Tag: romance

Brigands [3.7]

War and tragedy didn’t simply alter space. In a sense, they also altered time.

The threshold between an ending and a beginning was thin, ludicrous, and maddening.

A step through the invisible, past a shadow; the delineation between an era and the next.

Nobody had quite come to terms with the fullness of their condition before the ship had begun to move. In the preceding days they had not been able to; and the maybe in the subsequent days they would fail to do so as well. When war came to Thassal, everyone’s connection to their previous future had shattered. Since then they were just pantomiming with fate.

Needless to say, nobody was truly situated when Brigand began disembarking procedures.

They had a tight schedule, and a crew that was not used to launching a “brand new ship.”

So there were a lot of sailors lollygagging still, but three conditions had been met.

First, the essential bridge crew was assembled. They had the Captain, Commissar, Helmsman, and Communications, and they also had Sonar operational. Those were the basics for running the ship.

Second, the Reactor crew had come with the ship from Solstice.

So they were accounted for, already in position, and knew what they were doing.

Third and finally, Specialist Semyonova’s beautiful, calming voice had called out to everyone on the ship to please access their nearest terminal or use any portable minicomputer to answer a roll call, which she then initiated. Within moments, the entire roster was accounted for.

At that point it didn’t matter if the sailors were looking for their rooms still.

Most of the systems were automatic anyway.

And the ship absolutely had to move.

Perhaps before anyone could regret what they had chosen.

As suddenly as everything else, and with as little fanfare as everything else, the Brigand undocked from Thassal Station. It was officially in open water and would officially begin its months long journey through the heart of the Empire. In the same confusion, surreality and haste that had characterized the rest of the crew’s life for the past few days, the Brigand now departed.

When it did, Murati Nakara did not quite notice it because she was passing through one of the workshops leading to the hangar. She marveled at all the amazing tools they had and became excited when she walked down to the massive, wide-open hangar to inspect the Divers they had. The Hangar was bigger than the Formidable’s, which was impressive considering the Brigand was the size of a cruiser. Big, but not dreadnought big.

There was equipment everywhere, being moved, or set up, by a platoon of sailors, so the final workspaces were still heavily in flux.

Most of the sailors on the Brigand were mechanics or engineers, and it felt like Murati was staring at all of them working right there. She felt a different sensation from her past forays. She felt proud.

This was her ship, in part, that these folks were setting in order.

She almost wanted to help them. To pick up a pneumatic bolt-driver and get to work on the gantries and get the charging stations cabled-up and tested. That was not her role, however.

It was at that point that a message finally went out.

“UNX-001 Brigand has officially departed Thassal Station!”

It was the saccharine voice of Specialist Semyonova, handling bridge communications.

Murati whistled with amazement. She had felt nothing stirring in the secondary hull.

Just like that, without even knowing it, she was now at sea. Her mission had begun.

Semyonova continued with an update on initial crew duties.

“All sailors not otherwise engaged will have an hour of free time to inspect their quarters and the amenities of the ship, before joining their work cohorts for their first briefing. All officers not otherwise engaged will have an hour of free time as well. All essential personnel have already been engaged with their work cohorts and will have two hours of free time available in four hours.”

“How organized. Launch is really going smoothly, isn’t it?” Murati asked.

“I guess so. But nothing announced for essential officers?”

At Murati’s side, Karuniya was also inspecting the ship with ample curiosity.

They had been basically inseparable since their cohabitation agreement.

Though they would work different roles, they could at least live together in their habitat.

“Important officers would already be in the bridge. I’m guessing we’re not essential.”

“You’re the First Officer Murati. You should put in an appearance at the Bridge.”

“I will! I need to inspect the Divers first. I’m also Diver Leader, you know?”

“You’re just a hopeless military nerd.”

Ignoring Karuniya’s bullying remarks, Murati headed to the center of the hangar.

“Can you go ahead and see if our stuff got to the room ok?”

“Seriously? You’re going to treat me like the disposable wife already?”

Karuniya had a sly face on. Murati felt uncomfortable with the teasing.

“I’m really not trying to, and I’m sorry you feel that way.”

“You’re so defensive! I’m just teasing. You better make this up to me though.”

Murati smiled nervously. “I’ll think of something.”

Still grinning like a devil, Karuniya willingly left Murati’s side.

At the hangar there were six Divers in place, five of them in various states of disarray. Only one had a complete gantry and was set in its proper place, with seemingly all of its parts assembled. The rest were sitting against corners for lack of proper gantries to dock to, missing weapons and even limbs, and had their battery packs uncharged and laid out nearby. It was a mess, but it was exciting to see the Streloks that she may someday command into battle, in their nascent state.

However, it was the remaining Diver, the assembled one, that really caught her eye.

This Diver looked like an entirely different model. It was not just a Strelok.

Rather than the almost oblong shape of the Strelok’s central body, the new model had a somewhat sleeker and more angular body shape, with rounded flanks and a thinner trunk, and leaner shoulders. The head, rather than being flat and square, was shaped more like a triangle pointed forward, with a central double-eyed visor. Angled points stretched from the “cheeks” of this “head” with additional sensors.

While the arms were slightly sleeker than a Strelok’s, they had armored extensions covering the elbow verniers, and the legs and feet much the same. It was a much more aggressive design. She could see that the back had been completely redesigned as well, the backpack bulged out a little less and there were five hydrojets rather than four. Two were set on either side of a new central jet. The intakes had been integrated into the main hull rather than being run out to attachments on the hips and upper chest. There was an extra intake around the “collarbone” of the Diver’s torso for the extra jet.

“Diver Leader Nakara, right? Taken in by the new model?”

Coming in from behind her, a man called for her attention.

He wore a yellow and orange work vest over the white and blue of the fake company they pretended to be, “TBT.” He had a hard hat and safety goggles, but removed them when he approached, revealing a strong, square face with a friendly smile and slick blond hair. He reached out, and she shook his hand.

“That’s me. Are you a mechanic?” Murati asked.

“Engineer, actually. I’m a Warrant Officer instead of a Sailor. Gunther Cohen.”

“Nice to meet you, Warrant Officer Cohen.”

He raised his arms behind the back of his head and laughed, in an affable gesture.

“Nah, nah, call me Gunther! We’re going to be at sea for a while, you know?”

“I suppose so. I’ve never served on a ship for long enough to get over the formalities before.” Murati replied. All of her missions lasted days or weeks. This was her first long-term post.

“Then let’s get over them right now. Most of the comrades here are on a first-name basis.”

He had such a chummy look on his face that she couldn’t help but be nice about it.

“Well then, I suppose you can call me Murati then.” She said.

Gunther nodded his head in acknowledgment and turned right around to the Diver.

“In truth, I had been hoping that you would pilot this one.”

Murati had not really given it any thought.

She figured they would be assigned machines.

“The Diver Leader should get the best machine. It’s only proper, isn’t it? And in truth, this one’s a little tougher to handle than the Streloks. It could use somebody with a bit more experience in the cockpit.”

“So it’s not a Strelok, then?”

 Just by looking at the machine it was plain to see that it was not a Strelok.

Murati still felt compelled to ask the question out of her own curiosity.

Gunther seemed to know a lot about the suit, and he was open about his desire to show it.

“Well, we can’t deny that the Strelok is in the DNA of all our Diving suits, the same way the Rabochiy is in the Strelok’s DNA. But they’re vastly different machines. We made this one to really push Union war manufacturing to its limits. We thought, if we could imagine anything we wanted, without worrying about the cost; and there it is, the ISU-100 Cheka.”

“What does ISU stand for? Diver models had UND designations before.” Murati asked.

“Ah, I guess a connoisseur would stumble into the grimmest part of this huh?”

Murati could not decipher Gunther’s bashful response to her question.

“Well, we don’t have to go into it, I was just curious.”

“No, it’s ok. I helped with this project for the past few months, to get it over the finish line. A couple of different groups worked on it, and we kind of put together everything at the end. But the genesis of the idea was for the Cheka to be a small production line of Internal Suppression Units for the Ashura’s security division. It had to be better than a Strelok, to suppress a mutiny, in case something happened where some rebel force got ahold of our current ships and divers.”

Murati’s eyes drew wide with the recognition of this machine’s purpose. She supposed even in the kind and caring society that the Union tried to be, there were people who were tasked with upholding the peace, and they had to be prepared for the worst possible circumstances. At least she could take heart that the machine would not be used on Union citizens now.

“So that’s why it is an ISU. It’s not a Union Navy Diver, but an Internal Suppression Unit.”

Gunther finished his explanation running his hand through his hair, looking offput.

“It’s fine.” Murati said. “Thank you for explaining it to me. I don’t hold anything against you or against that machine. I’m happy that it will get to see a more worthy use. I will pilot it.”

If for no other reason that no one else should be responsible for that kind of firepower.

“Great!” Gunther clapped his hands together and brightened up instantly. “I saw data from your recovered Strelok in Thassal. For someone who had never fought a real battle in a Strelok before, you showed a lot of potential. And, I mean, I say that as number-crunching nerd– I’m absolutely terrible as a pilot. From the data, I think you’ll love what the Cheka can do.”

“At a glance, it looks much more sophisticated. But what can it do, better than a Strelok?”

Gunther rubbed his hands. “I’m glad you asked. The Cheka is a meter taller than a Strelok, but it’s actually faster. It has more rear thrust, stronger verniers for better snap maneuverability in combat, and instead of using those huge battery packs, it has Agarthic energy cells built-into the works of the hull and backpack. That’s how we saved so much on space and weight in the design.”

“I see, but then, that means the power unit is not interchangeable. So if it gets damaged, it has to be repaired in place, and then it can’t just be hot swapped in the field, isn’t that true?”

Almost thoughtlessly, Murati came out with a criticism that floored Gunther.

“I mean– well, yes. That’s true. But the performance gains are crazy to make up for it!”

“And it has all the standard weapons, correct?”

“It can use the AK-pattern rifles, and tube-launched torpedoes. Um, well, funny you ask, but another place where we differ from the Strelok is encumbrance. It can’t really support huge cannons or a lot of the shoulder weapons. The Strelok just has a heavier, stabler center mass.”

Gunther sounded embarrassed every time he had to mention a flaw in the Cheka.

Murati understood the changes, however. This was a Diver meant for a new era, when outmaneuvering enemy fire and clashing with enemy Divers would become more important. It was forward-looking and highly specialized. Maybe it really was a suit tailored for her own ideas.

“That’s fine. I would love to take it out for a test.” Murati said.

“Absolutely! I can get authorization right now.” Gunther said.

He patted her on the back in a cheerful fashion, as if they were all best friends who had agreed to go to the bar for some drinks. Murati was nearly swept up in his frenetic energy.

“Wait, right now?”

As she asked that terribly important question, there was a sudden blaring of klaxons.

Everyone in the hangar stopped what they were doing.

First they looked up, at the alarm lights and sounds being played.

They then turned to the nearest console for an explanation.

For messages like this, a video from the bridge crew would play.

Soon enough, the pretty, round face of Communications Officer Semyonova appeared, her blond hair expertly tied up, her makeup neatly applied. Many of the sailors were captivated with her and began to joke that being startled by a test of the emergency system was a small price to pay for getting to finally see the face of the beautiful siren-like voice that had been bossing them around. For a moment, as they watched her appear, they smiled and waved at the screens.

It was not a test.

“Battle stations! All crew, battle stations!”

All of the sailors, men, women, both and neither, who had been expressing their feelings for Semyonova, practically fell over backwards on their discarded tools and messy work areas. They scrambled to find something to do or some place to be. Many had not been fully briefed. While the chaos reigned in Engineering, Semyonova continued to explain the situation.

“At roughly 1135 hours, our bridge crew detected the active biosonar of a Barding-class Leviathan approaching from roughly north-northwest in what we assume is a steep, high speed dive. Due to our heading, we must assume we have now been detected by the Leviathan. We don’t know the reason for the Leviathan’s appearance, but it is possibly injured, and therefore erratic and aggressive. We are now 10 kilometers from Thassal Station and must assume we will be the only responders. By procedure we have labeled this Leviathan “Union-Sighted Leviathan 96” or USL-96. All crew assume battle-stations and await further orders for action against USL-96.”

Semyonova’s face vanished from the consoles, which now displayed diagrams drawn up by the predictive computers. This showed the Brigand and its heading, and the potential route of collision with the Leviathan. They would do their best not to near it, but the Leviathan moved faster and with greater agility than any ship, so it was likely they would have to euthanize it.

Murati ran from Gunther’s side and made for the nearest console.

Authorizing herself as the First Officer she was able to get a priority line to the bridge.

In a moment, Captain Korabiskaya’s face appeared on the screen.

“Lieutenant, good to see you. I’m glad you were in the Hangar as I assumed.”

“I was inspecting the Divers. I apologize for not coming up.” Murati said.

There was no aggression whatsoever in the Captain’s response.

“It’s all fine. We expected to have more time to sort things out. We’ve barely left port!”

Murati nodded. “Ma’am, I need to deploy in the Cheka.”

Captain Korabiskaya drew back with surprise at this sudden demand.

“That experimental Diver in the equipment list? Is it even set up yet?”

“It is completely ready.”

