, and carried on. “It’ll be tough, but I have faith Veciennes can get us down. STSs are a bitch if you don’t know they’re coming. Or if you go it alone.”

“Ship leaving FTL space, Captain” Veciennes said. “It’s The Arkon.” She didn’t seem surprised.

“Captain, what the ever-loving hell is going on?” Kongh asked.

“I made a deal with Captain Statner. He’s running interference in exchange for half the profits.”

“Half? We’re the ones going planet-side and doing the work!” Maxon cried. This was unbelievable. Statner had a reputation for being less than trustworthy.

“You think flying around the atmosphere trying not to get shot down is easy work?” Wheeler countered. Again, what was unsaid was Drop it.

“I gotta side with the kid, Captain. No offense, but Statner’s no good. I can’t see an upside to this.”

“You’re right, Kongh. He’s an asshole and normally I’d want him as far away as possible. Even on the other side of the galaxy he’s too close. But if we can’t land without some lunatic priest trying to shoot us out of the sky, why not let the self-proclaimed best pilot in the galaxy take the heat off us? We do our work, they do theirs, and if things work out, we profit handsomely. Veciennes, you have anything you want to add?”

“Nothing that would change your mind, Captain.” Maxon noted that her nanotattoos swirled anxiously about her exposed arms. Veciennes had something to say, just not vocally.

“That’s the right answer. Open a com to The Arkon. Let’s get this over and done with.”

Prologue

Prologue

The last of an old family notorious for leveraging wealth accrued from illegal slavery into positions of authority in a complacent military, Commander Argus Voker XIV was ill-equipped to be master of an single seat interplanetary scout ship, let alone a 10,000 crew fighting vessel. To most of the enlisted on board the Instigator, when the G-Class battle cruiser lost its drive engine shortly after the shields fell, it was a minor miracle that everything didn’t go to shit earlier. Voker was a known quantity, and that quantity was an abundance of incompetence.

For the ten years he laid claim to the Instigator, the ship had been known for its aggressive mediocrity. There were few assignments Voker could not accomplish without delay, error, or craven opportunism. When called to assist in the siege of Ular’Dom, Voker made sure to position his craft far enough away from the planet to avoid any serious combat, but close enough so he could lay claim to the victory hard won by the rest of the fleet. At the beginning of the Great Resistance, Voker and The Instigator, a ship equipped with all manner of short- and long-range sensors, stumbled blindly into one of the enemy’s hidden shipyards, and with an officer company comprised almost entirely of sycophants and incompetent relatives angling for their own commands, barely escaped the fate that would fell the ship some two years later.

According to Voker, the discovery of the shipyard was “the beginning of the end of this petty disturbance” and “a master class in how to engage the enemy and lure them into their own demise.”

According to fleet records, there was a spirited debate on whether The Instigator should be retired for scrap. The damage from Voker’s master class was extensive. Many marveled how a G-Class battle cruiser could have taken such a beating and have so little to show for it. In the end, the Voker family name – not to mention the money spent toward the war effort – was enough to patch the ship and send it back out into the fray. The Great Resistance was proving to be great indeed, and every asset – even those run by fools – was needed.

When The Instigator was called to assist what was later known as The Battle of Tyrant’s Fall, Voker proved that there was no error that he was unwilling to learn from. As with Ular’Dom, Voker ordered the ship out of FTL space too close to the enemy. “The Voker Maneuver,” as he imagined it would be heralded in history books, was designed to paralyze the enemy with such a sudden close proximity. The reality was that Voker’s Chief Lieutenant once again failed to properly model the warp path. This time The Instigator managed to clip its sister ship, The Provocateur, weakening both ships’ shields enough that the Resistance’s short-range fighters were able to bring down their remaining defenses in rapid time.

While the failing Provocateur and the rest of the fleet orbiting Iken IV pressed onward towards the enemy, Voker ordered The Instigator away from the battle. The commander was equal parts lazy and dull-minded, but he was a master opportunist. The ship was again ruined and there was no sense in dying a hero’s death when there was always another opportunity on the horizon. It might be time to start anew with a fresh crew, one more likely to appreciate the subtle nuances of his leadership. If Voker himself couldn’t spin his actions here to a new command, he could always rely on the family and its fortune. Given the routing the fleet seemed to be taking, he thought it prudent to push for a position at central command. There had to be enough in the family coffers to grease those particular wheels.

As Voker daydreamed of a better tomorrow, a handful of Resistance short-range fighters followed the lurching Instigator. It was an easy mark and they made short work of the ship. Their sole mistake was destroying the drive engine while the battle cruiser was so close to a planet that could bear witness to its last gasp. Crippled, The Instigator was captured by Iken IV’s gravitation pull and began its ugly descent.

Such was the size of The Instigator that those on board who fled on the escape pods were caught in its wake and dragged back into the nightmare of burning steel and fuel. Voker’s first and final commission hit the ground with so much force that all life within a hundred miles was eradicated. The seismic damage was felt across Iken IV, slowly turning one hemisphere of a planet known for its rich biodiversity into a barren graveyard. The tombstone, half buried in earth that had burned so long that the ground had turned to glass, was what remained of The Instigator.

That tombstone was the first of many for the Dzenghar Empire. Unable to stem the fatal bleeding that many historians agreed started above Iken IV, it collapsed less than a year later.