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[Histidine]

Welcome reader! Here you will find Crossfire, my third Starsector fanfic.

This is the sequel to my previous fic, The Marenos Crisis, and it's probably better if you've read it before, although not strictly necessary. But where Marenos was a straight up mil-scifi work, Crossfire will be primarily a political thriller. Hope you enjoy

Note on updates
With The Marenos Crisis, I managed to average one chapter a week. But I have more obligations (like my Nexerelin mod) and less downtime these days, so don't expect updates to be as frequent for this one (or run on a regular schedule, for that matter). New chapters will just have to come out as they come out.

Boilerplate legal disclaimer

Spoiler

Starsector is the property of Fractal Softworks. The name “Blackrock” and the ship class “Desdinova” in this context are owned by user Cycerin as part of the mod “Blackrock Drive Yards” for Starsector. References to other mods are also present in this text.
All content copyrighted to other parties is reproduced here under fair use terms. All other rights are reserved to the author.

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Content warning

Spoiler

Swearing, graphic depictions of violence, mild sexual interactions

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Crossfire


"Desdinova", by MShadowy
(you may have seen it before here)

Blurb

Spoiler

Recuperating from scars physical and mental, Captain Artemis Archer of the Persean League Navy is given a diplomatic posting to the League’s one-time adversary, the Hegemony. The two powers seek to normalize relations, and Artemis is eager to do her part. The perfect project for the purpose: an aid and development project on the neutral planet of Longia, leavened with an intensive publicity campaign. Not even an unexpected encounter with her one time associate, the rogue Adela Sybitz, can dampen her enthusiasm.

Disillusionment soon sets in, however. Neither the Hegemony nor the League are truly motivated by the goodness of their politics-tainted hearts, and their actions belie their words of empathy. The Longian Republic is untrustworthy and unpopular, and rebellion seethes beneath the surface. And worst of all is the mysterious group stirring the pot, seeking conflict for their own nefarious purposes…

Caught in the crossfire, the naval officer and the pirate may each soon discover that the other is the only person she can truly trust.

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"The little child is getting naughty, it's time he get spanked."
— Chinese Vice-Premier Deng Xiaoping to US President Jimmy Carter,
47 days before the Sino-Vietnamese War

Prologue: Emissary

Spoiler

Glasses clinked to the acoustic backdrop of violins and a grand piano, the music’s soothing tones drifting across the ballroom. Elegantly dressed figures moved about in Brownian patterns on the red-carpeted floor, their countless topics of conversation circulating with them, engaging in wine and merriment under the chandelier’s silvery glow.

From her vantage point in a corner of a mezzanine overlooking the room, Captain Artemis Archer, Persean League Navy surveyed the scene uneasily, trying to make her fingers relax before they snapped the delicate stem of the wineglass in her hand.

This was supposed to have been a relaxing posting, while she recuperated from years of accumulated wounds — mental more than physical. A simple role as military attache to the League Ambassador on Chicomoztoc, center of the Hegemony’s dominion, where she could do her part in the gradual thawing of the relationship between the two powers.

Unfortunately, said thawing seemed to involve an inordinate amount of time spent at formal parties like this one. Unlike some of her colleagues, Artemis wasn’t averse to social events (at least she didn’t think she was, at any rate)... but she’d also been here long enough to know this society for what it truly was. To see the rigid pecking orders, the iron-bound protocols behind the glittering facade… and the penalties awaiting those who dared transgress them.

True, the military she’d served for most of her adult life was also a hierarchical organization of rules and regulations, and far more overtly so. But it could justify itself by pointing to the necessities of modern warfare, particularly in this time of a troubled Sector, and if the Navy could be quite harsh at times, it also usually rewarded functional and moral excellence well. For her own part, Artemis had always tried to lead by example, to build a rapport with her subordinates that accorded them dignity and respect without compromising her own authority, and she knew many of her fellow officers and NCOs (though never enough) did as well.

Most importantly, though… She’d seen her share of turf fights and clashes of egos in the Navy — and in seemingly every aspect of civilian life as well. But at least people tried to settle things in the open through a variety of channels, ranging from official meditation to a heated media debate to bar fights to lawsuits. Here in “high society,” every war was an unspoken one, and courtesy was a sheath to mask the daggers up until the moment they landed in the unlucky victim’s back. One soon learned to look over their shoulder on a regular basis, to keep their back to the wall where they could.

And keep her back to the wall she did. None of the many movers and shakers she’d been forced to hobnob with had said it in so many words, but neither had they particularly bothered to conceal the way they’d looked down their noses at her. They were admirals, high officials, captains of industry; she was a mere mid-level flunky — not even a flag officer — and one from a second-rate power that had made a nuisance of itself against the Hegemony a few too many times, at that.

She’d actually found a small group of Hegemony officers here tonight who hadn’t shared those prejudices, despite their political differences, and she’d enjoyed chatting (and flirting) with them for a bit. But the conversation had eventually turned to more… sensitive matters, and for all her social obtuseness in this setting, Artemis hadn’t missed the subtext when Commodore Lawson politely suggested she go mingle with the other kids for a bit.

Now she was standing alone once more, feeling rather ashamed of the way she was indulging in self-pity — which only made it worse, of course. She brushed some imaginary lint from the front of her immaculate mess dress, more out of needing something to do with her free hand than anything else, and shuffled on her feet.

“A moment of your time, Captain?”

She looked up abruptly, and felt her eyes widen at the sight of her unexpected companion. She’d run into the other woman only a couple of times, and never at a party like this one, but recognized her instantly nevertheless.

Officially, Syiera Cziffra had no title beyond “Special Envoy” — unofficially, she was well known within her circle as one of the Hegemony’s top diplomatic troubleshooters, one whose silver tongue and deft hand had quelled many a conflict before it started. She was taller than the captain, and cut an imposing figure even — or especially — in her plain white gown. Certain genetic incompatibilities had left her with a lined, mottled face and pale, short hair despite the best longevity treatments the Hegemony could offer her, but where ninety percent of the event’s other guests would have resorted to liberal use of cosmetics (if not even more aggressive interventions) to conceal that fact, Cziffra clearly hadn’t. This was a woman who had no need to hide who she was before anyone, and Artemis felt a marked sense of admiration as she looked up at her visitor’s dancing green eyes.

“Madam Cziffra!” She hesitated for only a brief moment before offering her hand, and the older woman took it firmly with a smile. “To what do I owe the honor?”

“Easy, Captain,” Cziffra said, her expression genial. “I have enough people fawning over me in my daily life without you doing it as well.” Artemis blushed, and the smile turned into a grin. “Relax, young lady. I figure if you were at all predisposed to sycophancy, you’d be out there hobnobbing with the bigwigs instead of hiding here by your lonesome.”

“I’m not…”

“Now, now, Captain! I’m not here to interrogate you on your social habits. Not when my own plans depend on them, at any rate.” She cocked her head. “Actually, I’m here to offer you a business proposition.”

Copper eyebrows rose slightly. “A… proposition?”

“Indeed. Now, it so happens,” the Hegemony diplomat gave another, lopsided smile, “you made quite a name for yourself across the Sector during the Marenos crisis. For many reasons… but most interesting for me was the time you risked your life for an orphaned boy you found on the street. They even made a vid out of your exploits; I’m sure you’ve seen it.”

“Ugh.” Artemis felt her ears heat. “That… piece of kitsch was made without my permission, and half of it was completely made up. And their star was nothing like me at all!”

“Mm.” She carefully coaxed her expression into neutrality. “I did notice that the lead was chosen more for her… assets than anything else.” Artemis winced, and Cziffra permitted herself a chuckle at the other woman’s expense, then sobered. “But whatever we may think of that work, you’re famous all the same. Which brings me to my proposal.”

“… I’m listening.”

They turned to look again at the bustling party below. “I’ve been working on a… joint effort to improve relations between our two star nations. Specifically, my sister-in-law runs a development bank that’s collaborating with the League Interstellar Cooperation Organization for aid programs across the Sector. Our latest project is on the planet Longia, Saean subsector, and I’d like you to come along.”

“Why?” The captain frowned slightly. “I don’t know anything about aid projects. Wait, you don’t mean—”

Cziffra’s jade eyes twinkled. “You catch on quickly, Captain. Yes, I’d like to have you present for a… celebrity endorsement, shall we say. The League hero of Marenos, equal parts brave, beautiful and kind, now working with the Hegemony to make the Sector a better place...”

“Please stop,” Artemis said, cringing. “Anyway, I’m attached to Ambassador Grimaldi here. I don’t think the Foreign Office would be very happy with me if I ran off to play poster girl dozens of light years away.”

“Don’t worry about Honoré, Captain. I’ve already spoken to him, and he’s willing to let you go for a few months. Commander Mothibi can handle matters fine in your absence, and you’ll be better serving your diplomatic functions there than,” she motioned at the people below, “attending parties you don’t really enjoy. What do you say?”

“Um.” I shouldn’t be thinking about that sort of thing, but it would be nice to get away from the constant socializing. And, she thought wistfully, I still haven’t done any of that charitable stuff I promised Mir. This project sounds like a good way to start.

“Alright, Ms. Cziffra. I’d be happy to help.”


The black-hooded man with the plain, unremarkable face (carefully sculpted to be that way) stepped under the little arch bridge in the park, the gently flowing creek washing over his left boot. He looked around briefly to make sure no-one was watching, careful to keep out of the light from the streetlamp above, then began probing the stone wall with gloved fingers. It would have been easier with a flashlight, but the loss in stealth was not considered acceptable.

It didn’t take that long, anyway. He soon found a small hole, and from it drew a small metal cylinder thinner than his finger. Out of his pocket came a slightly larger, rectangular object, and the two were joined together briefly, then he put each back in its original location.

He scowled. Their rightful way was to crush their pitiful foes in the open, not scurry about in the shadows like rats. But as the Exarch had made clear, they had no other option right now, not after the last encounter with the Imperial Starfaring Armada. The foul unbelievers had taken over eighty percent losses when all was said and done, but they’d also stopped the Crusade dead in its tracks, and it would be a while longer before the faithful could muster another such effort.

At least he was using a dead drop instead of meeting with one of the heathen pawns in person; as it was, it would take an hour of ablution to wash the taint off his skin. Eventually, another emissary would have to come and make the other necessary arrangements in person, and he was almost shamefully grateful that it would not be him. Such pollution weighing on his soul would be more than he could bear.

Still, it had to be done. The opportunity the consorting infidels had given them was too good to pass up, and they had the wedge they needed to drive apart and shatter their evil regimes. Soon...

He slipped out from under the bridge, shaking the water off his foot, and left as silently as he had come.

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Chapter 1: Voyage
Chapter 2: Pirate
Chapter 3: Reunion
Chapter 4: Port
Chapter 5: Racer
Chapter 6: Rebel
Chapter 7: Politics
Chapter 8: Conflict
Chapter 9: Cooldown
Chapter 10: Tension
Chapter 11: Trainer
Chapter 12: Standoff
Chapter 13: Detonation

[Histidine]

Chapter 1: Voyage

Spoiler

Artemis surveyed her new room on the HSS Moonlight with equal parts bemusement, embarrassment and glee. Among all the officials, their assistants, and various hangers-on who’d been stuffed into the Starliner-class luxury liner, somehow she’d become one of the few who got one of the specially installed VIP suites, and the level of luxury displayed here was something she’d never even dreamed of experiencing firsthand. The bed was big enough to accommodate an escort carrier, and the bathroom sported an honest-to-goodness gold-rimmed whirlpool tub. Then there were the genuine silk sheets, the finely carved wooden furniture, the handmade angora carpet… it was enough to make her plebeian head spin. It certainly spoke to the esteem in which Cziffra held her new associate.