In terms of firepower, any ship could potentially kill a Leviathan. However, firepower was the least important factor in a confrontation between humans and beasts. Larger vessels suffered much more from the impacts and attacks of Leviathans. They presented larger targets that a Leviathan’s biosonar would interpret as another Leviathan class enemy, and it would bring out the worst and most targeted of their aggression. Bigger, slower ships could not avoid a Leviathan easily, and might suffer terrible damage trying to fight off the faster, more flexible creature.

If they had a fleet, they could use their faster escort ships to engage the monster.

They did not have a fleet. They had one large ship, and Divers.

Murati’s heart was full of determination, and her face reflected it.

She believed strongly that if she did not protect everyone their mission could be over.

Captain Korabiskaya seemed to sense the stubbornness engraved in her brows and lips and sighed with exhaustion. “Lieutenant, I’m hesitant to authorize this. Right now nothing is set up, you’ll have no backup out there.” She said. “We need to get everyone organized, and then–”

“I’ve got enough help right here. Gunther!”

Murati turned around. Gunther was still near the Cheka, standing around in confusion as the world moved at a frenetic pace around him. Calling his name seemed to snap him out of his anxiety and he ran over to the console. When he laid eyes on the Captain, he immediately saluted.

 “What was all that about formalities?” Murati said.

“It’s the Captain! It’s different!” He said stiffly.

“Captain,” Murati turned back to the console and locked eyes with Korabiskaya. “This man worked on the Cheka. He knows more than just what’s on the datasheets or programmed into the computers. Gunther, do you think the Cheka could stand up to a Barding-class Leviathan?”

Gunther scoffed. “It was designed to fight Streloks 1 against 3 and win, of course it can!”

He collected himself immediately and made a nervous gesture at the Captain.

Murati gestured with her palm up toward Gunther and winked at the Captain.

“I have Gunther here who will help me deploy. And the Cheka can handle the rest.”

“You’re too stubborn, Murati Nakara. You’ll have to work on that when you return.”

Captain Korabiskaya’s gaze avoided her, and her lips turned in a worried expression.

At that point, the video feed cut off, and a message authorizing the launch appeared.

On the Cheka’s gantry, the locks were undone automatically by the bridge crew.

The suit’s heavily angled forward surfaces moved to reveal a hatch, allowing entry.

Murati was still dressed in the TBT half-jacket and pants, but she wore a full bodysuit under it, and told herself this was adequate enough for a snap deployment. Without changing into a diving suit, she rushed over the front of the gantry, climbed up to the Cheka’s hull and slipped into the cockpit. Behind her, the frantic energy of the Hangar was silenced as the hatch closed.

For an instant, she was alone in the pitch black. She could hardly believe where she was.

Then her instruments began to light up. It was all familiar.

She was a Diver; ready to fight.            

On one of the screens, the words ‘For the workers’ revolution!’ briefly appeared.

Previous ~ Next

Brigands [3.5]

That night, the uppermost echelon of the Brigand’s officer cadre met for the first time. Nagavanshi convened twenty-five of the officers at the uppermost point of the Naval HQ. She had a movable podium, a screen, and a flurry of charts, data, and mission objectives to give them all.

“All of you are here tonight because I selected you personally for the skills and experience that you bring to this crew. Tonight, all I hope to do is to instill in you the objectives of this mission. The strategy and tactics, I leave to you; all of you already understand the gravity of our situation.”

The Commissar-General was a poor presenter. She barreled from point to point. There was a list of names and places, maps to follow. All that Murati could gather is that they would move first through the Nectaris Ocean to Sverland in the Southern Empire before moving up to the Imbrium, first to Rhinea, then into Bosporus, and then toward the Duchy of Veka, Skaarsgard and finally to Buren.

Or at least, that’s what she thought was the route.

She supposed it could change.

After all, any situation where a ship infiltrated the Empire was subject to unplanned chaos. She had an inkling of why the Commissar was leaving the strategy up to them. There was no way that this mission could be planned conventionally. Ultimately, it would be up to the crew to make it work.

“All of this information will be programmed into the computers, but I wanted to go over it tonight as well in case you have any questions.” She said. But nobody attending seemed equipped to ask her any questions.

Murati and Karuniya had arrived together at the Observation Spire. As the First Officer, Murati was third in the succession of command after the Captain and the Commissar. She had never been afforded such a high position before, and the meeting felt like a chaotic whirlwind to her because of it. She could not fully concentrate with a mind filled with worry.

Between the magnitude of the mission, and the high degree of responsibility she would bear in the successful completion of that mission, Murati was almost reeling with anxiety.

At least Karuniya was probably paying closer attention.

She was promoted to Chief Specialist and was in charge of scientific consultation. She had a lab and everything to show for her status.

“Don’t worry, I have a great memory. Ask me anything when she’s done.”

Karuniya whispered, perhaps sensing Murati’s discomfort.

Standing next to Nagavanshi during the entire speech was the appointed Captain, Ulyana Korabiskaya. She was one of the few things that captured Murati’s attention. Murati was impressed by her on looks alone. She really got a sense of clean-cut professionalism from Korabiskaya. Her blond hair was perfectly kept with a hair claw, and her makeup accentuated the softness and openness of her facial features. She had an ornate uniform with many awards, and it was a perfect cut for her, making her appear lean and fit beneath the coat and skirt. Murati could even see some definition beneath the skintight suit over her exposed legs. She was a real veteran.

When she was called on to introduce herself by Nagavanashi, her voice was rich and confident. Murati was convinced she was an exemplary Captain.

“Greetings, comrades. I am Captain Ulyana Korabiskaya. Our mission is one of historic, revolutionary character. The sea is vast, but I hope to inspire you all to adapt to any difficulty.”

“Were her words a little slurred?” Karuniya whispered.

Murati scoffed. “Not at all! She sounded perfect.”

“Hmm, you sure look excited.”

Karuniya gave her a look.

“I am glad we have an experienced Captain. I hope to learn a lot from her.”

This seemed to satisfy her fiancé.

“I feel like I’ve heard her name before. I can’t put my finger on it though.”

“We can look up all her awards.”

“You do that then. I’m too happy about having my own lab to complain.”

After Captain Korabiskaya, the Commissar for the ship was introduced. Her stunning eyes, cat-like ears and tail marked her as one of Shimii ethnicity. She looked delicate compared to most of the people in the room, save perhaps Karuniya, but she was agile and elegant, evident even in the easy gait with which she took to the podium before everyone assembled.

“Greetings comrades, I am Commissar Aaliyah Bashara. Should you ever waver in your commitments, do not hesitate to come to me for guidance. More than enforcing discipline on the ship, it is a Commissar’s duty to insure everyone is motivated and committed to our cause. A thousand generations reside in us. Do them proud and fight for justice in our world!”

Murati felt a chill as she heard the Commissar speak.

Her conviction was palpable and moving. It lifted Murati’s spirits.

She had not realized that they were going in order of the chain of command.

So next, Nagavanshi called on Murati to step up.

For a moment, her head went entirely blank.

Karuniya gave her a gentle push. That got her going up the steps to the podium.

Standing before everyone, all Murati could think to do was stiffen up and salute.

“Comrades! I’m, uh, well, I’m Murati Nakara! First Officer and Diver Leader!” She went through her titles then thought of something to say. “Um, the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle! Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, um, they always stood in opposition! And that fight, uh, it’s now open!”

Raising her voice several times during the speech, Murati ended up practically yelling and spitting at those in attendance. In the audience, there was a lonesome clapping from Karuniya that was awkwardly joined by Captain Korabiskaya moments later. Murati stepped down, turning beet-red in the face with embarrassment, and shambled back to Karuniya’s side.

“There, there,” Karuniya patted her back gently. “You were wonderful.”

Going by order in the chain of command, after the Captain, Commissar and First Officer came the Chief Security Officer. From one of the lower tiers, someone not among the assembled audience walked almost reluctantly up to the podium. Murati recognized who it was once she stepped on the podium. She was a woman nearly 200 cm tall perhaps, with broad shoulders and a broad chest beneath her uniform. Her skin tone was interesting. Her face was a slightly paler grey than her visible neck and hands, which were almost dark blue-grey. She had a sharp nose and tired eyes, and her long, white-blond hair was tied up in a sleek, tidy ponytail.

Murati recognized a curious physical feature. Atop her head there was a small, fin-like bump of cartilage peeking through her hair. She had a pretty voluminous amount of hair on her head, so the fin was partially hidden. Similarly, her earholes were hidden by tufts of hair, but the rainbow-colored, fan-shaped cartilage fins in place of the ears were partially visible.

“Good evening. I’m Evgenya Akulantova.”

She spoke with reluctance and scratched her head.

Her fingers were webbed together, and she was moving them idly.

“I’m the Chief of Security. I have some experience with this.” She said after a pause. Then she paused again. Every time Nagavanshi seemed like she was about to cut her off, she would start talking again with a sigh. “I’ve been in Security for 10 years. I’m not trying to hit anyone, you know? I’ve never had to hit anyone before. I think people look at my gentle face and calm down. I hope to continue deescalating conflicts. If I do hit you, you will not enjoy it.”

She stepped down from the podium with another long sigh.

Murati felt a thrill of excitement again.

That gentle, grey face was absolutely familiar to her.

Chief Akulantova was a Pelagis. Murati had met her, specifically, before aboard another ship. She was glad that Akulantova continued to have a career. The Pelagites were a very hard-done people, and it was heartening to know that they were represented in the military. As her appearance suggested, she was a human with fish-like characteristics. Murati carefully avoiding thinking too much about where she might have come from. It was usually a depressing story; and there were many varieties.

“Chief, chief,”

Murati walked to the edge of the crowd and tried to get her attention as she walked down.

Chief Akulantova was surprised to have been hailed and turned her tired eyes on Murati.

“Remember me? I was a Diver on the Comrade Kunduz.” Murati said.

The Pelagis’s thin blue lips and soft cheeks curled into a smile, bearing many sharp teeth.

“Kunduz was a fun one. I don’t remember you, but I hope you have a nice evening.”

She then continued walking toward the back again, where she slunk out of sight once more.

Karuniya took up Murati’s side again. “Friend of yours?” She asked.

“Acquaintance.” Murati replied, slightly defeated.

“Not everyone’s job is to keep up with your vast exploits, you know?”

Karuniya tried to comfort Murati, who turned her attention back to the podium.

While there were around twenty people in attendance, the chain of command extended only five people down: Captain, Commissar, First Office/Diver Leader, Security Chief and finally, the last rung in the chain climbed up to the podium. It was the Helmsman, a tall, dark-skinned, spindly young man with short, frizzy black hair. He had a pair of shaded sunglasses perched atop his broad nose.

Despite the audience, he was quite collected.

“You probably won’t ever need to talk to me much, but the good lady wants me to get up here, so I am. I’m Abdul Kamarik, the helmsman.” He shaped his hands into what seemed like it was supposed to be a boat. Or so Murati thought; really the gesture could have meant anything. The way he was rocking the figure he made with his fingers, Murati supposed it was a boat. “Like that. I’ve brought dozens of ships safely back to port over my career. So, just don’t sweat it. I’ve already got all the mission maps memorized.”

He spread his arms, bowed, and walked off the podium.

Nagavanshi took the podium again to address the audience.

“We will depart as soon as possible. I recommend you all make any needed arrangements in the next few days. I have done everything I can to give you a ship, crew, and equipment for your success. In the end, however, your choices will decide the fate of this ship. I believe in you, so be confident.”

On that enigmatic note, Nagavanshi left the podium herself and adjourned the meeting.

There was an eerie silence. Perhaps everyone, like Murati, felt that things were moving too fast. This may well have been par the course for the new era they were entering. After all, Thassal had come under attack from imperial forces very suddenly, so suddenly that it felt surreal. And the distance that Murati now felt from that event, as she proceeded to move on to the next stage of her life, and the next battlefield– nothing was more surreal than that. As she watched the people file out in a nervous confusion, it was the presence of Karuniya beside her that provided comfort.

“I think, despite everything, this might be destiny for us.” Karuniya said.

“Destiny?”

“It might not be materialist, but it’s what I’m thinking. After all, if we had stayed in Thassal, it’s not like we were going to have an idyllic married life for too long. You said it yourself to me: our war with the Empire is inevitable. With this though– it feels like I’m doing something.”

“Taking matters into our own hands.” Murati said.

Karuniya smiled at her.

“It’s better than trying to pretend like nothing has happened.”

Murati knew she was correct.

They were soldiers, and communists. There was no avoiding a Union war with the Empire. If this is the form it took; maybe it was destiny.

Previous ~ Next

Brigands [3.4]

Go fuck yourself, you drunk, womanizing cad.

Yana found a response written on a massive computer window left open in her room’s wall.

Her overnight partner, Aaliyah, was long gone. There was no trace for her. Even on the bed, any fluids they expelled in their passion would have been evaporated by the room as part of its cleaning routine. Yana sighed heavily, sinking into her bed. At least she would be leaving soon.

Maybe if she survived all of this mess she would skip town and move to Lyser.

Throwing her casual clothes on the ground, she laid in bed in her wetsuit for hours.

She asked herself, constantly: What should I feel about this?

For the past five years she had avoided work on ships.

Nagavanshi was right. She blamed herself for the Pravda. Nothing would change that.

Yana had thought the best medicine was to disappear.

She had served in the military since the revolution, going from cadet to Captain. She had been promoted faster than any of her peer group and completed many more assignments. For years she had been obsessed with work. It was her right to retire to a peaceful life. And she had some good years, some great parties, some amazing exes. Fun stories to tell. Those first few years of drinking away the memory of the disaster that had befallen her served to erase her past; but also her future.

Now that she was older, she felt pressured to change herself. To become somebody.

Old habits die hard.

“That’s just stupid excuses, Yana.” She told herself. “I keep wanting to do this shit.”

Anyone who wanted could judge her, for the drinking, (for the womanizing.)

None of them could hurt her more than she hurt herself.

None of them could her feel more ashamed than she did.

And none of them could change her or what she felt.

In fact, no one had even tried. Everyone, including herself, found it easier to give up.

Until Nagavanshi — that woman was a demon.

She had a way of dominating anyone.

Captain Ulyana Korabiskaya of the UNX-001 Brigand.

Why was she doing this? Nagavanshi had placed so much importance on this ship.

Yana almost felt scared. To think that she would be responsible for a crew again.

After all she had done, for years, to avoid any responsibility for her actions.

“It’s Nagavanshi who wants me there. She said all that crap, didn’t she?”

There was a part of her, buried deep beneath the detritus of the past few years, that felt a strange thrill at the idea of commanding a ship again. And it was a ship on a historic mission, too. Nagavanshi had called her a hero. She had praised her so much. That praise pissed her off; it was so presumptive. Yana did not see herself that way– but she hated that she couldn’t feel that pride.

“But what if I could earn it again? What if–”

Nagavanshi’s voice in her head interrupted her thoughts.

What if she could redeem herself?

That was what Nagavanshi had explicitly offered her.

Could she ever actually redeem herself? Was she redeemable at all?

Yana grit her teeth, shook her head. She could not keep thinking about this.

She was so exhausted. Her head was pounding.

Manipulating the wall computer, she summoned a gentle violin melody.

All around her the lights dimmed.

“Wake me up an hour before the meeting.” She murmured as she typed the words.

Yana threw herself back against the bed, shut her eyes, and had a long, dreamless nap.

Hours passed. All of the darkness of the past few hours washed out of her body in sleep.

She awakened a few minutes before her alarm, in time to hear it go off and feel annoyed.

Purged of emotion, and cured of her headache, Yana felt as ready she could ever be.

Standing at the door to her wardrobe, she hesitated, fingers hovering over the door handle.

“Nagavanshi said it can only be me. So, let her bear the responsibility then.”

Disabusing herself of the burden of her fate allowed Yana to throw open those doors and push aside the cocktail dresses, the tailored blazers and pants, the erotic lingerie, and other regalia of the life she had pursued. Behind all of it was her military uniform. Thankfully, her figure had not changed overmuch from when she was active duty. She had kept fit enough for uniform.

For the first time in years, she donned a full bodysuit, dress shirt, uniform skirt and coat. Her rank insignia, a yellow bar with three circles with a small star inside for Senior Captain, shone proudly on both the lapel of her coat, and just above her breasts. Her blonde hair was again tidied up behind the back of her head with a claw hair clip. Professional; confident; maybe even austere.

Maybe even too austere. She dabbed a bit of red lipstick on before leaving the apartment.

Having just a little bit of party girl in her would not hurt crew discipline.

With makeup, her face looked remarkably like she remembered it before the Pravda.

Was the woman staring back at her truly 36 years old? Had that much time passed?

Yana touched her own face.

“God, I still look like a girl.”

Having lost perspective on this, her idea of a girl was herself, in her late 20s.

That was the face she saw looking back, the face that surprised her.

For some reason she expected she looked much more wearied, worn.

“I guess there’s a little bit around my eyes.”

Yana really had to strain to see the tiny wrinkles there.

Nevertheless, she dabbed a little concealer from her makeup kit around her eyes.

Seeing herself in uniform, all made up, and moving on to a new ship, it surprised her. All of these touchstones to a past she felt had been completely obliterated, gave her a tiny bit of hope that allowed her to gird herself for the future. To go back to the Naval HQ, after half a decade of military abstinence. She almost enjoyed how she looked in the coat and skirt.

She struck a pose with her fists on her hips, leaning forward.

Mustering up her most commanding voice, she pointed a finger at her reflection.

“Launch torpedo #8! Go for the enemy’s forward ballast!”

Even more surprising, she found herself smiling in front of the mirror.

“My, oh my.”

She winked at her reflection before departing her room.

Nagavanshi had not given her a specific time she should appear at the HQ, so she figured she could make it in by 1800. That was the second shift at the offices. To simulate “night,” a concept which was scientifically understood but not experienced beneath the sea, the lights around the station started to dim. By 1800 the Station would start to transition to its night life. People would open up co-op bars and even tiny pop-ups in the halls and plazas. There was music and dancing, and a flurry of colors provided by party drones, balls of LED lights with basic programming.

All industrial production in the Union was controlled by cadres of workers that answered to the central Union government. This is what gave the Union its name at first. It had risen out of labor unionization. This continued to be the case, but the Union allowed home-made goods, and anyone who wanted could apply to purchase or trade the raw materials to make their own textiles, alcohol, and computerized devices. When there was a surplus, some materials were even free.

For alcohol in particular, there was an additional restriction that home-made drinks could not be sold during the “day” when people worked. So walking the halls at night, one would see all manner of tiny places open out of personal rooms or shared workspaces, selling their own brews.

Yana was tempted, but she valiantly resisted. She had work to go to, after all.

Her journey took her past a few makeshift clubs, like the ones she would have loved to frequent on any other night. There was beautiful music and gorgeous singing, people dressed in the nicest outfit they owned (or could borrow), close dancing. There was a tight, sweaty, sensual atmosphere to the clubs that, in the most intense places, would even waft out into the hall.

She pushed herself to walk faster and avoided looking through those doors.

For people who lived in and worked either in small, thriftily organized spaces, often by themselves or in tiny groups that would rarely deviate from their work; or worse, out in the terrifying void that was the Ocean surrounding the Station; there was something about the clubs, which formed in open or mid-size spaces, that gave the inhabitants like Yana a lot of comfort. Even the most packed club felt lived in, organic, in a way the Station halls and room could not be.

“No clubbing for you. You’ve decided to be a responsible adult, remember Yana?”

Finally she reached the elevators and took them up to the docks and the Naval HQ.

During the day, the Naval HQ was a chaotic flurry of activity, but at night, it was downright serene. Aside from a few Rabochiy still moving cargo, and a paltry few security officers patrolling with rubber-grenade rifles in hand, there was little traffic, and one could see how broad the thoroughfares were in the Docks and around the Naval HQ. Up above, and all around her, the glass panels looking out onto the berths were brightly lit and allowed Yana to see many ships at rest.

None of those berths contained the ship in the picture, the Brigand. (Her own ship?)

Yana wandered into the Naval HQ, where a receptionist was organizing the front desk, perhaps for want of anything else to do. When Yana arrived, she quickly made herself available.

“Commissar-General Nagavanshi is waiting for me.”

“Oh! Authenticate in the elevator and then tell it to take you to the Observation Spire.” The receptionist said. “While you’re here, by the way, did you see too many people outside?”

Yana shook her head.

“Great! Time for a break.”

With that, the receptionist pressed a button on her desk, and a window appeared on an LCD panel on the adjoining wall, indicating that the reception was closed for 25 minutes.

“Enjoy your break.”

Smiling, Yana ambled past the reception desk and into the elevator.

Inside, a robotic voice acknowledged her presence.

“Senior Captain Ulyana Korabiskaya.”

It had detected the computer chip embedded in her coat. Her credentials still worked.

She saw a few buttons on the wall, but those manual controls were only for the publically accessible floors. In order to access the highest levels of the HQ building, one required credentials that had to be authenticated by machine. Yana had been authorized, so she could verbally select a normally classified destination. Those who were prohibited access didn’t even have the option.

“Observation spire.” She said.

There was no answer from the elevator.

“Observation spire. OX-1917.”

“Location not recognized!”

The elevator was not a thinking entity — no machines could think for themselves, no matter how advanced. It was designed to receive certain input and to take action in response. Clearly it was not working. Yana sighed. She got closer to the control panel and found a manual input for location codes. That was also the location of the elevator microphone. She put her lips near it.

“Observation spire.”

“Location not recognized!”

Grumbling, she put the manual code in for the Spire into the elevator.

Finally there was a slight vibration as it got going.

So much for the glitzy, computerized future.

There was a significant amount of computerization in the Union. They had less manpower than the Empire and less space. Any job a computer could handle was a job that a human did not have to do and freed those humans up to do jobs a computer could not be programmed or trusted to perform — such as firing weapons or offering good service. It was plain to see however that some automation decisions had been poorly thought out, poorly implemented, or both.

Once the elevator got moving it quickly raised Yana through the interior structure of the Thassal mound, and the core pylon holding up the mound and the station. She was lifted up to a point just over the docks. She exited out onto a room with a domed roof that appeared as if it was glass. In reality, it was all LCDs displaying feeds from high-powered cameras outside, making it seem like they were windows and that she was under a dome of glass. A central set of steps led up to three tiers of bulbous observation rooms that offered their guests an unimpressive view of the outside. It was all dark and murky, no matter how well lit or how powerful the cameras.

She could see the outline of at least one ship out there in the dark, however.

As she stepped out of the elevator, she saw a few people loitering about the area in uniform.

Two approached her. One was Nagavanshi, who had a friendless look on her face as usual. Beside her stood a woman in uniform.

Black coat with red trim, and a skirt, over a body stocking.

“There you are, Korabiskaya. I want to introduce you to the Commissar here–”

The Commissar accompanying Nagavanshi was a young woman. Her light olive skin and long dark hair looked devastatingly familiar, as did a pair of fluffy cat-like ears sticking out of the top of her head. Her slender figure, gentle orange eyes and thin, lightly reddened lips brought Yana back to a place she would have rather forgotten all about, and a time similarly fraught. Clubs, liquor pop-ups, the dimly lit station streets. Sweet words, invigorating conversation. A bedroom, the pair desperately undressing. Lifting her up, teasing her, gently nipping the tips of her breasts–

Yana wanted to sink through the floor and be crushed by the sea outside.

And the woman staring daggers at her looked no less mortified, but far more furious.

“This is Commissar Aaliyah Bashara. You two will share command of the Brigand.”

Nagavanshi introduced them. She seemed unaware of the volatile auras between them.

Aaliyah extended her hand silently when prompted.

Filled with a desperate need to cause no further trouble, Yana took the hand.

They exchanged a single, extremely stiff shake, before averting their gazes.

“Her role will be to help you with discipline and personnel decisions. I still expect you to take charge of strategy, but she is a great strategist also and will advise you. I fully vouch for her.”

Curiously, Aaliyah did not have a matching Naga armband. Nobody else in the room did.

That was perhaps the only comforting observation Yana had made of the situation.

“I’ll convene everyone for a briefing in a few minutes.”

Suddenly, Nagavanshi turned around and left them, heading upstairs.

An awkward silence ensued as Aaliyah and Yana stared at one another.

“Got anything to say to me?”

Aaliyah moved first, crossing her arms. Yana withered under her piercing glare.

Despite thinking over everything she could say, the words practically stumbled out of her.

“I hope we can have a professional relationship.”

It was so bad! The worst thing to say!

Aaliyah’s face softened at first as if she could not believe what she heard. Her ears stood on end, and her tail was curled. Then her shaking hands became fists. She bore her fangs.

“I’ll be perfectly professional. A word of professional advice: if you think a girl is so easy you can just fuck her and leave without aftercare, maybe you shouldn’t whisper so many sweet words to her and make yourself out to be so sensitive and caring and oh so in love. Be honest about playing me. Playing me so hard, you didn’t even want to see me wake up, or even two hours later.”

Like Nagavanshi, she turned around and walked away the instant of her last words. Yana was left standing there speechless, mortified, unable to mutter an apology.

Previous ~ Next

Brigands [3.3]

“If this is what married life might look like, sign me up right now!”

Karuniya leaned back until her head came to rest on Murati’s lap.

“We are trying to sign up. It takes a while.”

“Oh, shut up. You know what I mean!”

She looked up with those precious emerald eyes, full of warmth. Setting aside her mini-computer, Murati caressed Karuniya’s hair, returning the wide, beaming smile that her girlfriend gave her. She put her back against the wall adjacent her bed and sighed contentedly. She did know exactly what Karuniya meant. Their feelings were entwined more than ever.

Something about surviving certain death cast new light on what was profoundly important.

One part of their resolution from the battle at Thassal was that they had to spend more time together. Once Murati got out of the hospital, they immediately put their date back on the calendar. Both of them had committed to the Reserve due to the intense fighting they saw in Thassal, and due to the arrival of more experienced troops from Solstice. So they had nothing but free time.

For this date, they agreed to take it a little easier than they had during their last rendezvous.

They gathered everything they could want for a lazy afternoon.

Rented mini-computers, and the proper cables for a direct LAN connection; beet-sugar sodas; and a big bowl of toasted corn and peanuts, drizzled with a little bit of oil and yeast flakes. They could eat snacks, watch and listen to different media, maybe even play some video games.

There was also another pressing bit of business the computers would allow them to tackle.