She looked out the window — an actual vitriplast screen with vacuum on the other side, not a digital facsimile — and studied the bright engine trails of the other ships in their convoy. There were the frigates and destroyers (and a single Punisher-class light cruiser) escorting their little flotilla, freighters packed with civilian and military aid, and even troop transports carrying a battalion of Hegemony Marines. Few of the vessels were actually visible from her current location, but the knowledge that they were there nevertheless underscored the significance of her current task.

Turning away, she laid down on the bed, resisting the temptation to purr at the sensual, almost hedonistic comfort. A couple of buttons brought up the virtual screen on her mobicomp, and, she returned to the study of the dossier on the Kinh system that she’d left off earlier.

The place was in some ways a typical example of the Neutral Space, that ill-defined quiltwork of systems outside the reach of the organized powers: poor, crowded, and always worried about who might be tempted to conquer them next. But the Republic of Longia had fared better than most of its peers, especially on that last point. Its people had repeatedly proven themselves remarkably tenacious under adversity, and more than one invader in the system had inevitably found they had bitten off more than they could chew, whatever their initial successes.

The stuff about the widespread rebellion from a few cycles ago — remnants of which still festered even now — was quite concerning, but not really surprising. Not all enemies came from without; it seemed that the previous government’s brazen, runaway corruption had generated an incredible degree of ill-will amongst the general population (this was, alas, was all too common in too many parts of the Sector). The new administration seemed to be somewhat better, but though the authors were reticent with the details of kickbacks from foreign investors and whitewashed parliamentary inquiries, she could read between the lines.

In any case, the Hegemony had pledged military cooperation with the system government, which was why all those Marines were coming along for a large-scale training exercise. From the diplomatic correspondence she was privy to, they weren’t intended to actually fight any rebels themselves — nominally, at least. Such an action probably wouldn’t go over very well with the Longian in the street, but while the Hegemony was pragmatic enough to not needlessly inflame public opinion, neither would it yield if push came to shove.

Well, that was out of her hands in any case, and if things went well there wouldn’t even be any real degree of violence. Then, too, if this mission of ours works, there should be somewhat fewer angry rebel sympathizers and volunteers. That’s some grounds for optimism, at the very least.

She spent a portion of an hour more flipping through meandering virtual pages on the nuts and bolts of the Longian Republic’s government — it was a fairly typical semi-presidential representative democracy, at least on paper — and a few snippets on culture and ecology, then sighed and put down the device.

Ugh, this brings back the boringest parts of the Academy, she thought, slumping back on the bed.

Sitting in one place reading for long periods of time had never been a preference of hers, and Mom had expressed consternation more than a few times about the good-but-not-stellar school grades it’d given her. Maybe it would be easier if I had one of those fancy neural links? But in these post-Collapse times, such technology was almost entirely the domain of top-level scientists, administrators and intelligence operatives; even in Tri-Tachyon and other such organizations the average person might never see (much less own) such a device.

Might as well go take a look around the ship. It wouldn’t hurt to stretch my legs for a bit.


She’d already seen a fair bit of it on the way to her cabin, but Artemis was still amazed by the opulence that seemingly permeated every part of the ship — and not just on the VIP deck, either. Where the corridors on a Navy vessel were clean by plain, white-lit utilitarian designs, here even the commons area sported fully carpeted walkways, bright deckhead lamps casting a light sunset glow on the bulkheads. She wondered how much all this cost to install —

There was a loud thump as she rounded the corner, and she found herself sprawled on the deck with no recollection of how she’d ended up there. And her head hurt… what fool was driving a hovertruck around here at top speed anyway?

She shook her head, then looked up — and stared at the dusky, spindly male figure propped up against the far wall, wheezing. In stark contrast to the posh surroundings, his casual streetwear simple, even shabby, and… was that a toolbelt?

He took one look at her, flushed bright enough to be visible even under the dark skin, and extended a hand. “Sorry,” he said, almost bashfully. “I, uh, I was kind of in a hurry.”

“It’s alright.” She reached out and let him help her to her feet. “You don’t look like one of the officials around here. Who are you?”

“Name’s Desai, ma’am. Ragunath Narayan Desai. I work for a small tech outfit named Polyfab, back on Eventide. We made a cool gadget that could be really useful for people on Longia, and Madam Cziffra asked me to come show it off.”

Now that she was standing up again, she took a moment to examine this strange young lad, and was quite surprised by what she found. At 175 centimeters she was quite tall, especially for a woman, but Desai towered a full head over her. Then there were his gangly limbs, seemingly too long even for one of his height, and his narrow face that wouldn’t look out of place in a high school — and not as a teacher.

She shook herself before she could get carried away with her staring and the silence became awkward. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Desai. I’m Captain Artemis Archer, Persean League Navy.”

“Wait, you’re that Artemis Archer?” His caramel eyes took on a distinctly saucer-like appearance. “The hero of Marenos?”

“Well… yes?”

She cringed as he grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking with excitement. “By the gods! I knew you were on board, but to actually meet you in person… Hey, could I get your autograph by any chance?”

“Jeez!” She raised her hands and gently but firmly pushed his arms away, and he had the grace to look suitably abashed. “You don’t have to gush over me like that, you know.” I got enough of that back home, anyway. “I was just doing my duty.”

“But you saved an entire subsector!  And that kid, Mir, you saved… I don’t know anyone who would have risked their lives like you did for him! Or the way you stood up to that warlord, Holk… you’re the bravest person I’ve ever met!”

“Um. Look, I wasn’t the only one risking my life during that campaign, you know. And,” she shuffled on her feet, “if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather you not put me on a pedestal, brave or not. I’ve done some genuinely heroic things, but I also had to… cause a lot of death and destruction to get there.” Old, dark memories welled up in the back of her mind, but she swiftly forced them back down. “I tell myself it’s for the better, and maybe it is… but at the end of the day, I’ll be happy to be thought of as just a civil servant. Like the guy who helps you with your driver’s license, or who keeps the park nice and tidy.”

They looked at each other in silence for a few more moments, then she grinned. “Besides, it sounds like you’re the one who’ll be actually doing the work this time around. I’m just here as a pretty face.”

He returned her smile toothily. “I… I think I understand. I still think you’re a remarkable woman, though.”

“I’ll settle for that.” They shared a chuckle. “But enough about me; how about you tell me what brought you here?”

“Sure. Like I said, we made a pretty neat contraption that would be good on Longia, and I was actually going to go run some checks on it when I, uh, bumped into you.” He lifted his arms by his sides slightly, awkwardly. “Want to come see it?”

“Alright, Mr. Desai. Lead on.”



“Okay,” the young man murmured as they stepped into the cargo bay. White overhead lamps came on in greeting at their entrance, and Artemis looked around at the stacked crates of food, tools and other assorted gifts for Longia courtesy of the High Hegemon Administrator, arrayed in neatly spaced rows. “It should be somewhere near the middle...”

A soft tapping noise caused Artemis to look down, and she startled as the cat-sized… contraption nearly ran over her feet. It looked like an oversized spider, albeit with six legs instead of eight and a rather flat… thorax? Abdomen? She wasn’t exactly familiar with arthropod physiology. Its matte gunmetal skin was slightly chipped, and two cherry-red segments that were probably supposed to be eyes glowed at the front.

“Oh, hi, Sita.” Desai bent and reached down, slender hand caressing the bot’s upper body as it raised its forelimbs in what the League captain could only assume was a greeting. “She’s a pet of sorts,” he explained, turning to face her. “A real smart one, too. But she gets depressed when I leave her for long periods at home, so I decided to bring her along. Say hi to the captain, Sita.”

The spiderbot waved one arm in greeting, and Artemis raised her hand in acknowledgement, putting on a smile she didn’t really feel. Ugh, I feel so ridiculous.

He stood up again and they continued walking, and she cast a quick glance backward at the spider as it — she? — followed in a trot at their heels. She turned forward again only when they came to a stop, at an odd-looking shape covered by a dull green tarp. He grabbed the thick fabric and pulled it off in one swift motion, like a stage magician, and she found herself gazing in wonder — and a little trepidation — at the item now revealed to her.

The “contraption” turned out to be a visual cacophony of pipes, valves, tanks, and other items she didn’t even recognize, festooned on a dull grey block. It looked more like a particularly creative artist’s impression of what a pre-space Earth dweller might have termed a “Rube Goldberg machine” than anything she’d ever interacted with, and she wondered how the command console set into one side could possibly control anything this complex with so few buttons.

“Captain,” Desai was beaming like a father with his newborn, “meet Celly.”

First Sita, now Celly… She refrained from speculating (even only to herself) if he had nicknames — feminine ones too, most likely — for the tools on his belt as well. “So, what’s this thing do?”

“Celly here,” he was practically puffing out his chest, “will take plant matter or waste from basically any source, and turn it into any cellulose fiber product of your choice. It’ll be multicolored, waterproof, IR-absorbent, whatever else you want it to be. All it takes is a little chemical feedstock for whatever it can’t extract, and a power socket to recharge it once in a while.”

“Wow, that is impressive.” She tentatively placed a hand on the machine, looking up at Desai. “How much power does it use, though?”

“Not all that much. The standard 2.5 MWh energy store is good for a month or more based on our typical use trials, although having to recharge it is still kind of inconvenient, I guess.” He stroked his bare chin. “I’ve been meaning to add a biomass burner, and a way to separate and dispense any useful byproducts it digests. But that’ll have to wait till Longia, at least.”

He got on his knees and hit a button on the console, a soft hum coming from within the machine’s innards. A cable ran out from his Tripad to plug into a nearby socket, and he punched a few keys on the screen. A few beeps answered, then the hum died as Celly went back to sleep. The cable came out, and he pulled the tarp back over her before standing up again, dusting off his jeans. The whole process had taken less than two minutes.

“Well, that’s it for now,” he said, looking at Artemis again (who, for her part, was carefully pretending she hadn’t been watching intently the whole time).

“What did you do, anyway?”

He shrugged. “Just a quick update for the firmware, including a fix to the networking code. That one kept me from updating it remotely. Embarrassing, that. Anyway, I’d like to do some hardware work as well, but the machine shop here doesn’t really have the tools I need, so I guess I’ll be having a lot of free time on the trip.” Sita skittered around his feet a few times, then disappeared around a corner. “Say…”

The sentence trailed off into an awkward silence, and he suddenly seemed to find his shoes very interesting. “Want to go grab some lunch? Umm, that is, I thought I should welcome you to the Hegemony, and, uh —”

“Be glad to, Mr. Desai,” she said, trying — and mostly succeeding — to fight down a mortifying grin.

“Ah… call me Ragunath. Or Nath for short. That’s what my friends call me.”

“Nath, eh?” Her eyes twinkled. “Alright, then, and you can call me AA. Now how about that lunch?”

[close]

Chapter 2: Pirate

Spoiler

*beep beep beep… beep beep beep…*

“Mmmph… go to sleep…” Artemis murmured. Some corner of her mind chided her for letting her sleep habits run wild like this, but she muffled it easily. It wasn’t as if she was on duty, after all, and it certainly wasn’t her fault the bed was so delightfully comfy. It was still missing a suitably cuddly companion to keep her warm, but a girl could dream.

The alarm function on her mobicomp was not so readily silenced, however. It continued chirping incessantly, louder and louder with each passing moment, and she groaned as she rolled over in the bed. A hand reached out to hit the snooze button — for the third time that morning — but then stopped. She picked up the device and turned on the screen instead… and blinked sharply at what she saw.