Once they were ready, the two of them convened in Murati’s room with fluttering hearts.

They booted the computers they had taken out. They felt the anticipation in their fingertips.

Sitting together on the bed, holding hands, they locked eyes, with serious expressions.

“Let’s make it official then.” Murati said.

“Absolutely! Official, above-board girlfriends!” Karuniya replied.

This determination led them to the Union government’s intranet portal for Thassal.

Together, they filled out the computer form and applied for permanent cohabitation.

For now, they were registered as authorized administrators of each other’s rooms.

Eventually, they hoped to apply for a double-wide apartment and free up their singles.

All it took was a few taps on the screen. Technology had really come quite far.

It had been so easy and instantaneous that the dramatic tension they both felt had dissipated.

At that point, they collapsed against one another and played around on the computers.

Murati was seated, holding her minicomputer up, and Karuniya had her head on her lap.

“Murati, let me show this BBS I found! It’s so full of haughty students.”

She gave Murati the numbered address of the BBS and Murati navigated directly to it. While the design of the page was very sparse, it had all they needed for a spirited conversation on Union civics. Columned text posts, the perpetrators of them, and all of the associated metadata.

Some posts had photographs attached of the posters. Others had symbols or identifying marks. Any wall camera could take a picture for you and upload it to your room or a minicomputer as was convenient for you, but some folks got creative. There was a poster named ‘Agora’ who had as their avatar a picture of a barter table. Another, ‘Baerotrauma69’ had a more avant-garde style, known only to them. Murati had been in the Academy when intranet forums usage began to rise sharply. Originally intended for educational discussion, they had become an outlet for a very room-bound population to make friends and accost their enemies, as more and more computers were built and made accessible to the public through the government lending libraries.

Murati and Karuniya had a mutual fascination with ‘the net’.

Neither of them felt like using it for educational purposes.

Smirking, Karuniya began to type. “Judging by your avatar you must be a Camposist, as it is evident you’ve been on quite a conquest for bread.” Her fingers hovered over the keys waiting for Murati’s approval. Her loving partner cuddled up beside her and read the message.

“That’s so mean. Send it. Let me look at his picture– ok, yeah, send it.”

A tiny ‘hehehe’ accompanied Karuniya striking the “send” key on the contextual keyboard.

“The debate room is too easy.” Murati said. “Here’s where the real artisanal grief can be stricken. They’ve got a BBS for video games. Those kinds of posters can’t help themselves.”

Murati raised her eyes to the ceiling, thinking for a moment, then began to thumb-type. “I found a secret in the 8th level ‘Climbing Comrades’. Walk off the ledge just before the castle exit!”

“Seriously? That’s kids’ stuff.” Karuniya said. “Try making a case for ‘Constant Attack II’ being a puzzle game. People will get way angrier if you just assert things like that without basis.”

“Oatmeal is a soup.” Murati said in direct voice, perfectly suppressing the urge to laugh.

Karuniya stuck her tongue out at her. Murati laughed and continued her intranet journey.

“There’s a BBS for trading stuff. Want to look? There’s handmade goods, room mods–”

In response Karuniya rolled her head around on Murati’s lap, flailing her arms.

“We’re thinking about new a room this early huh?” She wailed. “Overwhelming.”

“Oh don’t be like that. We could get some nice things to make it feel cozy.”

“I just don’t want to think about difficult things. I’m done making choices for the day.”

“It’s not difficult at all!” Murati said. “Look, someone is trading a virtual aquarium. Hand-made pixel art wallpapers on diskette for room computers. An old cleaning drone that is programmed to whine and act like an animal to work as a cyber-pet. Isn’t that fun sounding?”

Karuniya scowled. “Should we get a crib for the baby?”

Murati instantly petrified. For a split second she went over the night they spent together. She vividly remembered a condom; how could she forget who put it on, and how? Then Karuniya started to laugh openly at her, before her imagination could get any further carried away.

“Hey, don’t joke about that.” Murati said, her tone of voice lower and more severe.

“I wouldn’t try to raise a kid if we had one anyway.” Karuniya mumbled.

“I really don’t want to think about anything like that, Karu.”

“Now you know how I feel.”

“It’s entirely different! Orders of magnitude different! I’m asking you about wallpaper!”

“Yes, and I don’t want to think about it.”

Karuniya poked at Murati’s inner thigh with her finger while mumbling childishly.

Murati was exasperated at first.

She could not help but slowly devolve into sniffling laughter. What a ridiculous woman! She put a hand on Karuniya’s head and rubbed her hair all over, flooded with affection for her.

“Who is being a troublemaker now?” Murati said mockingly.

“Ah! Stop it! It’s your fault! You’re rubbing off on me!”

“You’re being so petty!”

“I love you!”

Karuniya sat up suddenly and planted a kiss on Murati’s cheek.

She whispered in a sultry voice in Murati’s ear.

“Shut up for a little bit and I’ll kiss somewhere else.”

When she dropped back onto her lap, Murati was dead silent, smiling down at her.

“Unfortunately for you, I’m not actually in the mood.”

Murati reached down and started to tickle Karuniya’s stomach.

“Ah! No!”

This affectionate battle characterized their cohabitation for a few minutes.

Then peace returned to the apartment as the two of them settled back down.

“Oh, this is interesting.”

Sitting up, Karuniya showed Murati her own minicomputer. There was a board for sharing pictures of life on the station. One post had a photo attached which had been taken by an exterior berth camera. It showed the hundreds of ships saturating the waters of Thassal Station. Many of them had recognizable hulls for a pair of soldiers who had just fought a fleet action not long ago.

There was one ship in the photo that looked markedly different.

“Everyone’s talking about this one. Nobody can identify the class it’s supposed to be.”

“It’s gigantic. Must be at least cruiser sized. Maybe it’s an old hauler.” Murati said.

Murati got up close to the computer, taking in the picture. It was a remarkable ship.

“It looks so worn out.” Karuniya said. “I knew you’d love it. Why do you think it’s here?”

“Maybe it is bringing supplies. It looks a bit like an old hauler, but not any of our newer transporters. We could have brought it out of reserve to make up for a shortfall of cargo ships.”

“I hope that’s not the case. I’d hate to think we’re having logistical problems this early.”

This early — in the war they were both sure would be coming now.

In their little island of peace, with their thoughts for a romantic future.

All around there were hundreds of warships, and far beyond, lay thousands of enemy ships.

“I don’t want to think about it!”

Karuniya raised her arms in protest and pushed Murati to stand up off the bed.

Confused, Murati quietly acquiesced.

“Go fetch us some lunch. I want to use the bandwidth we have to download a film.”

“Karuniya, that will take hours. The LAN speed for non-government stuff is atrocious.”

“Which is why you can use the time to have a nice walk, and I can have a nice nap!”

Karuniya took up all of the bed, setting the computer aside to download several hundred megabytes worth of a movie file at 256 kbps. From the look of the file name and the particular FTP site she was getting it from it appeared to be a schlocky horror film. Murati heaved a sigh, but it truly seemed that Karuniya wanted to be lazy and nothing would convince her otherwise.

Murati knew how troubled she was, even though she tried to blow it off.

Before the battle for Thassal, her partner had not been saccharine about their relationship. That she sincerely wanted to live together and make big steps in their relationship meant she had been affected by everything that transpired. Murati felt blessed by this. Getting lunch for her was a simple task, and the reward of coming back into the room and seeing her there waiting was enough.

“I’ll be back!”

With a spring in her step, Murati headed over to the canteen at Bubble. There was a buzz of activity around the lower Block. Several new arrivals had to be housed, at least temporarily, so there were people in front of every door, being led to their new accommodations, shown the amenities and being read the Thassal housing charter. A few rooms looked like they would be crowded with three soldiers at a time. With a hundred more ships at the station than before, and no immediate mission, it meant thousands of off-duty soldiers mixed up with the familiar neighbors.

At the canteen, she chose one of each menu item. When there were two to feed, it didn’t make sense to pick two A menus or two B menus: they could share every item. It turned out to be a great haul this time. Pickled eggs, tomato relish, broth-soaked biscuits, eggplant; it was a king’s ransom. She wondered if they were being grandiose with the meals as a celebration of the battle. Soldiers returning to the station or being rotated out to the reserve could use the extra comfort.

When she was on her way back, Murati found someone waiting at the entrance to the block.

Her eyes first noticed the armband, with a stylized serpent.

Ashura.

That armband represented the communist party’s elite forces. They served in security and intelligence roles, as well as in arbitration of civil conflicts. And the person before her was not just any Ashura. Judging by the insignia on her uniform, four red and gold stars, she would have been an Admiral. There were no Admirals among the Ashura, however. They had different ranks.

Those stylized stars were instead meant to be read as “Commissar-General.”

When she fully realized this, Murati stopped in front of the woman with a wide-eyed stare.

“Murati Nakara, correct? I am Commissar-General Parvati Nagavanshi.”

Murati shifted the way she was carrying her boxes so she could salute Nagavanshi.

Nagavanshi shook her head. “No need for formalities. You’re in the reserve. Is civilian life treating you and Maharapratham well? I heard you took the first step with her a few hours ago.”

The first step— it was a euphemism. Cohabitation was the first step to marriage. In the Union, marriage was chiefly tied to space. Couples that wanted to live together needed larger rooms, and they freed up smaller living spaces for others, like young adults who were leaving the school dorms. To be married, to live in a space befitting two people, was the next step.

For those who wanted to raise their own families, rather than put their children in government custody, there was another step beyond marriage, to acquiring a larger living space. Such faculties were rare. But that was the cultural touchstone Nagavanshi was alluding to. The steps two people took.

And it haunted Murati when she realized how much Nagavanshi knew about her. All of those records were public, but it meant Nagavanshi was searching for information about her. And she had been searching as recently as a few hours ago when Karuniya joined her to make the first request, for cohabitation. Perhaps she was still collecting data about her even as they spoke.

The intelligence services really were a force to be feared.

Now Murati was even more worried about the Commissar-General’s presence.

“Ma’am, with all due respect, I don’t know how to respond to that.”

“I read about the battle of Thassalid Trench. You were recorded by Deshnov as one of the architects of that battle’s strategy. We won because of you; of course you would earn notoriety.”

“I know. I am being considered for a position at HQ in the Strategy department, by Rear Admiral Goswani. Until my review I was asked to remain in the Reserve.” Murati said.

“That is not what you want, right?”

Nagavanshi produced from her black and gold coat a document in a folder.

“You’ve made the most petitions out of anyone in your peer group. You don’t want to plot behind a desk at the HQ. You want to command; you want to be in the middle of the action.”

She opened the folder briefly. It was full of review documents for Murati’s petitions.

Murati’s words caught in her throat.

Maybe a week or two ago she would have responded with confidence. She would have said in the affirmative that she was destined to Captain a ship. She was born to fight the enemies of the Union. She would live to take the Union’s justice to the Empire that threatened to destroy them. All of these things she so staunchly believed where shaken now, however.

At the battle of Thassal she had killed many people and won victory.

It had shown her the suddenness, the terror, the surreal insanity of war.

Karuniya and her were starting to assemble a different kind of life.

“Commissar-General, at the moment I’m in the Navy reserve, so–”

She tried to deflect, but Nagavanshi was not letting her escape so easily.

“I’m assembling a crew. I’ve got a ship, and a revolutionary mission that cannot succeed without you.” Nagavanshi said. “I hope that you will join us because as a staunch mordecist you understand our historic conditions. We can assemble all the ships we want at Ferris. Our Navy is at best 1000 strong, which is maybe a fifth of active Imperial war power, not to mention reserves. We can hide away and build our strength and bide our time, but we will never build 4000 ships in a year or two. Our time is short. I want to take decisive action; to take the fight to the Empire within a week.”

What frightened Murati the most was this was not someone’s lunatic raving.

Nagavanshi was speaking unopposed, but she spoke with a casual confidence.

Everything she was saying, she had thought through with immense care.

And yet there was an underlying contradiction that made her sound insane.

“That isn’t possible.” Murati said. “You just said we don’t have enough fighting strength. Then you’re saying we need to confront the Empire. With one ship? I don’t understand ma’am.”

Nagavanshi did not waver. Her voice was steadied by a palpable conviction.

“All of the fighting power we need is mustering in the Empire as we speak. They are going to take advantage of their own historic conditions and take a gamble for their futures. They might fail without us. I’m not asking you to fight alone. I’m asking you to join my one ship so you can take up arms with all of the dispossessed in the Empire itself and help them follow our footsteps.”

 A revolution was brewing– in the Empire itself. How was this possible?

“Will you turn away from their revolution? When they need you?”

Nagavanshi was extremely dangerous.

She knew exactly how to pitch something to Murati that she could not resist.

All of this time, Murati had devoted herself to fighting in memory of her revolution.

A thousand generations lived inside her. That’s what the Union told its youth.

Was the Empire truly on the cusp of revolution? An event that all of her life had seemed outside the realm of possibility; something never spoken to her, never taught to her, something that was in no books she had ever read. The Empire’s poor and the Empire’s weak, the Empire’s young; would they too, spill the blood of an entire generation to overturn their oppression?

Murati’s fist shook with frustration.

It was the part of her Karuniya called “a troublemaker” preventing her from turning away.

A part of her that would always agitate for what was right, what was fair.

That would always stand with those who faced injustice.

That would always take the comfortable and the elite to task for their complacency.

And yet, she was so conflicted. Because she had become complacent herself.

“Commissar-General, I’m not convinced the Empire can have revolutionary potential. And even if it were to be developed I’m not convinced that it can be truly effective.” She was lying, she was practically lying to herself and to Nagavanshi, and it was evident in her face, eyes closed, her jaw trembling with anxiety. “I’m furthermore not convinced your idea of sending one ship out into the Empire to do who-knows-what, could possibly further that potential. So I’m afraid–”

“I’m disappointed, and unmoved.”

Nagavanshi produced from the other side of her coat a minicomputer.

It was smaller than most of its kind and emblazoned with her logo.

But the screen was bright and clear. And Karuniya’s face was on that screen.

“I’ve dispatched a message to your fiancé. She will not refuse my offer.”

Her golden eyes locked onto Murati’s own auburn eyes with imperious contempt.

“I had hoped you would join us out of your own intellect and moral development. Clearly I overestimated you. Nonetheless, I will do whatever it takes to launch this mission, Lieutenant.”

Murati dropped her lunch boxes and grabbed hold of Nagavanshi by her coat.

By force, she practically lifted her opponent.

She was a head taller; the Commissar-General could not resist her.

Nagavanshi never tried to struggle. She was completely unfazed.

Those terrifying golden eyes remained steadily locked on Murati’s own.

“Everyone feels entitled to put their hands on me today.” Nagavanshi lamented.

Murati felt ridiculous and furious in equal proportion.

To do this was a flagrant, violent act that was wholly unwarranted.

And yet she wanted nothing more than to rip Nagavanshi’s head clean off.

“Leave Karuniya out of this.” Murati said through a stiff, fang-bearing grimace.

Nagavanshi made no expression in return.

“So you would leave without taking your fiancé? It had always been my intention for the two of you to go together. In fact I planned such a thing for your sake. I could have gotten any Oceanographer, but she is the best choice to make sure you are operating at maximum efficiency.”

“What?”

It had not even occurred to Murati that all of this would involve Karuniya.

Was she wrong to think so? She wanted to protect Karuniya.

To protect her– but they had sworn to be together now.

Nagavanshi saw the opportunity and interjected.

“I don’t mean to pry into private matters, but if you were intending to leave by yourself, it would void your cohabitation agreement, and probably also your partner’s affection and trust–”

Murati had enough.

She slammed Nagavanshi down to the ground.

The Commissar-General toppled over easily as if she had no physical strength to respond.

She looked the silliest that she had the entire conversation. Her cap went rolling. She fell into her own cape and looked more like a heap of clothes than a person for a few seconds. Her hair broke from its neat bun and fell down the front of her face. Her arm band nearly slid off her arm.

Slowly, the Commissar-General collected herself.

Murati was frozen in place.

Her head was spinning, drunk on a cocktail of impossible emotions and sensations.

She had never known herself to be this impulsive. She had struck a superior officer.

“Solceanos defend! Commissar, I’m so sorry–”

She genuinely meant it. And maybe Nagavanshi even knew that to be the case.

As before, the Ashura’s chief betrayed no emotion. When she stood back up, it was as if she had never been thrown, save for her wild hair and the slightest tremor in her hands.

“As a sign of goodwill, I will not press any charges or hold what you have done against you.” Nagavanshi said. “I will be expecting you in the Naval HQ for further debriefing tonight. You shall be pleased to know that commensurate with your new position as First Officer and Diver Leader of the UNX-001 Brigand, you will be promoted to Senior Lieutenant.”

Her black-gloved hand thrust something into Murati’s chest. A picture of the ship?

Then, without another word, she walked away. Murati almost wanted to describe it as “storming off” in her own reckoning. She felt that the Commissar-General was clearly aggravated in her body language despite her inexpressive face. Soon as she had appeared, she had vanished.

The entire discussion had felt like a flood swept over Murati. Had her lunch boxes not been on the ground, she might have wondered whether she was hallucinating in the middle of the hall.

At least the lunch boxes were clasped shut and sturdy.

She picked them up, took them under her arms and took off in a full sprint towards home.

As she ran, she almost wanted to cry.

Because they lived in the Union, there was truly no escaping war with the Empire.

To have even thought she could for an instant made Murati feel so foolish.

Nagavanshi had been right. She had been naïve to think she would just stay at the station.

Murati’s ideas had changed the battle at Thassal. She was inextricably linked to this war.

As she arrived at her room, she tried to compose herself before opening the door.

Inside, Karuniya was reading something. A message had appeared on the wall.

“Are you alright, Murati?” She asked. She did not look distressed.

Murati could not make out the wall message from the door. Because Karuniya had summoned it from her vantage on the bed, the text was big enough for her, but not for Murati. So she could not tell what kind of message Karuniya had received. She had a guess, however.

“I’m fine.”

She put on a smile and walked in with a lunchbox in each hand.

“There was some good stuff today.” Murati said. “I think you’ll love the eggplant–”

“Knock it off.”

Karuniya stopped her while she was going to put the lunches on the bed.

She looked up at Murati from the bed, her eyes narrowed, her brow furrowed.

“Murati, never do that again. Don’t hide things from me. You’re terrible at it.”

Karuniya reached out and took Murati’s hands into her own.

Feeling those soft hands, seeing Karuniya right in front of her.

It really was a blessing, even though everything else seemed to grow ever darker.

“I’ll be with you no matter what.” Karuniya said.

Murati threw her arms around her in embrace, holding her tight, in complete silence. On the wall behind them, the message from Nagavanshi updated with a picture of the ship.

“You’re going to do this?” Murati asked.

“She contacted you too?”

They parted briefly, looking into each other’s eyes.

“Murati, I don’t think we have a choice.”

Karuniya touched Murati’s cheek.

“Yes, she offered me a lab and all kinds of things so I would join whatever mission they are getting up to. But the instant I saw the messages I knew that what the Ashura really wanted was ‘The Genius of Thassal’ to join their ship. And being honest, I thought you would love to go.”

“I’m conflicted.”

Murati averted her gaze.

Karuniya gently guided Murati’s eyes back to her own. Slowly, she kissed Murati on the lips. They shared a moment that was brief, warm, and immeasurably kind. Murati nearly wept with emotion.

“Besides being a scientist, I’m a soldier. That’s how things are in the Union. And besides being citizens of the Union, we’re soldiers. Besides even that, we’re revolutionaries. And the Murati I fell in love would cause no end of trouble for her own rights and those of others.”

Murati sighed. She looked well and truly resigned.

“It’ll put you in danger.” She said, weakly.            

Karuniya embraced her. No more was discussed about this.

Both of them had made their decision together. They held each other in enduring silence as if to say ‘no, it will put us in danger.’ They accepted it.

Previous ~ Next

Brigands [3.2]

This one she could not blame on drinking. This time it was all squarely on her.

“You did it again Yana. You have no self-control. You horrible– you evil–”

Her self-flagellation caught in her throat. She thought she would puke. She sobbed.

She drank last night. She drank a lot. And had that been all, she would not have wept.

What made her most upset was that she was not drunk. She was fully aware.

She remembered everything, but it was as if she had done it all with a devil on her shoulder.

In her head she reviewed everything she had done as if she had watched a stranger do it.

But it was not some stranger. It was herself. She did it, and she knew it, and hated the fact.

On the nightstand, an empty bottle. Apricot liquor. Fancy stuff; it was a big enough bottle that she hoped she had help with it. A headache, a sense of burning in her chest, and the cold sweat running down her face, down her back; she had drunk it. She had drunk a lot. However, the most mortifying thing is she never lost control. Everything she did was impulsive but deliberate.

Last night she had gone out to celebrate the end of the recent crisis. Drinking, dancing, at different venues across the station, at the plazas, co-ops, canteens, joining a throng of celebrants. She hit it off with a particular someone, and from there everything felt like magic. Lovely, witty conversation, fast, flirtatious dancing, great booze. They found a private nook, and after slipping the coat off her shoulders, she dove into that first hungry kiss in the neck. Then she went home, and not alone. She had lifted her up by her legs, dropped her onto the bed, devoured her.

Yana gagged, the burning in her chest rising to her throat.

No amount of being drunk justified it. She felt mortified. This was her own room and her own bed that she had woken up in. And the stranger sharing it with her was her responsibility.

A dark-haired, waifish young woman laid beside her, close enough to share her warmth. Young; clearly younger than Yana. Her chest rose and fell with gentle breathing, completely exposed with all the loving red marks which had been put on the tips of her breasts, her collarbones, between her thighs. Atop her head a pair of cat-like, neatly fluffy ears periodically twitched.

Every so often a tiny little moan would escape her lips. Her tail would curl up too.

Her sleep was untroubled. Maybe she had just not drank as much,

She covered the girl up with a sheet. Both for her comfort and dignity, and to hide her.

“How old is she, Yana,” She berated herself.

Her shaking fingers hit the wall, and the room computer put up the ID that had been logged.

The woman she had spent the night having sex with was 27 years old.

“Yana, you’re nine years older than her.”

She brought the same hand she had used to type into the wall, up to her face.

Her whole body was shaking with shame. She absolutely hated herself.

Among other things she was shaking with, was her continuing, heavy bout with nausea.

Bolting from the bed, she rushed her own cold, naked body to the bathroom, where she bent over the waste collection vents. Seemingly understanding of her plight, the bathroom spread a fine, sweet-smelling mist over her as it washed away the contents of her stomach. She felt the sting of the liquor coming back up her throat. She hated it; she hated herself so much for this.

“I’ll apologize when she wakes up.” She said, breathlessly, to herself. “I’ll ask if she wants anything from me and I’ll give it to her. If she wants me to appear before council, or marriage–”

She could hardly think back to the other times this had happened where no restitution was necessary, as she was caught in such a mire of self-loathing that everything seemed a grand crime and nothing about the other woman’s agency entered her head. She was in this state, watching her bathroom clean itself, for several minutes, before a notification appeared on the wall next to her.

“Ulyana Korabiskaya. I request to meet with you.”

Yana was speechless, staring with a wide, horror-stricken gaze at the ID of the visitor.

Parvati Nagavanshi.

While her bed was taken up by a woman in the afterglow, while she was naked, with her knees on the floor bent over a grate, and the apartment smelled of booze and sweat despite the best effort of the machines– the Commissar-General was at her door awaiting an audience.

Was this it? The day that her absurd life would be put to an end?

“Ulyana Korabiskaya, your room says it is occupied. It is past 1100 hours and you should be awake. I am willing to leave a message, but this discourtesy is highly irregular, and I resent it.”

It was past 1100 hours.

Yana raised her hand up to her face and pulled down in distress.

“Just a moment!” She shouted. “One minute and I’ll be there!”

From her bed she heard a low murmur, and a purring noise.

Yana froze in place.

“I will wait.” Nagavanshi said.

Her heart was stuck in her chest. She could not breathe or move.

There was silence for just enough to convince Yana that the girl had not woken up.

Carefully, she rose to her feet, and pulled a nearly see-through casual robe from her closet.

Throwing this on, her hair slightly wet, she appeared to have stepped out of the shower.

In this attire, she opened the door a crack, and smiled at the Commissar-General.

“Good morning, Nagavanshi!” She said cheerfully. “My, it has been so long hasn’t it?”

“It’s good to see you again. Get dressed. We need to speak at length.”

Nagavanshi’s expression was humorless as usual. Always pristinely uniformed, no matter where she went; she was a walking office, exercising her duty every hour of the day. She was a woman of slight stature, professional and groomed, with her hair tied up under her peaked cap, her dark skin completely unadorned with makeup or accessories of any kind. Her gaze was the most intense part of her, unwavering even with her eyes shaded by her cap and framed by tidy bangs.  

Yana laughed. She sounded audibly uncomfortable and she could not hide it.

“I had a bit of a rough night.” Yana said.

“I can tell. What you need is to eat something and get some plaza air. Come on.”

For a brief moment Nagavanshi turned her head to try to see around Yana.

“Okay! Give me a few minutes!”

Yana slammed the door shut.

She put her back to it, breathing ragged, staring at the placidly sleeping girl in her bed.

Their clothes were on the floor. In one corner she found her dress, and the one-piece wet suit she had worn last night. So the tiny, filmy, erotic black dress must have belonged to the woman in her bed. Her lover’s suit was shaded mesh that was almost see-through, and the dress itself had plenty of gaps for skin to show. It was an incredibly bold design, at the cutting edge of fashion — and maybe modesty. Yana loved it; it was the kind of clothes she would have loved to wear, if she did not feel a persisting shame in the pit of her stomach for being a party girl at age 36.

Yana tapped on the wall again and brought the woman’s ID one more time.

Her name was Aaliyah Bashara.

“I’ll make it up to you.” She clapped her hands together and bowed her head as if begging. “Please forgive me!” Trying not to drop dead from the overwhelming, mortifying sense of shame she felt with herself, Yana donned a casual one-piece swimsuit, along with a jacket and a pair of pants. Her long, wavy blond hair she quickly tied up behind the back of her head with a big, sturdy hair claw. There was no time to fix her makeup. She just washed her face and dabbed it off.

Aaliyah was not stirring throughout. She was out like a light.