It’s 0931 already? You stupid gadget, why didn’t you wake me up earlier!?

The mobicomp had no answer to that, of course.

Exhaling sharply, she punched in a short message for the head of the media crew she was supposed to be meeting in two and a half minutes. No made-up excuse just yet; she’d save that for when her head was clearer. And if he complains, she thought as her feet hit the deck, I’ll point out to him that he doesn’t have a story — at least not the one his editor wants — without me. It’s not like I need him to make me a superstar anyway. Like I even want to be a superstar. Now, where did I put that damn toothpaste?


Most of the passengers and crew had already gotten their breakfast by the time she entered the cafeteria, and only a few stragglers were still hanging around, mostly off-duty crew shooting the breeze. She ran a hand through her copper hair, brow furrowed as she scanned the menu.

What should I get? I could go for a clonegg muffin right now, but I don’t want to spend any longer eating than I have to — appearances had to be maintained, after all. The chocolate milk probably isn’t so bad...

She’d just placed her order and was swiping her mobicomp over the payment scanner, when the sudden alarm blaring through the large room caused her to jerk her hand back. For a moment she wondered if it was somehow about her, but the voice of authority was already coming on the PA system.

“Attention. This is the captain. We have encountered a combat fleet of unknown identity and intentions. All combat crew, report to your stations. Passengers, please return to your cabins and await further instructions. Remain calm and do not—”

But she was already running out of the cafeteria — and not for her room.


“Hey, you can’t go in there—”

As a civilian ship, the Moonlight did not keep a constant sentry watch outside the bridge. One was running up now from the other end of the corridor, but Artemis Archer ignored him and stepped through the hatch, even as he began reaching for his stunner.

Several people wheeled around in their seats, staring in disbelief at the passenger intruding on their turf. “What’s the meaning of this?!” the first officer started, rising to his feet.

“I hear you have a combat situation on your hands,” she said evenly. “I’m here to help.”

“And what would you know about—” Captain Sowedi was starting to get up too, when he froze in mid-motion, recognition dawning on his face. He remained in that awkward half-seated position, open-mouthed, as the interloper on his bridge strode casually over to the main display.

“That’s right.” She spun on one foot and cocked her head at him. “I don’t mean to toot my own horn, but I probably have more combat experience than all of you put together. So, how about it?”

“Ah.” He finally sat back down. “Even so, I must protest. This is highly irregular, and we already have competent military advice from the Navy detachment escorting us. As the captain, I cannot permit—”

“But I can,” another female — and authoritative — voice came from behind them, and heads turned once again to gasp in amazement as Syeira Cziffra strode onto the bridge. “I trust there will be no problems… Captain?”

It took Sowedi twice as long to resecure his jaw and find his voice again this time. “Um, no. Not at all, madam.”

“Good. Now would you kindly share the situation with us?”

“Um, yes, ma’am.” He turned hastily back to his console. “We were approaching Sugbo,” he highlighted the moon on the voluminous main display, drifting lazily about its ice giant primary, “when a small group of warships emerged from around Visaya, engaged with combat with each other. It’s hard to tell who’s who, but we think this one destroyer here is on one side, and everyone else is on the other. Neither party has identified themselves, but Commodore Seong thinks…”

Artemis stared up at the plot, body tense, eyes hard. Even with civilian-grade sensors (assuming the Moonlight wasn’t already tied into the datanet its escorts were surely using) and interference from the planet’s magnetosphere, at this short range and with no asteroid clutter there could have been no mistaking the classes of the ships involved in that melee. Which included the lone, seemingly outmatched vessel now standing off an entire squadron, and she felt something stiffen inside her as she watched the dancing amber icon of a Desdinova-class destroyer.


“Entering inhibitor envelope in one hundred twenty seconds, Mistress Adela,” the AI’s tenor voice intoned. “Their lead elements will reach extreme weapons range forty-two seconds after that.”

“Gotcha, Doc.” Adela Sybitz, skipper of the pirate ship ISS Dead Reckoning, wheeled around to face the other two people on her bridge. “Anyone have any last-minute ideas to stack the deck in our favor a little?”

“I don’t see why we need one,” Valentina Dragunova said gruffly. The pirate gunner looked up from her tactical console, straight crimson hair spilling messily down to her shoulders. “Even with their full force, we could take them; strung out for us to defeat in detail like this…”

Adela gave her a tilted look. “You’re not normally this unsubtle, Tina. I think you’ve been spoiled by all the new guns.”

“Actually, I think we might have a way to fool them.”  With the new ship largely capable of flying itself better than he could, Lopez “Loz” Sequeira had relegated himself to astrogation and engineering, and now the ex-smuggler’s bronzed hands manipulated a volumetric render of the ship schematics. “I can fake a flare that will look like a catastrophic engine failure from a distance — you know how pirate ships are maintained — then boot the thrusters back up within a few seconds when we need to. It’ll only be good for a few seconds, but the surprise when we’re not as lamed as they think ought to give us an opening edge.”

“That sounds like it’d be pretty rough on the hardware.”

“A little, yeah. On the other hand, it’ll be a lot easier to fix than a hull breach.” He looked up at the ceiling. “Doc? You okay with this?”

The AI — whose nickname had been assigned by Sybitz in an attempt at a pun that made just about everyone groan when she explained it to them the first time — sighed theatrically. “Fine, fine. I even promise I won’t start bawling in pain.”

“Sounds like a plan, then.” The skipper’s wide lips formed a thin smile. “Loz, let Doc bring it back up timed for half a second from optimum range. Tina…”

“Those guys are already dead, skipper.” Green lights stretched the length of her display, each one marking a primed weapon mount. “Just give the word.”

“Alright. Loz, burn it.”

Even from the bow of the ship, the explosion was quite audible, and only the noise dampeners on their suits kept the hunkered-down engine crew from being deafened for the rest of the day. But the Dead Reckoning didn’t even quiver as her acceleration stopped abruptly, a testament to the skill of her class’s designers. Now pursuers and pursuee streaked across Visaya’s gravity well, the huge ice giant drawing them in a wide arc.

Adela turned her chair around again, clasped her hands and waited patiently, her gaze steady on the icons streaking across her plot. Ships falling out of travel drive, hers and the enemy alike. Frigates closing in, one on each side. Digits flashing on a timer steadily counting down, as the hunters closed in. Here, kitty, kitty, kitty…

“Engaging… now,” Doc said simply.

The Desdinova’s engines flared back to life in a roaring burst of green, and the destroyer flipped end-over-end in in a maneuver that none but the most advanced Expansion Epoch frigates could have mimicked. The Wolf closing in from seven o’clock had but two and a half seconds to realize just how much trouble it was in before the quad ferrogun shots slammed into its shield.

It was already diving, weaving wildly, skimming away as soon as its capacitors could take the load. But it had nowhere to run, and a fresh volley drove liquid metal through its slender hull like a series of freight trains even as an Achilles missile streaked after it. PD lasers lashed frantically at the MRM, but it was already letting go of its submunitions, and the surprised, panicky defenders just couldn’t retrack the individual warheads before they tore into the frigate’s engines and sent it into flameout. It drifted helplessly away, out of the fight — for now, at least — but others were already stepping up to take its place.

“Missile launch! Four Harpoons, four o’clock high!”

“Already dealt with. They won’t get through the Argus so easily.”

“Vigilance in range, engaging.”

“Three clean hits. Damn, look at those secondaries.”

“Keep the MGs on the fighters! We don’t want them having a clean run on our shields.”

“Two missiles loose. That’ll give Mr. Hammerhead something to worry about for a bit.”

“Gladius breaking up. Another one’s circling around. Think it’s going to—”

“New contacts!”

Adela jerked upright at the computer’s audio warning, even before Dragunova’s urgent bark reached her ears. “Eleven ships in all, six combatants,” the redhead went on, her racing eyes belying the calmness of her voice. “Hegemony transponders. Looks like a convoy with escort, including a light cruiser.”

Damn. “Their actions?”

“Straight-line course for the moon Sugbo. They don’t seem to be acknowledging our presence.” Doc paused, and Sybitz felt a chill. She didn’t like it when Doc paused. “Scratch that. They’re turning towards us now, light units fanning out. Intercept in three minutes.”

“Can we disengage?” She felt herself squeezing the armrest with her right hand, and forced the tense digits to unclench.

“Negative, Skip.” Sequeira’s voice was harried, almost distracted. “We’re too deeply entangled in this fight. And it’ll take way longer than that to kill these guys.”

“Hussar is hailing us, Mistress Adela. Their commodore demands we — us and the bounty hunters — stand down and heave to for inspection. Or else.”

“Those guys are still shooting at us!”

“Tell me about it,” Dragunova said stiffly, not looking away from her console. “I think they’re just worried they won’t get paid if we get executed by the Hegs instead of being blown up by them.”

The skipper shook her head for a moment. “Okay. Doc, send our new friends a message, standard voice package. Tell them we’re defending ourselves against a bunch of villains who are trying to kill us on false charges. Make sure to sound really distraught — don’t be ashamed to beg for help — and don’t bring up our ship class. Got that?”

“Already done, Mistress Adela,” he said as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and she had to smile at that.

“Good. Now let’s see if we can drive off these bastards within the next three minutes. After that… well, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”


“All surviving units of Tango Two are breaking off and fleeing,” Commodore Seong stated, his sharp face grim on the comm display. “Should we pursue?”

“Negative, Commodore. They are of no further interest to us.” Syeira Cziffra’s own features were arranged in pure diplomatic nonexpression. “What of Tango One?”

“Got her surrounded. She’s not making any move so far.”

“Good.” She glanced at the Moonlight’s comm officer. “Hail them again, Lieutenant Morales. I want to know who this… extraordinary character is.”

“Aye, Madam.”

Seven and a third seconds later, the shrouded grey trimensional of a figure run through an anonymizer (and a fairly good one, too) faded in on the display. “Dead Reckoning,” an indistinct, androgynous voice said. “How can I help you?”

“You can start by showing your face, pirate,” Cziffra said, just a touch stiffly. “And then you can explain your presence in this system… preferably before we have to take harsh measures to get the answer out of you.”

“Pirate? Me?” Anonymizer or not, that person actually managed to sound wounded, Artemis thought, impressed. “I’m just a freewheeling spacefarer falsely accused of the most awful crimes, and nearly murdered for it. Terrible, absolutely terrible. They didn’t even stop to show you any evidence, did they?”

“A likely story, stranger. And given your ship class, the Hegemony already has probable cause for blowing you right out of space. If I were you, I’d quickly offer a good explanation for why we shouldn’t do just that.”

The figure cocked their head. “I wouldn’t advise that, ma’am. Sure, you could probably beat us after the way we expended a good portion of our munitions on those guys earlier, but we could make you pay for it, too. Personally, I find that sort of outcome mutually bad for business. Why don’t we talk this out?”

“Hmph.” Cziffra didn’t — quite — snort out loud. “Very well. Are you prepared to stand down your ship and submit to a search party, while we discuss your recent activities in person?”

“Unfortunately, my ship is not available for examination at this time.”

“Then you’d best make it available, Reckoning,” the Hegemony diplomat said firmly. “Or we can inspect your cooling wreck instead of your ship.”

“Jeez, already with the threats? You Hegemony girls sure don’t know how to play nice.” The silhouetted form started to say something more, then jerked their head to one side. “Wait… is that Captain Artemis Archer of the Persean League Navy with you?”

Artemis felt her brow rise. She’d just leaned in slightly to get a closer look, and probably stumbled into the comm’s field of view, but how… and who...?