Yana pinned a wall computer window on one of the walls, leaving it open with a note.

“Ulyana–”

  “I’m coming!”

I have to go, but I will make it up to you. — Yana K.

There was no more time to agonize over what she could say or do for Aaliyah Bashara that would be enough to assuage her own guilt and shame, let alone any feelings Aaliyah Bashara actually had about the night they had spent. With little consideration for the young woman and a head full of completely self-centered thoughts, Yana finally left the apartment to meet Nagavanshi outside. The Commissar, for her part, had not changed in demeanor for the better or the worse.

“You look in total disarray.” Nagavanshi said. “Let’s get you some food.”

Yana sighed. She walked behind the Commissar; her steps unsteady, her head pounding.

Owing to her distinguished service, Yana lived in a slightly nicer apartment in one of the slightly nicer habitats in the Block on Thassal station. Her habitat was on the opposite side of the Thassal mound from a certain Lieutenant’s. While all accommodations were supposed to be equal, and at least in size they were, it was a fact that older habitats built or refurbished after the Revolution were the lesser kin of newer habitats. These had more consistent power, and slightly better access to water and climate control owing to their newer desalinators, recycler systems and air treatment. They also had wider halls and more accessible plazas and shopping strips.

Room assignment was “decided by machine.” Computers did not make any decisions by themselves, of course, they had no capability to do so. What this meant was that a program would be run to randomly assign housing, making sure people of all kinds were represented among all blocks of housing stock. But Union leadership also used housing as a reward mechanism in certain cases. Yana was not the only medal-earning military veteran to have a room in a nicer habitat.

It was one of many things she did not feel she deserved.

However, it was impossible for her to turn down machine-awarded accolades.

From Yana’s habitat they made their way to the services district, which had an open space for trading or bartering as well as a canteen serving hot food and a government shop with clothes and other necessities. Contained within a glass and steel structure, the space was designed so the inhabitants could see out into the flooded cave deep in the center of Thassal Station’s stone mound. All manner of odd deep dwelling creatures passed by the glass for curious onlookers to see.

There were a few tables filled with various things to be traded or bartered with. Some of the objects were accompanied by their owners, who were looking to negotiate. Others were left with a note of encouragement from the former owner. By far the most common items were clothes. Many people traded clothing to acquire new fashions, since fancy, innovative clothing was mostly the handiwork of hobbyists and not government-backed industry. There were also books, and even a few diskettes of someone’s homemade video game, free for anyone interested.

Nagavanshi did not acknowledge the presence of the table. Her gaze was fixed forward.

She always struck Yana as someone who already had everything she needed for her life.

If Nagavanshi wanted anything, it must have been intangible. Influence; power; love?

As depressing as it sounded, Yana did not believe Nagavanshi capable of the latter.

At the seating area specifically for the canteen they found a small table for two. Soon a boy in overalls stopped at their table, flashed them a chipper smile and asked to take their orders. He could not have been older than fourteen. He was fulfilling his community work credit for school.

“What will it be ladies? Item A or Item B?”

Canteens served two different meals during the day, and another two different meals at night. The menu was based on what they could prepare to feed potentially thousands of people with the resources they had on hand. It was rude to ask exactly what was being served, but suggestions and alterations based on mood, availability, or dietary needs, could be made right at the table.

In her case, Yana had a simple question. “Which one’s the fattiest?”

Her father had always told her that a fatty meal and a bottomless glass of seltzer water was the only real cure for drunkenness. Nagavanshi glared at her, likely misunderstanding her intent.

“You’ll be wanting ‘B’; I’ll tell big sis to give you some extra margarine.”

He turned a big smile on Nagavanshi. She gave him back the tiniest little smirk.

“I’ll take ‘A’.” Nagavanshi said.

“Coming right up!”

From the table, the boy darted cheerfully back to the canteen counter, and conferred with the woman doing the cooking for the day. Soon, the boy returned with two plastic cases worth of food, which included their own plastic cutlery. Each of the menus had a drink. Yana’s came with a clear soda flavored only with a bit of syrup. Nagavanshi had a yellow drink from a citrus powder.

There had been an upward trend in their meals recently, and had the circumstances been different Yana would have found this lunch to be a highlight of the day. A triangular slice of cornbread, resting on a pool of margarine and pickled chicken’s eggs, made up half the plate. The real treasure was slices of battered, fried eggplant rounds. She almost believed they were fresh.

On Nagavanshi’s plate, there was a big biscuit that had been soaked in broth and took on a honey-brown color and turned soft. This biscuit was then set on a puddle of broth that had been scooped into the case. On top of the biscuit there was tomato and corn relish, yeast shavings and pickled egg. Yana guessed that pickled egg was the protein of the day for Thassal station.

“Is it ok if I dig in? I have one hell of a ‘morning-after’ headache.” Yana asked.

Without answer, Nagavanshi dipped her spoon into her biscuit and took a bite.

Yana nodded, and tucked into her own plate. Eggplant was nice and salty, well-breaded.

Nagavanshi barely nipped at her food. She gave Yana time eat before she talked again.

“You didn’t participate in the battle for Thassalid trench. Why did you refuse to?”

A direct assault right after lunch! Yana was ill prepared to be questioned like this.

She almost choked on the last bite of her food. She took a long gulp of soda water.

“It is your right not to do so, but I don’t understand. You could have been a valuable asset. You have much more experience on a large ship than some of the people who received ships there.”

Nagavanshi continued to calmly interrogate her, ignoring Yana’s clear distress.

Once her throat was finally clear, Yana could finally take audible offense to this inquiry.

“I exercised my rights! You’re correct, they’re my rights, I have a right not to go to war if I choose to do so. I served my time. Let the eager young people have a chance at those battles!”

“You refuse the battle, but it appears that you don’t refuse the party afterwards.”

The Commissar-General had a weary expression on her face. A tired, concerned gaze.

Though it was hard to tell with her, perhaps it even signified worry.

And Yana hated it. She hated it almost as much as she hated herself.

This was not a battle of words between one of the highest authorities in the nation and a pathetic, drunk, womanizing has-been Captain. Yana realized that she was speaking to Parvati, a woman who had once served under her. A woman who had been educated alongside her. A woman who, perhaps with some personal ambiguities, could be considered a friend, or at least a peer.

They were acting as equals in this discussion. Painful as it was, Yana recognized that.

And how dare she? How dare she come back like this after being distant for so long?

“Why did you come to Thassal Station, Nagavanshi? Surely it wasn’t for this?”

Nagavanshi looked upset. “I came to laugh at you. Is that what you want to hear?”

There was only one way that Yana could think to reply to that. “Fuck you!”

“You imagined from the outset that I was here to make you the victim you want to be.”

Yana stood up suddenly and put both fists against the table, rocking the lunch boxes.

“Parvati, you’re still nothing but the little rulebook-citing twerp who kept the bridge crew in line with me. I’ll put your head through this table right now. Don’t test me with your bullshit.”

“Listen to me Yana.” Nagavanshi was always so calm, and Yana hated that even more. “I have a proposal for you. You can beat me up afterwards if you want. In the end, it won’t matter either way. If you do what I want, I’ll be beaten down by the bravest hero the Union has ever seen. And if you refuse me, I’ll be beaten up by a pathetic nobody who has amounted to nothing.”

Yana stopped in her tracks. Her eyes watered, her rage quickly dissolving. All her emotions were starting to divert elsewhere. She had gone from seeing red, to seeing nothing but her tears. She barely heard Nagavanshi, but she understood enough to realize there was a lot more happening than just her politically ascendant old shipmate coming to patronize her old failure of a Captain.

“No matter what happens, I’ll wipe the blood out of my lips. I’ve already won.”

Nagavashi procured a picture from her uniform coat and laid it on the table.

It was a photograph of a ship. A rather odd ship. Long, two-tiered, boxy.

“What is this?” Yana asked. She settled back into her seat. All of her ravaneous energy was gone. That terrifying instant of power and violence had passed her by, and she felt twice her age. Tired, overwhelmed. She took the picture in her hands. “Is this a hauler? Do you want me to haul?”

“She’s special.” Nagavanshi said. “I want you to take her on a journey.”

“No.” Yana shook her head weakly. Her voice was losing all conviction. “I can’t.”

“You’re an incredible Captain. You command respect, discipline, sympathy. Your instincts are sharp; you’re a survivor; you’re a polyglot. You are good with people, situations, and gear. Nobody else can handle this. Anyone else in our peer group would fail; they will fail as people to their own crew, or fail militarily, or fail diplomatically, when the pressure really builds up.”

 Yana brought her hands up to her face to hide her tears. “Parvati I really cannot.”

“I do not expect you to comply immediately. But you belong in a ship again, Yana.”

“Parvati, I really cannot do this right now.”

“You still blame yourself for the Pravda, don’t you?”

Nagavanshi’s tone was as neutral as always. Yana could tell, however, that she was being soft. As soft as she could be, with as much empathy as her strict, materialist self could muster.

It was too much to bear. It made her head pound harder. Yana just couldn’t take it.

“How can I not?” She murmured.

“Because you had nothing to do with it. You were exonerated near immediately. It was the result of negligence and all those responsible paid their dues for it.”

Yana forced herself to make eye contact with Nagavanshi.

Her face was full of bitterness. Her eyes reddened with tears, wide open with resentment.

“I’m supposed to feel better because you found people to kill other than me?”

“You’re supposed to feel better because you were not to blame.”

“Forgive me, but I don’t see how that erases all the deaths I was helpless to stop.”

“You were a hero. Honestly, I can’t stand to see you choose to–”

“I didn’t choose anything!” Yana slammed the table again. From behind them, the canteen crew finally noticed the altercation and seemed hesitant. They would have known who Nagavanshi was. Yana didn’t care. “I didn’t even get to go down with my ship. That was also decided for me!”

This time however, Nagavanshi finally fell to her level and raised her voice.

“What would that have changed? You die and then what?”

Yana looked up at her with confusion. She was surprised to hear her finally emote.

Nagavanshi’s eyes returned a look to her that was just as bitter and resentful as her.

“If you ask me, it’s too convenient when soldiers just drop dead. There are so many stories that just end with a dead soldier and no more questions raised. Soldiers that don’t get to live don’t have to think about how to live after what they experienced. They don’t get healing; they don’t get redemption. I can’t offer you the former, but if you’re after the latter, then redeem yourself.”

She pushed the picture up to Yana, almost shoving it against the woman’s chest.

“This ship, the Brigand, is going to leave us for hundreds of days on a crucial mission. No other Captain will be able to shepherd a crew through such a long voyage. It has never been done. I believe that you can do it, Ulyana Korabiskaya. You can do it, precisely because you’ve faced hardship, and despite everything that has happened to you, no matter what, you continued living. You continued living because you inspired amazing men and women to give their all for you.”

Yana looked down at the picture of the ship, her eyes overflowing with tears.

She could not remember the terror of the Pravda except as scattered images, lights and sounds, screams and the hissing of gas, the feeling of fire kissing her back. That frustrating sense of ephemerality, that made her question whether anything truly happened at all, whether she was actually there to see it, brought tears to her eyes. She could not stop weeping over the table.

Through a heavy sob, she pushed the picture back toward Nagavanshi.

“Can I have a moment?” She asked. “To think about things.”

“You can cry all you want. I’ll wait.”

Yana sank against the table, sobbing heavily, unable to withstand the thundering of her former comrades’ words as they reverberated within her brain. To think that all those people died so that she would live, and all the misguided praise that the Commissar was heaping upon her. It felt so surreal. To be given a ship again after all she had been through, all she had failed to do.

A hand came to rest upon her hair.

It was gentle. Slender fingers stroked through her blonde locks without judgment.

“Cry all you need to before you come to the HQ tonight.”

Years’ worth of tears that had been caught inside the most cold, guarded recesses of Yana Korabiskaya came pouring out then. She did cry as if for two people, freely and without aim. Overwhelmed with shame and guilt, adrift in old injuries that she knew, no matter how much she tried, she would not be able to heal. Despite this: she wanted to take the offer now.

Previous ~ Next

Brigands [3.1]

“Ferris, the iron wall of the Union. Oh how you sacrifice for us, to this very day.”

Looking out of a false window in her shuttle, an LCD with a feed of their surroundings, Premier Bhavani Jayasankar mused on the region farthest from her direct influence. A rocky, mountainous, grey place, lightless place at the bottom of the Ocean. While the political center of the Union lay in Solstice, its military heart was the border of Ferris.

This austere place was where their truest warriors were born and lived.

Soldiers from all around the Union mustered at Ferris to defend the border.

“Did the Empire underestimate us? Or did we overestimate them? I wonder–“

Amid this mobilization, the Premier herself was also summoned.

Beyond just speeches and reassurances, she wanted to see Ferris for herself. She would give nobody the excuse of saying she hid in Solstice while the border turned hot. A few days had passed since the battle, and she had made the journey as soon as she could. Her trip was public knowledge and there were a lot of appearances she planned to make with military and civilians.

There were also a few private matters she needed to take care of.

“Nagavanshi always gets out ahead of me somehow.” She said to herself.

Her reflection in the glass began to wane.

In the distance, the center of human life in Ferris took her place in the murky picture.