“And that matters because?” Cziffra demanded.

“Just tell me if she’s on board,” the other voice said tersely. “Or I’m cutting this connection.”

“I’m Captain Archer.” The League officer stepped in front of Cziffra, looking straight into the pickup. “Who are you?”

The other voice was silent for a while. Then, slowly: “Alright, we’ll parley. I’ll come on to your ship aboard a cutter, alone, and submit to an interview. At the end of it, if you decide you have some kind of problem with me, you take me into custody, but let my ship and crew go. Additionally, Captain Archer must be present — I insist on this. Deal?”

Artemis glared. “I’m not agreeing to be present at anything until you reveal yourself. What are you playing at here?”

“Do it,” the other skipper hissed. Then, and the orange-haired captain felt a strange sense of familiarity tinging her surprise at the almost plaintive tone: “Please.”

Squeezing her hands behind her back, Artemis glanced at the woman beside her. Cziffra looked back, stiff-faced, then slowly nodded, and the League officer turned back to the display. “Fine. We’ll do it your way.”

[close]

Author's notes

Spoiler

I took Tartiflette's suggestion from another thread for the battle scene. Part of it is my usual blow-by-blow, but it also has the part where the only details are those the characters choose to comment on, and the reader is left to fill in the blanks with their imagination. Like it? I could use it more often in that case.

[close]

[MShadowy]

Glad to see that pictures come in handy, eh?  I did do some updates at Cycerin's suggestion, tweaking the engine arrangement a bit.

In any case, this is starting off pretty well.  Looking forward to seeing more of it for sure.

And the antagonists are them?  Oh dear.

[Midnight Kitsune]

Damn cliff hangers...
Also, I'm not really liking the new "lite" battle scenes... I LOVE your "blow by blow" battle scenes from the other two stories

[Sproginator]

Good story so far! Looking forward to more!

Damn cliff hangers...
Also, I'm not really liking the new "lite" battle scenes... I LOVE your "blow by blow" battle scenes from the other two stories

Completely agreed, the battle was a tad vague, Could really do with some work

[Histidine]

Okay, I'll stick to the old way.
(but not to the extent of the Marenos finale, that one was ridiculously bloated IMO)

Chapter 3: Reunion

Spoiler

“You…!”

For a full second, Artemis Archer could only goggle at the sight of the dark-skinned, trim figure in a white skinsuit flowing through the docking tube. Then indignation displaced surprise, and she stepped forward, jabbing a finger at the not-so-unknown-after-all visitor. “What are you doing here!?”

“It’s nice to see you too, AA,” Adela Sybitz said, a grin spreading across her face. “I must admit, I didn’t expect to see you here either.”

Artemis glared at the pirate, a long string of words on the tip of her tongue — most of it profanity, and none sticking together to form a grammatically complete sentence. Finally she threw up her hands with a growl, looking away as Syeira Cziffra stepped up beside her.

“You know this woman, Captain?”

“Sort of.” She managed — barely — to refrain from a thoroughly undignified pout. “This is Adela Sybitz, dread pirate of the Sector. You may recognize the name as the one who teamed up with me to take down Manza Holk back in Marenos.”

“I… see.” The Special Envoy turned back to her “guest,” arms folded. “Since you appear to be Captain Archer’s friend, I’ll grant you the privilege of not being spaced outright. But I will, if you don’t answer our questions quickly and truthfully.” She motioned to one of the Marines by the docking tube, and he and his companion stepped forward, flechette guns at the ready. “This way, please.”


“So,” Cziffra began as the three women and Captain Sowedi took seats around the table in the small conference room, armed guards lurking at the bulkheads, “perhaps we should begin with an explanation of your presence in the subsector. Specifically,” she leaned forward on one arm, “why should we look kindly upon a pirate operating in the space of a Hegemony trading partner?”

“Nuh-uh,” Adela shook her head. “You got me all wrong. I’m a privateer. Pry-va-teer. Got a letter of marque and everything.”

“Indeed?” Diplomat eyed not-a-pirate suspiciously. “I assume you’ll be presenting this letter to us momentarily?”

“Sure.” The grey-eyed woman moved slowly, keeping an eye on the Marines with their weapons in firm grips, and unstrapped her personal comp from her skinsuit’s wrist. A moment later, the device went sliding over the polished tabletop to Cziffra. “Look for keydocs/marque. I’d appreciate it if you don’t go browsing elsewhere without a warrant.”

Artemis leaned over slightly to read the small physical screen — Sowedi was doing the same, but less conspicuously — before the older woman activated the volumetric display and they could all look at it without craning their necks. When the League captain saw the symbol on the letterhead, she wanted to yell.

“The Umbra Association?” she screeched instead between clenched teeth. “You know the Hegemony won’t recognize a paper from them giving the time of day, right?”

Adela raised her hands. “Look, it’s not my fault, okay? Most independent systems accept letters of marque by any of the semi-major powers they aren’t actively at war with. It’s not like I counted on running into a Hegemony fleet bumming around back here or anything.”

It’s okay, AA. Don’t cry till you get home. She settled for resting her face in her hand instead, as Cziffra put down the electronic device with an undeniably sour expression.

“So, as far as the Hegemony is concerned, you’re an admitted pirate,” she said evenly. “Do you have anything to add in your defence?”

“Hey now, I’m pretty sure you have to actually prove I’ve been involved in an act of piracy to call me that. So far, all you have is a letter of marque you can’t prove I’ve actually exercised, the word of a bunch of murderous goons, and… well, AA over there’s kind of nice, but she also has her head stuck in the clouds sometimes, know what I’m saying?”

I’m going to kill her.

“What you describe,” Cziffra was going on tonelessly, “was not Domain policy before the Collapse and it is not Hegemony policy now.”

“We’re not in Hegemony space,” Adela shot back.

“Perhaps not. But the old spacefaring conventions of the Domain still hold sway in a great many places, the Tagalog system included. And even if you’re not in Hegemony space,” the older woman smiled thinly, “you’re under Hegemony guns right now.”

As the back and forth continued, Artemis abruptly pushed herself upright. “I just remembered,” she said at the others turned to stare at her. “There’s a data chip in my cabin with some information I believe to be pertinent to this discussion. If you’ll excuse me?”

“Go,” Syeira Cziffra almost-sighed. “And be snappy about it.”


As soon as the hatch closed behind her, Artemis Archer rounded a corner, ducked into the alcove leading to a maintenance access, and began frantically typing.

Seven minutes later, she returned to the meeting. “I just found something interesting,” she said as casually as she could manage to the people watching her come through the briefing hatch, turning on the wide-display function on her v-screen. “It turns out that Ms. Adela Sybitz actually has a second letter of marque, this one from the Persean League. The Defence Ministry only approved her application a week ago, so it’s understandable if she hadn’t received it yet, but it’s here all the same.”

The Hegemony officials stared at the at document projected in front of them. Then at Artemis, who was doing her best not to sweat under the suspicious glares of authority figures (an art she’d mastered back in middle school). Then at the document again.

“This is the most transparent ruse I’ve ever seen —” Sowedi started to sputter.

But Cziffra cut him off with a raised hand. “Calm yourself, Peter. Now, Captain Archer,” only the slightest twitch at the corners of her mouth betraying her emotions, “it would appear that your friend here is indeed a privateer registered with the Persean League. Accordingly, as you are the senior League officer present,” she almost smiled at the way her deadpan tone made the younger woman’s eyes widen, “I think we can place Ms. Sybitz under your care. Her ship will accompany us to Longia, after which you may have her transferred to the authority of the League embassy there as appropriate. Will that be acceptable… Captain?”

“Um.” Artemis was suddenly feeling rather lightheaded. “Well, I think… there should be no problems, yes.”

“Excellent!” Cziffra beamed. “Well then, I think we’ve wrapped this up quite nicely. Remember, Captain, the Hegemony will not be pleased should any untoward incidents occur.” She stood up far more smoothly than one would have expected from her advanced age, taking no notice of the multiple stares pointed in her direction. “Dismissed.”


As the occupants shuffled out of the room one by one, Artemis spun around around in the corridor outside, cyan eyes hard. “Adela Sybitz, we need to talk. In private.”

“Sure.” The pirate grinned lazily. “Where to?”

Instead of replying, she turned around again and stalked off, Adela trailing behind. They passed wordlessly through hallways, a flight of stairs, and the entrance to Artemis’s cabin; it was only when the hatch closed behind them that Artemis wheeled about, jabbing her index finger into the other woman’s collarbone.

“Never make me do that again,” she hissed. “You hear me?”

“Hey now,” Adela raised her hands again, “you don’t have to give me a lecture. That was a little wild and wooly, even for me.” Artemis lowered the finger, but not the glare, and the pirate smiled. “And, well… truth be told, it was my best bet and all, but I still wasn’t sure you were going to cover for me. So, um, thanks.” The smile became a grin. “I really mean it. Thanks, AA.”

The orange-haired captain sighed, turning away, recalling a couple of similar exchanges they’d had before — with their positions reversed. “You’re welcome,” she said wearily. A few quick strides brought her to the other side of the room before she lost control of her flush, settling down on a corner of the bed. Pointing to a nearby office chair: “Sit.”

“Mm, nice and plush.” No sooner had Adela sat down in the chair then she crossed her legs, still wearing that grin. “So, whaddaya wanna chat about, sister?”

“For starters, what have you been doing this past year? I can only hope you haven’t gone back to your old ways of robbing random independent traders in my absence.”

“Nothing so crass.” The pirate waved an arm at the window, the view mostly occupied by Visaya’s blue form. “Actually, I’ve been running a certain… humanitarian operation in the Exerelin cluster, so to speak. Picking off the shipping of the various imperialist goons squabbling over the place, and putting their stuff to better use. Made the news once or twice, too; I think you might have seen it.”

Head tilted, glance curious. “Yeah, I heard. Rob the rich, give 40% to the poor, right?”

“Forty percent, after reasonable expenses,” Adela chided, waggling a finger.

The captain rolled her eyes. “And that ship of yours? Mind telling me what a small-time pirate is doing with that kind of cutting-edge weaponry?”

Adela shrugged. “It’s Blackrock, they hand out high-tech warships like candy. I think I saw a Stenos being used as a luxury yacht once.”

Artemis stared incredulously.

“Look, let’s just say it fell off the back of an Atlas and leave it at that, okay?” She reclined in her seat, resting an elbow on the armrest and placing her head on her fist. “Well, I’ve told you about me; now it’s your turn. What’s a League captain doing with a VIP suite on a Hegemony liner? I mean, I’d be kinda disappointed if you sold out to these guys. Even if,” she purred softly, “this is pretty posh.”

“It’s… it’s a long story.” Artemis took a deep breath, then slowly began recounting the route that’d led her here. Returning a decorated hero from Marenos, being quietly treated for PTSD (she didn’t dwell too long on why she’d needed treatment in the first place), the posting to the embassy on Chicomoztoc, and finally ending up being drafted on this aid mission. Sybitz listened intently, stopping only a few times for a clarifying question, and when it was all done she nodded slowly.

“So, this Hegemony bigwig took one look at you and decided you’d be a great PR model, huh?” Wry smile. “I’ll give it to them; they have more aesthetic taste than I gave them credit for.”

“...I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.”

“Only ‘cause you can’t take a compliment. Say, how’s Mir?”

“We ended up foisting him off on my mom.” Artemis felt a subtle warmth in her cheekbones. “She was a little surprised to find out she was a surrogate grandma, but they took to each other pretty quickly. I drop by when I can to check up on him.” She was smiling wistfully, now. “He’s doing quite well in school, too, even if he has a lot to catch up on. Says he never even knew there could be this many kids in one place.”