Thassal Station stood like a deformed pillar rising high above rolling hills of pockmarked stone and stripped out ore quarries. Reinforced titanium modules and the occasional glass hexagon made up the habitats, berths and weapons stations that stuck out all around the central rock formation, at once grafted upon the surface but also upholding it. Deep in the center of the mound, a Core Pylon served as a foundation, shouldering the lives built up over the rock, tethering everything, and hiding the Agarthicite reactors. It was their purple glow that made this life possible.

“And there’s my first destination.”

Sitting on the rock next to Thassal Station was a massive structure. Like a bubble of glass and metal, resting atop a massive base laden with berths, to which dozens of ships were docked. Premier Jayasankar recalled the glowing report she gave at the start of the year about the expansion of agriculture in Lyser, and how this structure represented it. Now it was going to be used for war.

It was in this Agri-Sphere that she would decide the Union’s next military actions.

Dragged in from Lyser, this sphere now served as “Hammer-1,” temporary base of the expanded Ferris fleet. Thousands of personnel had arrived at Hammer-1 to organize logistics and supply, to run maintenance and to build stockpiles. As it was originally intended for agriculture, both hydroponic and with treated soil mediums, Hammer-1 was divided into flat, broad stories with rows of adjustable space and a lot of lamps. All of it was now taken up by cranes, Divers, shipping containers and makeshift warehousing. People were hard at work to make it war worthy.

Amid this build-up, Premier Jayasankar’s shuttle arrived at Hammer-1.

Alone, without bodyguards or attendants, she headed into the depths of the structure.

As far as anyone knew, she was much too early for her first public appearance.

She was right on time for Nagavanshi’s secretive little meeting.

A meeting that could decide the fate of the Union, she had said.

Arriving in a dark room, she became part of a troika of powerful interests in the Union. Gathered around a large table equipped with a touchscreen surface, they were there to discuss the direction of the Union in the face of imminent war with the Empire. At Nagavanshi’s behalf, they would examine all of the intelligence they had on the Empire’s direction and formulate a plan.

Vain as it was, Bhavani believed herself foremost among the attendants. She was a vision of self-control and professionalism, casually confident in expression, her face only lightly weathered with experience despite her years. Tall and athletic, with her hair in a bun and wearing a black synthetic suit with dark tinted glasses, she resembled her own bodyguard more than she did a desk worker. She was the people’s Premier. She walked among them easily and casually.

Her reflection on the table was magnificent, and she felt in command of everything.

“Commissar-General, and Grand Admiral” Jayasankar bowed her head lightly toward her two counterparts. “We last met to discuss what a good year it had been for shipbuilding and agriculture. I can’t help but wonder if we are all being punished for the barest hint of complacency at the moment. Our shipbuilding is far too slow for our predicament, and now our agricultural plans are also on hold. Nevertheless, I want it to be clear that I believe in us. Let’s not be too doom and gloom.”

Grand Admiral Sorokin Klasnikov was the only man in attendance. He was a tall, bronzed gentleman with a full beard, pristinely in uniform. His beard was quite long and flowed with a greater breadth even than the hair on his head. He kept his hands behind his back and stood firmly.

“Premier, it is good to see you in cheerful spirits, despite everything,” began the Admiral, soft spoken, “I don’t believe Eloah is so merciless as to fault us for merely being optimistic.”

Commissar-General Nagavanshi meanwhile looked the youngest in the room. She had suggested they hold this meeting but hid her feelings about it behind a careful, neutral expression.

“Well, Admiral, I don’t believe in any Gods, as this Union is beyond such mysticism.”

Nagavanshi had a talent for sounding both polite and openly contemptuous.

Her face lacked even the subtle crow’s feet evident around Jayasankar’s eyes and lips, and she was very obviously of a nearer vintage than the pockmarked old Klasnikov. Her hair flowed freely from under her peaked cap, adorned with a golden serpent, and her rich brown skin had an even sheen as if it had been laid over body uniformly, unmarred by light or touch.

Her golden eyes seemed bottomless, like they might devour what they viewed.

“Everything that is happening is a result of material forces that are well understood.”

She spoke quite casually, and Klasnikov looked ready to snap at her.

“Now, now,”

Premier Jayasankar interrupted before anyone could continue that particular topic.

“Religion is something best not discussed among friends.”

She swiped her fingers over the computer screen set into the middle of the table.

A map of the Nectaris and Imbrium Oceans appeared on the screen. The Premier touched closer to the north Imbrium sea, where the Occultis continental line separated the North Imbrium, ruled mostly by the Empire, with the northwestern end of the Cognitum Ocean: waters that the mighty Republic shared with a few other states. The Great Ayre Reach, an expanse of calm water, with simple geography at shockingly low depth, separated the Empire and the Republic.

Ayre could have been a powerful economic asset for the Republic, able to sustain several stations on flat, easy ground within a stable climate, but instead it had been the stage of the Republic’s righteous aggression against the Empire for what seemed like eternity. Every few decades there was a terrifying campaign over the Great Ayre Reach that ended in crushing Republic defeats, allowing the Empire to occupy the Reach and block the Republic’s access to the Imbrium Ocean, until the next time the mighty foes exchanged it. A communist scholar, Mordecai, once believed that the Empire and the Republic did battle over the Reach in order to destroy surplus production of goods and stymie political and social progress.

That last point was neither here nor there, but it was on Jayasankar’s mind as she surveyed the map.

“Anyone have the early score from the latest Empire vs. Republic game?” She asked.

Nagavanshi glanced over to Klasnikov, with a bored look on her face.

Klasnikov gave her a critical look back. He cleared his throat loudly.

“Our intelligence indicates that the Republic brought 800 ships divided into five fleets to the Ayre Reach. The Empire brought the Grand Western Fleet. The latest estimated strength for that formation was 1000 ships divided in seven fleets. It is our understanding the Empire won.”

“Of course they did.” Nagavanshi said.

“We should not act as if this was all foretold.” Klasnikov said. “It was not merely numbers that sealed the fate of the Ayre Reach. From information we gathered over the past few days, the Republic made major strategic missteps. They feared being too outnumbered, so they adopted a wide formation to try to cover Imperial flanking attacks. This allowed the Imperials to use their numbers in a different way. Instead of matching the breadth of the Republic deployment, they concentrated their attack and crushed the Republic center, isolating the wings of the formation.”

Nagavanshi scoffed. “At that point, the Republic should have swung a trap around them.”

“We can say what we want from the comfort of this chamber.” Klasnikov said. He seemed almost to pity the Republic forces. “Perhaps if they had fought on, they could have used the wings of the formation to inflict bitter damage on the Imperials. But that would have been asking troops to sacrifice their lives when they had come prepared to fight on even terms. You can’t pretend you were laying bait for the enemy just because it becomes convenient; preparing bait means that the bait was prepared for its role. For the Republic forces, they saw hundreds of their ships and thousands of their comrades killed in front of them. I can’t fault them for escaping at that point.”

“I can.” Nagavanshi said. “Because the ones picking up the pieces could soon be us. Some allies the Republic have turned out to be! Don’t give that look Klasnikov — I read the same acoustic messages you did. I don’t need explanations.” She raised an accusatory finger at the Admiral. “The Republic had a center of 200 ships and wings of 300 ships a piece. They snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by fleeing instead of pressing into Fueller’s flank and crushing him.”

“As far as the Republic’s politics are concerned, they don’t win from just killing the Prince if they have to sacrifice 800 ships to do so.” Klasnikov said. “They aren’t like you, Nagavanshi. You can isolate and kill an individual with your spies and thugs, but you can’t do it with a fleet.”

Nagavanshi narrowed her eyes at Klasnikov.

Jayasankar then raised her hand like a student in a classroom, smiling.

“Everyone is getting so spirited but let us move beyond the hypotheticals. The Republic has suffered another defeat and the Empire will again occupy the breadth of the Ayre Reach. They would still need to cross the North Occultis canal to advance, so the Republic will be fine. In fact they probably won’t even try to move farther than Ayre Reach. Ratha Flow is too fortified for the Empire to press on into the core Republic territory an ocean away. My concern is that if this battle did not hurt the Empire too, too much, we will be the next target. Am I correct in my assumption?”

“You very well could be.” Klasnikov said.

“No, you are absolutely wrong.”

Nagavanshi procured a series of documents and slid them across the table.

This was a symbolic gesture more than anything, because the table itself scanned the documents as they crossed and was able to project all of their data on tabbed windows close to the other meeting participants. By the time the papers’ momentum stopped just short of Jayasankar she was already reading what had been scanned. She brought her hand up to her hair to fidget.

Should the information in those papers prove correct then yes, Jayasankar’s assumption might be very wrong. It was not in her character to get giddy over every piece of idle speculation that came her way, however. So after reading the information, she turned her gaze on the head of the Ashura security and intelligence forces, Nagavanashi, who clearly knew more than she let on.

It had been her all along who suggested this meeting, after all.

Klasnikov, meanwhile, was reaching for the papers themselves as if he could not trust the scanner to have gotten the information correct. He flipped through all the papers, brow furrowing.

“Parvati, your most prominent source is this girl from the wreck of the Strasser. I assume you corroborated this news with other survivors from the Imperial fleet, and you’ve got your own tricks for finding information far afield. I want to know what other sources you have that you aren’t writing about on the record, and what information you’ve learned beyond this one event.”

Despite Jayasankar’s tact in describing it, this event was no small matter.

Nagavanshi did not convene meetings unless her information was explosive.

According to the documents, rescue teams found a survivor from the Imperial Fleet, who had connections among the nobility and military. In exchange for her life, not knowing that the Union intended to imprison rather than execute her, she attested to the Emperor having fallen with a terminal illness and being pronounced all but officially dead. The Grand Duchies, the major states that made up the Empire’s territory, were eager to back their own claimants to the throne. All of this, while Prince Erich von Fueller, the heir apparent, was off in the Great Ayre Reach fighting the Republic. According to the source, the reason for the Southern Border Fleet’s attack on the Union was the ambition of Admiral Gottwald to form his own faction in the coming strife.

He had been too eager, however, and suffered resounding defeat against the Union. He was killed in Thassal.

For the Emperor to be gone so suddenly was monumental.

For as little as the Premier made it seem in her casual speech, this was earthshaking news.

Upon the eve of his coup, Konstantin von Fueller had dared the aristocracy to move against him.

For almost fifty years they slumbered under his control. Now he was dead: and now, they would awaken.

“Mere imperial troops would not have had access to that kind of information. That would have only been known to Admirals and their associates, as they freely cavort with the aristocracy in a way that none below their rank are truly able to. So there was no need to interrogate the lower ranking survivors. Simply put, I trust the girl’s information. I believe we should act on it. By the time more overt signs of its veracity manifest themselves we may be too late to take advantage.”

Nagavanshi was prepared for the questioning.

After all, she did not get to her own position without being meticulously confident in her words. As necessary as intelligence agents and internal security were for the Union, the power invested in them meant that not just anybody could be given the position. Her predecessors had each been politically purged from their offices. It was a lot of power to afford anyone.

Jayasankar grinned. “Good answer. But I know that there is more being left unsaid.”

Nagavanshi said nothing. Her expression was purely neutral. She was hiding something.

“You used the ELF, didn’t you? I know you contacted someone with it.”

No response from the Commissar-General. In her place the Admiral was confounded.

“ELF is only for emergencies.” Klasnikov said. “And it can only contact ships.”

“Absolutely.” Jayasankar turned her gaze from the Admiral and back to the Commissar-General, putting her hands on her hips, still smiling. “Nagavanshi communicated with a ship.”

Klasnikov blinked. “Which one of our ships is going into Imperial waters?”

“Before we tightened our shipbuilding program, we supplied militarized civilian ships to Campos Mountain that were equipped with our ELF.” Nagavanashi finally said. Klasnikov stared at her in confusion. “I acquired such a ship and transferred it to an important asset who operates in the Imbrium Ocean. Satisfied?”

Jayasankar crossed her arms, grinning. She’d gotten her; of course she did.

The Premier had already won this exchange before they even entered the room.

“You thought I wouldn’t find out?” She asked.

“I had ultimate oversight over Extremely Low Frequency comms.” Nagavanshi said.

“You’re not the only one with agents everywhere, Parvati.”

Fiddling around with her pocket, Jayasankar produced a vaporizer and nonchalantly took a sweet drag from it that smelled of strawberries. She had hoped to see Nagavanshi wither in the silence, but unfortunately, the Commissar-General was simply too strong, too well-kept together.

“Your predecessors were purged for this sort of behavior, you know?”

She pointed the vaporizer at the Commissar-General.

Nagavanshi did not stir. Though she was caught out, she was never cornered.

“I was acting for the greater good of this nation. I came prepared today to divulge a lot of information and make the case for my methods. Foreign intelligence is an absolute necessity for modern warfare. Without the assets I have put into place, we will become increasingly blind to events in the Empire. Already, we failed to ascertain the disarray of the border forces, and their intentions. I will not allow such lapses again– but I shall accept whatever decision our esteemed Premier makes, of course.”

Her voice was sweet as honey. She had really turned up the charm for that declaration.

Despite how much of a fucking bitch she was, Jayasankar admired Nagavanshi’s drive.

Being stricken from the communist party was not something that would bother her.

She was a purely material person who did not care one bit about appearances.