“Nice.” Adela grinned at the way Artemis flushed again, whether out of consternation, embarrassment or quasi-maternal pride — most likely, all three at once. “Though I’d have kind of expected you to adopt him yourself. Maybe I still have a romantic streak, eh?”

The captain shook her head. “Can’t. I’m not even home most of the time, and I’d feel pretty bad about uprooting him each time I get posted somewhere new. This is the best I can do for him — better than stuffing him in an orphanage or with total strangers for a foster family — and he’s in good hands,” she put a hand on her chest, “if I do say so myself.”

They chuckled at that, then Adela gave her companion a sly look. “Mmm. Not ready to settle down and become a mother yet, eh?”

“Hey, it’s not like —”

“Relax, sis, I wasn’t judging. I actually think you’re doing good work — when you’re not trying to kill me, at least, and it’s fine if you think that’s where you’ll be most valuable. ‘Sides, it’s not like I’m a family woman either.” She stretched. “Anyway, what’ll we do when we get there?”

“To be honest, I’ll probably be happiest if you get out of my hair and I don’t have to see you for a long, long time. But I’m not going to be so fortunate, am I?”

“Nope! Actually, I was headed to Longia myself before you got me.” Seeing the look on the captain’s face, she quickly added: “Not immediately, I mean. But I had some… business there, so I was going to hit it a few stops down my current circuit. This also means I’ll likely be hanging around the planet for a bit, so we might well run into each other here and there.” She clapped her dark hands together. “Who knows, we could even have more adventures together like last time. Wouldn’t that be just gravy?”

Artemis blanched.

[close]

[Satirical]

I loved your marenos crisis fanfic and I remember waiting for updates (back when you were still in the process of writing it), read almost all the chapters before i put reading it on hold and just finished it up today c:

[SafariJohn]

Dangit, now I want to see Atlases carrying ships around.

[Histidine]

Thanks Satirical!

Moving the plot along (slowly)...

Chapter 4: Port

Spoiler

A blaze of red fury enveloped the shuttle falling through Longia’s thermosphere at 2.4 kilometers a second, shock waves buffeting its slender hull. The primitive spacecraft of just a millennium ago would have been broken by such a force, scattering their contents to burn up in the air below. But crude though the transport was by the Sector’s standards, it held up to the fire and wind without a hint of concern, and the squishy organics inside felt only the slightest quiver.

Like many of her fellow passengers, Artemis Archer was gazing out the viewport, watching as the brilliantly glowing heat subsided, faded away. Behind it was the vista of a jungle world, verdant continents and sapphire oceans peeking out from behind patchy white carpets. Some of the less experienced starfarers aboard couldn’t help but ooh and aah the scene, and though Artemis would never have been caught doing anything so gauche, even she couldn’t hold back a smile at the beauty of it all.

Further down the shuttle went, unfolding its delta wings, and the edges of the planet’s primary city Hue came into view. Many of the buildings, she observed, were stout, grey things emphasizing form over function. Spaced in between them were brighter patches of red, green and gold, including a large, irregular shape she recognized as the Old Quarter. At the center of that splash of color was the Shining Pagoda, still Longia’s most treasured tourist attraction.

The pilot was now taking them in a wide arc across the city, no doubt for the benefit of the gawkers. Glints of reflected morning light caught her eye: the new arcology towers recently springing up all across Longia, gleaming spires standing head and shoulders above their older fellows. Each one had a price tag counted in millions of credits, and she recalled her briefing on the new class of foreign investors flocking to this previously isolated world from the Hegemony and the League alike. Down below the cerulean ribbon of the river Song He looped through the city grounds, bisecting the lush People’s Park.

They swept towards city’s main spaceport, a sprawling mass of more grey and white. In just minutes more the shuttle was hovering over its designated landing pad, a flock of native birds scattering from a nearby grove of trees, and then the contragrav fields and reaction thrusters alike eased off, setting the craft down gently on its landing struts without so much as a bump. A military shuttle would now be unfolding its ramp to allow personnel and materiel to disembark, but civilians expected more comfort, and the boarding bridge was already unfurling from the side of the adjacent terminal, meeting the access hatch with a pneumatic kiss.

Artemis stood up, straightened out her skirt and joined the other passengers shuffling slowly out of the cabin.


The white gleam of the sterile security corridor was broken up only by the guard post with counter behind a window on one side, and the pale green scanner beams horizontally across both ends, spaced at close intervals. Artemis briefly wondered if a determined intruder might be able to contort between the gaps, but it quickly became clear that a newborn — a preterm newborn, even — wouldn’t be able to fit through. The visible beams were more to indicate the corridor’s function than as an actual security measure, anyway; the real security measures were no doubt carefully concealed somewhere inconspicuous.

Syeira Cziffra went through first, stopping briefly in front of the counter to transmit her customs details and let the officer on duty go over them. He gave the data no more than a perfunctory glance-over before waving her through.

A couple of the other senior Hegemony officials followed her through, going through similar motions, and then it was the League captain’s turn. But no sooner had Artemis walked through the entrance that an alarm began wailing, the green beams ahead of her and the similarly-colored lights on either side turning red. She jerked her head up to see a minigun turret popping out of the ceiling, before forcing herself to keep absolutely still.

Uh… damn. That.

The security officer was already standing up, not-quite-glaring at her as guards with drawn weapons appeared on both ends of the corridor, shoving past the gawking travellers who’d gotten off with her. She slowly spread her arms, flushing slightly, trying her best to look the innocent babe.

“Sorry. I forgot I was carrying this.”

She reached down slowly — very slowly — and lifted her skirt on one side, revealing the light mag-pistol in its thigh holster. A guard came over and removed the firearm after a brief hesitation, depositing it on the security counter with a rather… bemused expression on his face. “You’ll probably want my spare mags as well.” Those she took out herself, from under her unbuttoned yellow cardigan. That done, she stepped back, keeping her hands slightly raised and away from her body.

The booth officer looked strangely for her at a few moments, then took the weapon and ammunition. A few quick taps on his keyboard silenced the alarm with a pleasant chime, the red lights going green again, and Artemis lowered her arms.

“Alright, captain. We’ll return these to you once you’ve cleared security. Now, if you’ll please submit your documentation —”

He broke off as another uniformed figure stepped through the door behind him, and they exchanged a few words in hushed tones which the League officer couldn’t have made out even if they’d been speaking in her language. The guard at the desk then turned back to her, slightly ruddy-faced. “Um, miss…”

“Archer.”

“Well, Ms. Archer,” the man went on, just a little nervously, “you already set off our sensors once. As such, security protocol requires that you submit to a personal search. It’ll just take a moment; all we need is for you to…”

He trailed off as Artemis looked at him, her expression completely even except for her raised eyebrows. Go on, say it. Tell me you need to subject me to a close physical inspection — purely for security reasons, of course, we wouldn’t even dream of having any other motives. She could see the sweat beading on his forehead, and tilted her head slightly. Well?

“...actually, I think we can make an exception just this once,” he stammered after several awkward seconds. “Just as soon as you’ve logged your details, ma’am.”

She did, and he waved her through without even looking at his screen. He didn’t even watch her walking through the corridor, not after she cast a glance back over her shoulder at him, and she fell in beside Madam Cziffra as they began walking slowly towards the waiting lounge.

“You handled that very well,” the older woman leaned over and whispered.

“I’ve had to deal with guys like this before.” She shrugged. “At least this one could take a hint pretty quickly.”

The party filed into the lounge, more people from the delegation entering in trickles as they cleared security. Artemis went to the window, studying the apron where loading crew with an eclectic mix of older and modern equipment were unloading the cargo important enough to have travelled with the VIPs. Desai was running about down there as well, waving his arms and apparently shouting at the the staff — who were, for their part, less than amused by the random schmuck telling them how to do their jobs.

One of the orange-suited workers turned and took three steps towards the interloper, only to fall flat on his face. A small, dark object Artemis suspected was Sita skittered out from under his feet, and she had to fight down a giggle at the sight.

Well, that was an interesting start to the day. I wonder what else awaits us here?


A couple of hours later, another, smaller group had ensconced itself in one of Hue’s several mid-tier hotels. Unlike the official Hegemony delegation, this one had no trouble whatsoever with firearms (or any other contraband) being brought through security; that which could not be defeated by a scanner-resistant cargo box could still be thwarted through the judicious application of credits in the right places.

Now Adela Sybitz leaned back against the edge of the hot tub, sighing contentedly. “My, this Robin Hood gig sure pays better than I’d thought,” she said to no-one in particular, then glanced at her companion. “So quiet, Tina? I figured you’d be complaining about the temperature or the size of the tub by now. Or the lack of hot bodies sharing it with us.”

“Meh.” Dragunova slid deeper into the water, eyes closed. “It’s fine as it is.”

“Really? Then how about we get Loz in here, hmm?”

“You can’t rile me up so easily, Skipper.” The redhead was already immersed to her neck. “I’m too relaxed for that right now.”

Adela chuckled, then placed her hands behind her head. “What do you plan on doing later?”

“Not much. Wander around, see the sights, maybe hole up in a bar afterwards. What about you?”

“Well… I hear they have a pretty nice underground aerodyne scene here in Hue. Might go check it out, maybe buy one for us.”

“Yeah, after you let Loz break the last one,” Dragunova snorted.

“Hey, if I knew they were gonna spike his drink before the race, I wouldn’t have let him go, alright?”

“And you refused to go back and pound their place into dust when we found out.”

Adela just sighed at that. Valentina Dragunova wasn’t really bloodthirsty or a sociopath, she just had a tendency to prefer the “bigger gun” approach to solving problems… and had a really short way with most people who tried to screw with her. Which kind of went with her job, but the senior pirate wished she’d show a little more discretion at times.

A message chime from the nearby plastic table caused her to look up, and she reached over and grabbed her mobicomp, punching a few buttons and staring at the flatscreen. Several seconds later, she put it back, the device making an audible thump as it hit the tabletop, and leaned back in the tub and groaned.

“What was it?”

“It’s our good friend Mr. Cao.” Adela muttered something under her breath. “He found out about us coming in today, and says it’d be nice if we got around to delivering the guns his boss ordered sometime this week.” The guns which we didn’t get to pick up after the Hegemony busted us, she didn’t add. Dragunova knew that already.

“Ah. How tragic.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Adela hoisted herself out of the tub and grabbed a towel. “Guess I better go arrange a meetup and explain things to him sooner rather than later.” She looked back at her companion, still relaxing in the bath. “Want to come along?”

“Nah.” Dragunova smiled thinly. “You’re the skipper. I figure that makes this your problem.”

“Your loyalty floors me,” the other woman muttered, just loud enough to be heard. “Well, have fun. And you can forget about me buying any ammo for you on the way back.”


The sun was already below the horizon when the automated taxi deposited Adela on the edges of the Old Quarter, now dressed in her favorite red jumpsuit. She took a moment to look up at the remnants of the orange evening sky, rapidly receding before the tide of night, then stuffed her hands in her pockets and began walking down the brightly lit street.

Down the block was her destination: an unassuming-looking corner establishment of uncertain but evidently disreputable purpose. Even from out here, the smell of cheap incense and cheaper booze was unmistakable; the flaking paint and the scratches defacing the calligraphy on the large neon-illuminated board overhead merely added to the joint’s seedy aura.

She was just about to open the double doors in front when someone burst through from the other side, nearly bowling her over. She pivoted out of the way just in time, catching the awning’s support pillar, as the tall, buff figure strode on brusquely.

“Hey, what’s the big idea?!” she snapped after him.

The man didn’t answer, didn’t even look back. He simply pulled his black hood over his short, muddy brown hair and faded into the distance.

“Screwhead,” she muttered, pushing the doors open and stepping into the bar.

Damn, this place is as suffocating as ever. Her grey eyes swept across the other patrons crowding the place — many male, many rough-looking — as she walked across the large room, lingering on nothing but taking in everything. A few of them glanced back at her, but most were preoccupied with the thick flavour of their drinks or the noisy clatter of mahjong tiles scattered on their tables.

She stepped through an empty doorway into another, smaller room, the bouncer in the corner barely even looking up at her. The man she sought was sitting in a smoky corner, an otherwise non-descript figure distinguished primarily by his black fedora and pseudoleather jacket. Another, larger man was leaning against the wall nearby, scarcely bothering to conceal the bulge of the machine pistol under his coat.

“Ms. Sybitz.” The fedora guy looked up as she slid into the seat opposite him, raising a teacup. “Drink?”

“Mr. Cao,” she said, giving a small nod of acknowledgement. “Thank you, but I’m fine.”

“Mm. Very well, to business then.” He placed his forearms on the table, one hand on the other. “I take your messages to mean that you have not brought the armaments we were promised.”

She lifted a hand in a small throwing-away motion. “Things came up. In the form of an interception by a pack of bounty hunters and a Hegemony naval force, in fact. You have no idea how lucky I am to be alive at all.”

“Indeed?” A flicker of something formed on his face — she couldn’t quite tell if it was sympathy or suspicion. “Be that as it may, the fact remains you have not fulfilled the bargain that was made. Lord Ngo will not be pleased.”

“A temporary delay. I can go out again and return with your goodies within two standard weeks.”

“You are already behind schedule.”

Adela’s face tightened. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Look, I don’t want our business relationship soured because of a one-off incident that neither of us had any control over. How about this: I give you a twenty percent return on your advance payment, plus another twenty percent fully waived off the final fee, and you give me another month to get your goodies. Remember, we’re talking about some serious firepower here; you won’t find many other people willing to sell you this kind of hot goods. How about it?”

“An… interesting offer.” Cao looked away for a moment, his expression thoughtful as he took a sip of his tea. “Actually, speaking of that...” he turned back to her, “you needn’t bother. Under the circumstances, I should tell you that we no longer require your merchandise.”

“What?” Mentally, the pirate kicked herself for not being able to keep the surprise out of her voice, but she couldn’t help it.

“We have… made connections with a new supplier. One who can provide our requirements in bulk, and at lower prices than you could offer us. We were planning to pick up one last shipment from you as agreed upon, but…” His forearms fanned out across the table. “If you would refund the advance payment in its entirety, we will consider the matter amicably settled between us.”

She stared in silence at him, the gears whirring in her mind. The thought of a competitor muscling her out of the business grated on her nerves in general, but for it to happen here, specifically… she had to fight down a grimace. That last order from Cao’s organization had included several Marine powered suits and a stack of Burin anti-armor launchers. Not exactly candy store material. And now these people — she was sure they were with the rebels, now — were buying them en masse… and someone was willing to supply them accordingly.

She wasn’t sure which of those thoughts disturbed her more.

“Very well,” she said after a while. “Give me a day or so to arrange the secure transaction, and we’ll be done. I won’t pretend I’m happy about this whole thing, but I’ll live with it.”

He nodded. “It is decided, then. And for what it’s worth, while I do not foresee an opportunity for such any time in the future, I would not object to doing business with you again.”

“Thanks, I guess.” She stood up. “Goodbye.”

Adela Sybitz left the bar without another word or glance, almost as hastily as the man who’d almost run her over had done.

[close]

[Sproginator]

I love this! More more more!

[Histidine]

Okay, so it's been over a month since the last update, and all I've got for you is semi-filler. Sorry.
At least things will move faster in the next chapter!

Chapter 5: Racer

Spoiler

The underground concourse was still only half-full when Adela arrived, and she slid smoothly into the nascent queue forming in front of the ticket dispenser. Half a minute and a quick electronic payment later, she was through the entrance to the viewing lounge and standing in front of an anachronistic-looking food vendor, his wares arranged neatly on a folding table.

“You look like a new face,” he commented as she picked out a bag of chips and a soda can. “Here to bet, or just watch?”

“Watch. I’m not familiar with the scene around here just yet.” There were other reasons, too; one of her foster fathers had been an inveterate gambler, and a dark memory of a little girl cowering fearfully under her bed while the repo men roughed him up in the living room flitted through her mind for an instant. But she suppressed it without so much as a flicker on her face, and left to find her seat.

The main viewing area had a long window spanning the length of the front wall, giving the audience a firsthand view into the starting grid and the immediate section of track it rested on. But said grid was currently bare, and the audience’s view instead lay a series of surprisingly modern holo-view projectors casting into the air above and before the window. At present the scene depicted pit crew swarming over their respective vehicles, while the riders supervised them intently, making sure the mere gear heads didn’t damage or deface their precious rides.

For a brief moment, Adela smirked. These racers strutting about in their suits were of a breed she was intimately familiar with: swaggering young men (and a few women) who had absolute confidence in their own capabilities and did not quite believe in their own mortality. Ah, the folly of youth.

Personally, she thought she’d had all that swagger beaten out of her by reality before her nineteenth birthday, pointedly ignoring the voice in her head muttering that Loz and Tina would undoubtedly challenge the notion of any such thing having ever happened in her life. The skipper? Oh, she’s nice enough. But she’s also nuts. Definitely nuts. Why, just the other day…

That was perhaps the only thing her two closest friends and subordinates had ever agreed on in their lives.

The vehicles were ready now, the riders hopping in and letting the vitriplast cockpits close over them. One by one the sleek aerodynes slid out of the hangar and took their positions on the starting grid. Arranged neatly in two staggered columns, they were almost parade-perfect, except no parade Adela knew of had ever seen such a riotous arrangement of colours.

“Three…”

Despite the fact that almost no-one in the crowd was attending an aerodyne race for the first time, the room seemed to hold its collective breath as the countdown started.

“Two…”

The contra-grav lifters were already active, though at low power, and the racers shifted almost imperceptibly with a rise of just millimeters above the ground.

“One…”

“GO!”

High-powered thrusters came to full power with a singular scream, and the aerodynes were hurtling down the track at eighty meters per second and climbing.


Though  derived from the common air car commonly seen on all but the most decivilized of worlds, the racing aerodyne bore as much resemblance to its more plebian forebear as a peregrine falcon does to a pheasant. Its true heritage lay, in spirit if not in design, in the air-breathing, paraffin-burning interceptor aircraft of prespace Earth.

The track started in an incomplete underground ground vehicle tunnel abandoned during the last rebellion, then repurposed by some enterprising interests in Hue’s black market. Much of it, however, ran through the industrial district above ground, the riders guided only by the lights on their helmet-mounted displays as they weaved between the buildings under G-forces that would have left them unconscious but for the inertial dampeners in their vehicles. Thankfully for everyone involved, at this time of night there was little unrelated traffic moving through this part of town to cause an accident with.

Adela leaned over to the girl in the next seat. “I’m new here. Any of these guys I ought to keep an eye on?”

“Mm? Oh, this race has a couple of big names in it.” She pointed at a shimmering white craft on the screen, clearly in the lead. “The favorite around here is Nguyen over there. He’s been running in this scene for a few years now, and he’s pretty good.” Making a face, now: “Don’t really care for him, myself. I figure he just wins a lot because rich dad means he can afford the best upgrades.”

“Over there,” this one was a black aerodyne with bright flame decals, “you have his largest rival Song. She’s been racing here almost as long as he has, though she still lets her temper get the better of her sometimes. And the way she swears in interviews and stuff… quite a sight, really.”

“I take it your personal favorite is someone else?”

“Yeah.” She nodded at another racer hanging further back, marked with silver stripes on a sea green body. “That’s Mach La Quang, one of the rising stars on the block. He’s young, but skilled, and he’s got a good ride.” Already he’d deftly overtaken a better placed but less adept rival, moving up to third place. “They say he got lessons from Mikael Shulmann himself.”

They watched the silver-on-green craft zip under a bridge, thrusters causing a cloud of steam to puff up from the river as it pulled up again. Ahead, Nguyen and Song were relentlessly jockeying for pole position, paying no heed to any mere third-placer hurtling down the avenue after them.

The leader did an abrupt braking maneuver at the next turn, his black-hulled challenger hastily breaking off to the side to avoid a collision. The wrong side — it took her almost a second to bring her vehicle around again, during which time Mach came racing up, sideswiping her into a nearby fire escape and taking her second place for good measure. The soft metal crumpled against the high-strength vehicle composites like so much tissue paper, the debris falling to the street below.

“I don’t think the property owner is going to approve,” Adela murmured. “Or the city council.”

“Never mind that,” her companion whispered between her fingers. “He’s made Song mad.”

Indeed, the fire-trimmed aerodyne almost seemed to be ablaze in truth, screaming after the upstart that dared cross it. The afterburner plume stretched out behind it, lighting up the scenery, and in moments it had caught up and was trying to squeeze out its foe. Green and black alloys collided and ground against each other over and over with dramatic crunches and fountains of sparks, each vehicle trying to force the other off the track, in some ways seemingly giving up the race for a deathmatch.

“At this rate, they’re going to—”

The girl never finished the sentence, for it became quite moot. The segment of “track” passed between two chimneys of a metal smelter, just wide enough for a single racing aerodyne to pass through. Two of them side by side, not quite watching where they were going, could only end up in a spectacular accident.

Song got off lightly, her vehicle cleaving clean through the plasticrete structure and coming out with nothing worse than a buckled bow (and a badly bruised rider). Mach was rather less fortunate: hitting the side of his chimney, his aerodyne was deflected into the side of another building, spun out of control, pancaked off the roof of a warehouse, and finally hit the freeway at a 150-meter-per-second tumble that would have ruined any pre-Domain vehicle — or indeed, an ordinary modern air car. It left several craters and a quarter-mile gash in the old-fashioned asphalt, and the wreck at the end resembled nothing so much as a toy that a giant, petulant child had broken in a fit of rage.

A horrified gasp went up amongst the audience as the race organizer’s emergency bots flocked — no, swarmed over the scene, dumping fire retardant on the battered vehicle and slicing with blades through the tough alloy. Mach was slumped in the cockpit, his grey racing suit stained dark red, and even Adela felt her grip on her armrests tensing.

Then the body stirred. Awkwardly raised an arm and waved slightly at the camera, even.

The crowd went wild.

“Say,” Adela looked over as the torrent of applause started to wind down, “do you know who designed his ride?”


Two men in coveralls looked up from the remains of Mach’s racing aerodyne as Adela Sybitz stepped into the service bay. “Yes?” the taller of the two said, just a little brusquely.

“I’m looking for the Li brothers.” She studied the mechanics as she walked forward: middling build, not-quite-shoulder-length curly hair, narrow eyes, slightly tanned skin. One was visibly taller than the other and had an understated goatee, but aside from that they may well have been identical twins.

“Who’s asking?” the other man asked, tone more-or-less even. More or less.

She produced her mobicomp, waving it in front of her. “I saw your handiwork at the race earlier. And I’m in the market for a new personal craft.”

They were just a few meters apart now, gazing at each other in the semi-adversarial manner of two parties whose natural instinct is to drive a hard bargain. “Most people just go down to the showroom and buy something they want,” the first man said again. “You have some specific requirements, I take it?”