It was certain that if she were shut out of official power she would find power elsewhere.

At least she’s my little tyrant, Jayasankar told herself.

Those other Commissar-Generals served under other Premiers anyway.

“You can contact your agent via ELF. How did you get information back?”

Jayasankar stabbed her little vaporizer into the air for dramatic effect as her interrogation continued.

Nagavanshi continued to betray no emotion over being put on the spot in this way.

“That’s true,” Klasnikov realized. “You can’t open laser or acoustic contact with the Empire.”

“And she’s had nowhere near enough time for an agent to physically travel back here.”

Come on, Parvati, fess up, the Premier was certain that Nagavanshi had more to unveil.

Nagavanshi withdrew something from her pocket and connected it to a serial port in the table computer. After the table had read the contents of the diskette and found it to contain nothing dangerous, it gave the attendants access to the contents. The Commissar-General drew everyone’s attention to one specific item, which was displayed on the table as a floating holographic diagram of what looked like a coilgun shell, albeit a very strange one. No warhead; only a transmitter.

Once the diagram was available, Nagavanshi explained its significance.

“I’ve been putting serious research consideration into our operational capacity behind enemy lines. We’re too sentimental about ‘revolutionary warfare’, but guerilla war is a viable path for us if we consider communications and logistics. This transmitter shell allows us to fire a radio out to the surface, where we can use waves through the air transmit information. We’ve installed a buoy in the calm water over Lyser. While the surface corruption over most of the Imbrium will damage the transmitter, it will be active long enough to send a message to our buoy.”

She swiped from the diagram of the transmitter to a diagram of the buoy.

“Information from the buoy is transmitted back to us in the aphotic zone via cable. Due to animal activity, and the surface’s corruption, even in the calm waters at Lyser it is likely that the buoy will be severed or destroyed, but we can replace it if needed. At any rate: I contacted my agent via ELF to tell her to deploy a radio-flare with the most up to date information she had.”

“Did you come prepared to divulge this information?” the Premier asked her.

“It was going to be part of my overall proposal.”

Klasnikov had been staring at her with eyes wide open.

“So, to summarize. You gave a ship, and experimental technology, to somebody out in the Empire and they have confirmed to you, via these circumspect methods, that the Emperor is dead?”

“They’ve confirmed a lot more than that, but yes.” Nagavanshi said.

“Premier, this is rather outrageous, wouldn’t you say?” Klasnikov said.

Jayasankar ignored that remark. “How trustworthy is your source?”

“She is a hero to this country. She is prepared to give her life for me, and I for her.”

Both Jayasankar and Klasnikov were stunned.

That was highly uncharacteristic of how the Commissar-General ever spoke.

And as far as Jayasankar knew, it was the sort of thing Nagavanshi didn’t believe in.

There was no denying the expression on her face, however. Gone was the peerless calm.

It looked almost as if Nagavanshi herself could not believe what she had said.

She had the face of someone who knew they had committed a youthful indiscretion.

And done so amid her venerated, powerful elders.

Jayasankar sighed heavily. For her, the expert political operator who had come prepared and plotted everything meticulously, this was the first truly unpredictable event of the day. She almost wanted to ask if Nagavanshi and her agent had ever fucked. It was an open question now in her mind. And what kind of powers did it take to chisel through the rock to Nagavanshi’s heart?

Nagavanshi knew precisely that the only way forward was for her to bare some of her soul.

And for that, Jayasankar could only think she was an even more manipulative piece of shit than she had previously imagined. To have honesty and vulnerability become your trump cards–

“You’re horrible, Nagavanshi, but I am impressed. I think at this point, you should just tell us what you convened us for and lay out your plans. This gathering has become too messy.”

Nagavanshi let out a breath with visible relief.

Klasnikov shook his head solemnly. “Let us move forward with honesty.”

He sounded as if he himself could not hope for such a rosey outcome.

“I will be blunt then. I propose we launch an operation to infiltrate the Empire. Our goal will be to make contact with dissident forces and attempt to organize them into a broad revolutionary front as the Empire fragments.”

At Nagavanshi’s behest, the diagrams of the buoys and radio-flares disappeared.

In their place there was a diagram of a ship.

Then, in the next moment, that diagram became a camera feed of the actual ship.

It was, at that very second, docked in a VIP berth in Thassal.

“You probably find this ship’s exterior unimpressive. We used old hauler hulls to make it seem civilian. However, inside, it is a radical new design. This ship is intended to carry and support Divers in battle. It can hold up to 18 Divers. Its name is the Brigand, and I have classified it as an Assault Carrier. It will carry out a long-term mission to contact and organize Imperial dissidents.”

The Brigand was a two-tiered ship with a rectangular silhouette, almost diamond shaped due to the angles that made up the top deck and keel, with rounded flanks and fins, and bearing a thick, pointed prow. It was not impressive: it did look like a hauler, down to the rusty color. Its shape was not quite hydrodynamic and it looked heavy. The conning tower was thick and square with an additional triangular surface atop. There appeared to be no weapons along its surface.

“The Ashura put this together?” Jayasankar asked. It was not beyond the realm of possibility. They were a military force. It was still impressive that they kept it so close to the chest.

“We had help from the shipbuilder’s union at Central Yard.” Nagavanshi said.

That would explain it. The Yard was the strongest labor union in Solstice.

“And your intention,” Klasnikov interrupted, “is for this ship to sail into the Empire and make contact with dissident groups? What will it do when it reaches them? If by Eloah’s mercy it manages to reach any group, without being destroyed or captured by the Empire along the way?”

Nagavanshi scoffed. “Soon the Empire will be plunged into civil war. Its defenses will be porous. The Brigand is a state-of-the-art vessel, like I told you, don’t judge it by its appearances. It is fast, survivable, and has systems in place for stealth or escape. Not only that, in addition to its Diver capacity it also has a cargo hull that we will fill with more weapons and goods for our foreign comrades. It is my intention that we will supply weaponry to insurgent groups to foment terrorism in the Empire. However, our true objective is to advance one major resistance movement and prime the Empire for a revolution.”

Jayasankar crossed her arms. Nagavanshi’s true motives were unexpected.

It was true that the Union was in a difficult situation.

Militarily, their combat power was maybe 1/5th of the total Imperial power. Divided across its Grand Duchies, the Empire had thousands of ships, while the Union’s total Navy was just over 1000. The Republic slammed 800 ships into the Empire, barely made a dent and lost. Conventional warfare would eventually see the Union being overwhelmed and destroyed.

However, if indeed the Grand Duchies turned against the central government, and there was a power struggle between Prince Fueller and several other factions, that gave the Union a board with entirely different rules to play with.

The Empire was powerful if it could concentrate its forces.

Otherwise, individual fleets were on-par with the Union.

This had been borne out in Thassal already.

Jayasankar ran the options as she saw them in her own head.

One potential reaction would be to launch a Union invasion of the Southern Empire. Such an open attack, however, could potentially unite multiple Duchies into a mutual defense pact which would lead to the Union being overwhelmed or outflanked, and which would distract the Imperial nobles from Erich Fueller, who might gain the upper hand while this Noble Alliance is distracted.

They could attempt to contact and ally with Erich Fueller, to parlay support for time or legitimacy. However, Erich was in the best position of anyone, with the strongest and most loyal military forces and civilian subjects. He was pragmatic, inheriting none of his father’s eccentricity. He was born under the uncertainty of his father’s coup. He was always ready to fight for the throne.

Allying with any one Grand Duchy would be difficult ideologically. All of the Imperial boyars shared a great hatred of the Union, and the Union was held together in part by its fear and hatred of the Empire. For the Union to “upset the game,” it would need to build and deploy power entirely differently than the Empire. It could not count solely on traditional measures against them.

At least, not in the beginning. Opportunities could potentially arise, but–

By tapping into its own history of armed, worker-led revolution, Nagavanshi crafted a uniquely Union response.

While Jayasankar could definitely complain about the instruments carrying out the Commissar’s will, it was an ambitious plot. There was a lot of discontent among the lower and middle classes of the Empire, and due to its size the Empire had difficulty policing thoroughly its various territories. It had a vast underworld and many hostile borders. That the Union existed at all was a testament to the power of imperial dissident movements. The Union’s states were initially settled as penal colonies.

“Ultimately, your idea is to gather a dissident army in one place and spark a rebellion. So what movements can you contact, and in which territories?” Jayasankar asked Nagavanshi.

“We have a few in mind.” Nagavanshi said. “And as circumstances permit we want the Brigand to meet all of them. However, our major ally in the region will be the National Front of Buren.”

“Not Bosporus?” Jayasankar asked.

Bosporus was supposed to be special, Jayasankar thought.

Historians could easily say the Union was born in Bosporus.

Even after the revolution, the two states shared a connection that was greater than merely one of historical population movements. Goods, people, currency and secrets flowed out of the far north, crossing the poles and arriving in the southern oceans of the Union. In return, Union influence spread into the Empire through the underbelly of Bosporus. Dissidents from the Empire always sought asylum within the mordecist experiment of the Union. Bosporus would be the Premier’s choice, if she had to make a decision as to where to grow Imperial dissidence.

Nagavanshi shook her head. “It is true that Bosporus is the most ideologically developed of the Imperial states in its intellectual dissidence, and the secessionists there have a leftist character that I did take into account. But Bosporus is a hotbed for communalist ideology. It would create another place like Campos Mountain, and be an ineffective partner for us. The Bureni nationalists have vanguardist organization, militancy, a leader, and mordecist leanings.”

“I don’t like this.” Klasnikov said. “This is a suicide mission, Bhavani.”

“With our current naval power, can we win militarily against the Empire?”

Jayasankar asked Klasnikov this. The Admiral was reticent to answer.

“Not now, but we can build toward the future if we don’t send this prototype ship out to die in Imperial waters. I believe we should keep it here and augment our frontline power with it.”

Jayasankar smiled. She was sympathetic to that.

But more and more she realized it was not their reality.

“Hope springs eternal.” She said cryptically. Klasnikov furrowed his brows.

“The Brigand is useless in a defensive war! Its characteristics are purposely designed for guerilla warfare. It has less direct combat weapons than any cruiser its size, and its larger than many cruisers! It was designed purely for endurance. I refuse to assign it to meaningless fleet tasks.” Nagavanshi replied.

“Right now, Sorokin, if we keep waiting, I feel the situation will only worsen for us.”

Jayasankar stared the Admiral in the eye, calling him by his name.

“Bhavani, I know you trust this woman, but I don’t, and I can’t agree to this.”

Klasnikov stared back. Nagavanshi held her peace in the middle, between the two.

“She has already violated our trust several times.”

His eyes were almost pleading. Jayasankar was not moved.

She did not get to her own position by being fully honest with everybody.

Even in the Union, a state that was a mother to its people, politics was still played.

“Sorokin, Parvati is correct here. At the moment, if we wait and engage in conventional tactics we will lose everything. But we can take a gamble; and though we may sacrifice a few souls in so doing, we stand to fundamentally alter the world.” Jayasankar said. “You know why it has to be the Duchy of Buren. If Buren has a revolution, it will cripple Imperial Agarthicite production.”

“I understand that perfectly. However this counterveils every hard-fought lesson we know about war. How will the Brigand be supplied? How will it remain in contact? How would we even know that it is alive or dead in the waters at any given moment? After we launch it, we’ve lost control of the situation, and furthermore, have no way to aid it inside of Imperial territory.”

Nagavanshi brought up a map on the table computer.

It was a map of the broader Empire, with the Nectaris and Imbrium both represented. There were several spots on the map, tracing a potential route. She pointed at three different spots where the route brought the Brigand back to Nectaris. At other times, it was deep in the Imperial core.

“We can have it take a circuitous route that brings it close to our borders at a few points. That will allow us to check back in with it. We can also employ the E.LF. and my special methods to communicate with it. As for the rest, they will rely on their wits. I’m putting together a crew of people with many different skills. And in addition, if we clue in the Republic, they will use their own networks to help us also.”

“Just a few minutes ago you were attacking the Republic as a weak ally.” Klasnikov said.

“Weak, but useful and willing. If there’s anything good about them it’s their intelligence.”

“Will we see a crew roster?” Jayasankar said.

“I’ll share one when it is ready.” Nagavanshi replied.

“You really are a terrible girl. You think you can do anything you want.”

Jayasankar scolded her, but it was almost more motherly than authoritarian.

“It’s time to move quickly.” Nagavanshi said. “Do you accept my proposal?”

On the table, dozens of windows appeared with additional information.

All of it was at first shaded, but with a quick swipe of her hand, Nagavanshi dramatically decrypted every document. Names and faces, vast sheets of logistics math, numerous tables. The work of years of secretive planning, thousands of communications, all of it laid bare. Again the Admiral and the Premier were left speechless at the apparatus that Nagavanshi had constructed. Her Ashura, the serpents tasked with keeping order, had built a ship, and plotted a revolution.

“I’ve laid out everything I’ve planned, and everything that is available to me. There are no more secrets, only work that lies ahead of us. Everything I’ve done, I’ve done to make sure nothing compromises our purpose. Without taking revolutionary action, our revolution will be destroyed.”

Jayasankar crossed her arms, smiling. She took a long drag of her vaporizer.

“Well, we can’t very well just dump all this effort in the sea, can we?” She finally said.

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