“That I do. Racing model, single seater, like the ones they use here. Here’s the specs of my last one.” The holo-display came up, and they looked it over with chin-rubbing contemplation.

“Mm.” Nodding slowly: “Actually, we might just have what you need.” The short man pointed a thumb at himself. “I’m Mike,” he pointed at his brother, “and he’s Oscar. Come back in half an hour and we can do business.”


Forty minutes later and the three of them were in another underground garage, several blocks away from the racing site. Oscar flicked a switch on the wall, and a spotlight illuminated a large object taking up most of the confined space: a jet-black aerodyne, mild gloss shimmering in the light. Its needle-thin form was the image of a lance pointed straight at the loading door, ready at any moment to burst through out to freedom.

Adela slowly approached the vehicle, grey gaze running over every sleek curve. The comp was in her hand, a lengthy specifications list on its compact physical screen, but she took little notice of it. She’d already skimmed it on the way here, and there would be time to go through it in detail later. The beauty before her was here and now.

She reached out, placing a hand on the nose just in front of the cockpit, the carboweave beneath the paint surprisingly warm to the touch.

“Like what you see?” Mike said.

“Oh yes.” She was almost purring, now. “I’m sure this will do nicely.”

[close]

[Histidine]

Finally, some action!

(also wow I can't believe it's been 76 days since last update)

Chapter 6: Rebel

Spoiler

Thick clouds loomed over the sprawling mine complex in the deep jungle, shielding it from the full moon and shrouding virtually everything within a dozen kilometers in abject darkness. Against this backdrop the few breaks in the gloom stood out: the harsh orange-tinged glow of the lampposts, the white illumination at the security post by the gate, and more such light streaming through the windows of a few rooms whose occupants were still awake. Deep beneath the ground the machines might still be rumbling, toiling tirelessly away, but on the surface scarcely anything moved.

The microcopter hovering overhead noted all this, and dutifully reported the facts to its masters. It went further, displaying the facility’s layout in clear-as-day infrared, and the figures gathered around its operator’s console studied the view in approval.

“Look at that,” an older-looking woman muttered. “They haven’t even cleared the trees to the north. Think their wire fence and fancy perimeter sensors will keep them safe.”

“Lazy bastards probably lounging around their post while the bots do the work,” someone else snickered. “Goats to the slaughter.”

“Indeed.” That was a third speaker, a man with a dark buzz cut standing slightly behind the others, and the others turned to look at him. “In that case, I trust there will be no objections to my participation?”
Insubordinate or not, more than a few of them couldn’t help but stare. Gilbert Trung wasn’t the tallest or the broadest of their group, but he combined the two in a way that made him by far the most physically intimidating. Yet in truth it was not his bulk that had made many a would-be adversary back down without a fight, but the hard, bare face devoid of self-doubt or submission to any man.

He was also the sole survivor of the martyred council of the Longian Resistance Front.

“Well…” one of the more courageous — or perhaps foolhardy — of the rebels started to speak. “I’m not sure I see the purpose…”

“I’d have thought it obvious,” Trung said, fortunately in a tone that indicated he wasn’t going to flay the impudent subordinate alive. “How can I possibly lead the coming revolution if I am afraid even of a simple op like this one?” The hefty shoulders rose briefly. “Besides, I’ve been out of the field far too long. It’d be good to see some action again.”

The first speaker snorted derisively, as only Dinh Thi Huyen, Trung’s seniormost NCO equivalent and one of the LRF’s fiercest fighters, would have dared. “I still say all that fancy offworld education has turned your brain to mush, young man.” She looked away, taking a moment to adjust her shoulder-length braid. “Very well, you can join. But you’re definitely not taking point, got that?”

“Sure.” The rebel leader opened a crate and pulled out a suppressed mag-carbine. He grabbed an eighty-round magazine to go with it, slapping it in and examining the results in one smooth motion, and smiled. “Shall we get started, then?”


Five figures advanced to the tree line north of the mine — slowly, it was easy for a man to trip over things like roots and rocks with the washed-out view through the multi-vision goggles. The point man raised a hand, and they came to an almost-instantaneous halt. Trung glanced to the left and right, just barely making out the visual silhouettes of the other two fire teams moving into position.

The perimeter sensors were small, unobtrusive, and almost invisible to the naked eye (or, for that matter, thermal detection), even without the grass concealing them. But his electronic sensors had them marked clearly on his display, and Huyen already had her EMP projector out, taking under two seconds to zap the closest three.

“Won’t punching out the sensors like this alarm them?” someone asked.

Huyen shook her head. “Our informant assures us that they break down once a week anyway. All that happens is someone comes to check it — eventually. And by then, it won’t matter.” She motioned ahead with a hand. “Cut the fence.”

Another member of the raid team stepped forward, slipping through the gap in the coverage. The fence was old-fashioned coated steel wire, albeit a steel significantly stronger than any known on prespace Earth — but still no match for a thermal blade. It was a matter of seconds to create an opening wide enough for two people to fit through at a time, and then the rest of the team was flitting through, the others to follow not long after.

The closest building (a machinery depot constructed from prefab components, of no particular significance to their mission) was just ten meters away, and the five of them huddled against the wall. Huyen peeked around the corner, looking to the east, where the security post was. “One guard headed to the entry point,” the drone operator was saying over the radio. “Coming around the tailings pile now.”

The seconds ticked by as the security officer walked on, muttering something or order under his breath. He’d just started rounding the building when Huyen reached out, sturdy forearms catching his thin neck like a vise, and the muscles beneath the hard skin flexed. The limbs retracted, and the man — now a corpse — fell bonelessly to the floor, never quite realizing anything had even happened.

The infiltrators moved past, Trung casting only the briefest of glances at the dead body. The guard was Longian, like virtually the entire mine’s workforce. Young, someone’s kid, probably just looking to save up enough credits to start a family. But whatever sympathy the LRF leader might have felt for his kind had been ground away long ago.

Collaborators.

They were at the supervisor’s office in under a minute, and stacked up on either side of the entrance. Neither their scanners nor a microcam under the old-fashioned plywood door showed any defenses of note, and the quasi-noncom entered the room through the simple expedient of turning the knob and shoving.

“What’s the meaning of this —” the portly foreigner behind the desk started, rising to his feet.

With their subsonic velocity, even the comparatively heavier rounds the carbine put out carried considerably less energy than those of a full-power mag-rifle. But at this range — and with Huyen’s aim — it scarcely mattered. Her two shots cleaved through trachea and cerebellum alike, and the man tumbled backwards, painting the back of the office red. The veteran of the Longian civil war walked through the doorway with deceptive casualness, and two others followed, giving the mine’s dead viceroy no more than a glance before turning their attention to the office contents. One took his tablet and slid it into his knapsack, while another began rummaging through the desk for anything of potential value.

A small explosion thundered in the distance — that would have been the breaching charge, placed by one of the other teams on the door of the security post. No audible gunshots followed, but the single cut-off scream told him all he needed to know.

“This is Dhole,” a voice said in his earbug. “We have control of security. No general alarm.” Good; that meant no heavy reaction force from the city. “Deactivating security systems.”

“Lutung confirms. We’re securing the shaft entrance and the blasting storage. Package is ready to deploy.”

“Good. Tiger moving to your position.”

Trung walked away from the office, Huyen having emerged from the office and trailing behind. There were a few more bodies scattered about on the way, including one of the mineworkers who’d apparently blundered on the scene. Shot in the back, perhaps when he tried to run and sound the alarm. He filed this fact away, and moved on.

The ground was shaking slightly; one of the rebels had commandeered an utility mech and was stacking crates of blasting agent on the large cargo elevator by the mountainside. The fireteam leader waved Trung over, one eye on the proceedings.

“Status?”

“We’re halfway done with the shaft load, as you can see. Kraisak’s rigging up the depot charge now.” She tilted her head at a nearby warehouse. “We should be ready to exfil in seven minutes.”

Trung nodded. “Make sure the boys don’t skimp on the main load. We want this to cost them.”

He turned away to look at the buildings around them. They were officially the property of one of the Sector’s many mid-tier interstellar corporations, built on an ill-gotten concession acquired through a well-placed kickback. An all-too-common instrument for the detestable offworlders and their well-paid local cronies to plunder Longia’s riches for their own gain, leaving the common people the scraps and being hailed as saints for it.

Just one of the many symptoms of everything that ailed the Republic; hardly the worst among them, but a symptom nevertheless. But also one he could deal with.

And when the time came, the others would go with it as well.


It’d started to rain as they filtered out of the compound, and they’d barely reached the limited cover of the jungle canopy when the drizzle gave way to a full-blown downpour. Trung took the (thankfully waterproof) timer out of his pouch as the party came to a stop, glancing briefly at the red digits counting down, then put it back without a word.

Huyen didn’t even bother checking her own chrono. “Think it should be going off right about—”

The ground heaved with the violent fury of an ancient god. Two fifths of a second later, a deafening roar tore through the complex, several of the prefab sheds collapsing — nay, disintegrating outright like so many twigs with the shockwave. Burning hot debris pelted the survivors ruthlessly, and even the trees around them bent and wavered under the unnatural gale.

Several of the rebels looked back at the column of flame where there once had been an explosives stockpile. Trung was not one of them.

“Let’s go,” he said firmly, the dying orange light to his back.

[close]

[Histidine]

Back when I was writing The Marenos Crisis, I tried to write two or at least one chapter ahead of what was posted on the forum; a "buffer" to allow me to update about once a week, so to speak. But since Crossfire has no update schedule to speak of anyway (update once a week? ahahahahahaha) there's no point to the buffer, so I'm emptying it. New chapters will just come out when they're done. (Does anyone even care any more?)

Anyway:

Chapter 7: Politics

Spoiler

“Um… are you sure about this?”

Artemis Archer eyed her reflection in the mirror with a degree of trepidation, twisting and turning to examine every part of her new ao dai. The traditional garment clung to her well-defined curves that four decades of life had done little to unshape, its lush white color a neat contrast with the equally form-fitting black leggings. Truth be told, she liked what she saw. While she’d never been one to feel vain about her looks, neither did she object to being considered attractive any more than the next woman. But…

“I think you look lovely,” Cziffra put in.

The captain shook her head. “Thanks, but it’s not that. It’s just that wearing this thing feels… I don’t know. Like I’m being disrespectful. Or a plagiarist.”

“That’s one way to look at it. On the other hand, given the context you could say you’re showing respect by taking up their ways while on their world.”

“But…”

“Oh, do relax, young lady.” Artemis looked miffed at the patronising wording, but Cziffra just went on. “I’ve already spoken with President Cong, and he assures me it’ll be fine. No-one will complain.”

“If you say so.” She cast another glance at the woman in the mirror. “Well, it won’t hurt to do it at this one event, I suppose.” And I wouldn’t mind taking it home with me, she thought briefly, but set it aside.


“Ah, the famed Captain Archer!” the tall man with the close-cropped black hair and an equally dark suit exclaimed. He took a few steps forward on the finely polished tiled floor and held out his hand. “Welcome to Longia.”

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. President,” Artemis replied in her finely honed diplomat’s tone, gripping his hand firmly. “I’ve been looking forward to seeing your world.”

She took a quick moment to study the figure before her, recalling the lengthy dossier she’d gone over on the way to Kinh. President Trinh Duy Cong. People’s Democratic Party, elected c.206, with 54% of the popular vote. Styled a reformer who got rid of the entrenched interests in government and rejuvenated the economy. There was more, but this would suffice for now.

“And so you shall!” This guy was positively gregarious. “We have much to share with our friends from the League and the Hegemony. But first, please,” he waved at a long, smiling row of men and women just behind him, “allow me to introduce my cabinet.”

She smiled, exchanging meaningless pleasantries with minister after minister, starting with the Deputy President. This was already starting to feel a little too much like her posting back on Chicomoztoc, but at least it was a new setting, and everyone seemed pleasant enough. Gracious, even.

Well, mostly. Some of them seemed to give off that same slimy vibe that the customs officer at the port check-in had, albeit with different sins involved — and much more artfully concealed. On the other hand, perhaps she was just reading too much into meaningless cues. She sure hoped so, at any rate.

The formalities done, she quickly glanced around the palatial atrium. Even with her cursory inspection, the Great Hall’s architecture and decorations revealed a carefully crafted combination of local and offworld styles, precisely arranged to create a clear display that nevertheless avoided the ostentatiousness all too many leaders of minor worlds liked to slather over their homes. Sunlight streaming in through the arched windows illuminated the dark geometric patterns on the floor, and twin dragons danced overhead on the painted dome rising above.

“So, how do you find my modest abode?” Cong sidled up beside her.

“It’s… very skillfully done. Tasteful, too. I’m impressed, Mr. President.”

“Marvellous, isn’t it? Yet not nearly as marvelous as yourself.” She blinked, and he bowed slightly. “But please, call me Cong. Here on Longia, we prefer to dispense with the impersonality of surnames, especially among good friends like our two magnificent nations.”

“Um, alright… Cong.” She wasn’t prepared to reciprocate with the given name thing just yet.

He put on an effusive smile. “Good! But I mustn’t take up any more of your time; everyone who’s someone in Longia is here at this event, and they’re just dying to meet you. And then there’s the photo shoot, of course.” She startled as he grabbed her sleeve, tugging her towards a group of finely-dressed people off to one side. “Come, come! It would be most impolite to keep them waiting.”

Artemis looked around hastily, and her gaze met Syeira Cziffra’s from a distance. The captain’s expression was beseeching: Help me!

But Cziffra just made an ambiguous hand gesture, gave her a commiserating smile, then turned and disappeared into the crowd.


One photo session and far too many introductions later, Captain Artemis Archer stumbled wearily into a mercifully quiet side lounge, surreptitiously wiping her brow. There were just a few minor dignitaries occupying the couches here, presumably taking cover from the endurance socialising outside, or perhaps just taking a moment to enjoy their drinks in peace and quiet.

Dear god, I never want to have to go through that again. Oh wait, I’m going to have to put up with such events every other day I’m here, aren’t I? Ugh, maybe I should just call in sick the next time…

“Captain Archer?”

She spun around as if an assassin were closing on her with a knife, coming face-to-face with a suited man holding a glass. She’d seen at the meet-and-greet earlier, but couldn’t place his face. Uh, damn. How do I explain “sorry, don’t remember you even though we just met” without causing offense? “Can I help you, Mr., uh…”

“Chung. Deputy Defence Minister Chung.” He didn’t seem offended by the slight; in fact, he didn’t even seem to notice. “I was wondering if I could ask a favor of you.”

“Um, go on.” Already his expression was making her concerned.

Instead of answering, he walked over to the window, and she stared after him for a moment before following him there. For a few moments they gazed out together at the tranquil palace garden.

The greenery outside tended towards the naturalistic style she favored, with the fencing hedges virtually the only straight lines visible. In place of the orderly rows of flower beds she’d expected of a palace garden, she observed blossoms in irregular clumps and little groves of trees, punctuating the footpath-strewn lawn.

“Longia is in danger,” Chung said after a while. His voice was low, and she felt her fingers clench into a pair of fists before she exhaled sharply and made them relax.

“How so?” She had to stop herself from casting a furtive glance back at the other denizens of the room.

“You know of the rebel movement here, I presume.” He waved his glass slightly at the scenery outside. “Everyone thought them crushed in Operation Column a few cycles back — we even captured and executed their public leader Hùng, along with almost all of the LRF’s inner council. And indeed, they’ve been mostly quiet since with just sporadic disturbances, a few raids and bombings here and there. But a good portion of the inner circle was never found, and now… we have evidence that they are receiving arms and other aid from unidentified offworld parties.”

“How bad is it?”

“Ground armor. Warships, possibly gathering at a secret base in the system we have yet to find. For that matter, credits to suborn our own soldiers. We already have three flag and general officers believed to be on the take, and who knows how many more lower down.”

Artemis glanced at him. “I’m not sure you should be telling me all this.”

His shoulders shifted in what might have been a shrug, or a sigh. “I’m afraid I’m running out of options. I cannot get my boss — or President Cong — to take my concerns seriously. He seems certain that the Hegemony presence here will discourage any serious effort by the rebels that might provoke a large-scale response. For that matter, all my inquiries with the Hegemons themselves seem to be getting stonewalled somewhere in their pipeline, and even I am not in a position to demand clarification.”

“And so you’re turning to the League. But in that case, shouldn’t you take it up with Ambassador Yoshida or Captain Horn? I’m not here in any real official capacity.”

“I know, and I’ve already been talking to them… with not much more success, I’m afraid. The ambassador in particular seems more concerned about stepping on our government’s toes, or the Heg’s.” Eyes closed briefly — in pain or in contemplation, it was hard to tell. “At the same time, you’re also an experienced combat officer, and one widely respected both in the League Navy and the general population.” He looked straight at her. “If you were to lend your voice to my aid in the League’s civilian or military circles, I think we might finally be able to get someone to listen.”

She looked back for a while, then nodded. “Alright. I can’t promise anything, but I’ll relay your concerns.”

“Thank you, captain. That’s all I can ask.” He emptied his glass. “And now, I’m afraid I must return to the party. You should be getting back soon as well, Ms. Archer.”

He turned around and walked away without another word, and she returned to contemplating the garden. But her mind was already far from the greenery outside, or the rough-and-tumble of the socialising just beyond the door to her back.


Five individuals at the round table in the run-down apartment looked down at the news broadcast on their tri-display, with varying emotions ranging from general indifference to cold fury. The item currently drawing their attention was a short piece on the buddy-buddy session at the Presidential Palace, the top Longian government officials fulsomely welcoming their Hegemony and Persean guests. Included was a human interest story on Artemis Archer, the new star on the block, with lengthy paeans of adulation that would have shamed a prespace medieval courtier.

Janet Cardigan, formerly of the Hegemony Navy, lifted her gaze from the small projector to glance briefly at her companions. Even after several months of working together, she still didn’t fully like what she saw. Carlos Casajo, the Tri-Tachyon agent (at least that was what she suspected he was, although she didn’t know for sure and didn’t really want to know) sat on the other side of the table, being his usual quiet-as-a-mouse self. So be it; she’d never really considered him more than a walking piggy bank anyway. Next to him were the Jaffer twins (fratenal), who were good at breaking heads and rubbing underworld elbows but not much else.

She looked at the fifth member of the party, and the incipient frown on her face eased a little. Arnaud Bennett was the only other member of her little cell whom she could rely on. Supposedly a… business operator whose concerns in the Neutral Space were increasingly being harassed by the growing League presence, he intended to discourage them from further such interference, and he worked hard — and efficiently — to accomplish this goal. Whether he was gathering useful intelligence or smuggling truly copious amounts of weaponry onto a planet, he was reliably, almost frighteningly competent.

“It seems our adversaries have found a celebrity to play dove for them,” she said to the group, letting just a hint of anger tinge her voice. They’d known, of course — known well in advance — but it was still infuriating to actually see it on the vid. “I suppose it was too much to hope that she’d have a mishap on the way here.”

“Indeed, it seems quite troublesome.” That was Bennett, stroking his goatee thoughtfully. “But under the right circumstances, it could work to our advantage.”

Cardigan cocked an eyebrow at him. “How so?”

“An attempt that fails, and fails publicly, costs far more prestige than no attempt at all.” He nodded at his fellows, his face expressionless as always. “If our ambassador of friendship here were to botch her mission spectacularly, it would greatly curtail the influence of both peace factions involved, and our purpose will be served quite neatly.”

“Mm.” That was certainly true… but also easier said than done. Try as she might, she couldn’t foresee any way this might be pulled off right now, though she expected something would occur to her further down the line. If nothing else, she could always be assassinated, although under the wrong circumstances that might produce the opposite of the intended effect.

Still, it’s awfully tempting…

She turned back to the display and glared at the smiling face of the orange-haired woman in the white ao dai, seen posing with her newest BFF the President of Longia. It was a face she’d known well since that day, after she’d used all her connections — what was left of them after she’d saved the scraps of her career — to learn everything she could about those who had been responsible for her humiliation. A face whose very sight filled her with a cold, bleak hatred.

“Do you have any suggestions on how to do that?”

Bennett shook his head. “For now, I believe it would be most prudent to wait and see for a while. It’s entirely possible that her efforts may stumble without any intervention on our part, and even if they don’t our chances are better if we could turn up a suitable vulnerability. In the meantime, we can get started on undermining her credibility a little. Soot that halo a bit, so long as we don’t push it too hard. For instance, what about those records from Sekos?”

She didn’t know whether she wanted to smile or scowl at that thought. True to form, a typically pompous, arrogant, self-righteous ***… Aloud, she said: “That’s a consideration, yes. However, even with the right spin some people might be predisposed to view her even more heroically,” the very word was bile on her tongue, “in that light. We’ll definitely want to do our homework first before we commit to anything.”

“I concur. In that case, how about —”

[close]

Chapter 8: Conflict

Spoiler

The long meeting had finally adjourned, and the various officials, diplomats, industry representative and other such sorts at the long, well-polished began getting up and leaving. This was done in a smooth, entirely orderly fashion — almost no-one there wanted to spend a single second longer than necessary in the conference room after that just-concluded three-hour slog, even if the results had been favorable, but it wouldn’t do to be too obvious about it.

Artemis waited until most of the suits had exited, then walked over to the two people she’d wanted to speak with. “Ambassador, Madam Cziffra. A moment of your time?”

The two diplomats turned from their conversation at one end of the table to look at her, and she looked back evenly. Syeira was by now a familiar figure, but she’d only met Tetsu Yoshida a couple of times before. He was an unassuming man of modest build (she was actually a fair bit taller than him), and seemed to have exactly three distinguishing visual characteristics: a full, black beard; a brown vest he seemed to wear everywhere; and a pair of old-fashioned spectacles that would’ve made him look like someone’s nice but odd uncle — if such uncles today didn’t routinely get corrective ocular mods, at least in the League.

“Yes, Captain?” he said, adjusting the bridge of his glasses. “What can we do for you?”

“I just need something cleared up.” She dropped her mobile on the table and activated the volumetric display. “I found this while on the way here this morning.”

The displayed item was an e-poster by an anonymous party, vehemently denouncing the Northeastern Interstellar Trade Accord that the Hegemony and League were negotiating with a number of independent worlds between their respective territory. Specifically, it claimed to expose a number of clauses from the secret text of the draft treaty which covered Longia, either alone or as one of several polities affected. In particular, clauses that might go over well with parts of the Kinh business community but a lot less so with the general public.

“Is there any basis to these claims?” Artemis said. Her tone was mild on the surface, but there was no mistaking the demand behind it.

Cziffra made a face. “This is quite interesting. As the author themselves point out, the details of the Accord are supposed to be a secret.”

“Yes, that’s another thing that bothers me about it.” She jabbed a finger at the display. “Why is the text of such a major agreement being kept from the public, and even the legislative bodies of most of the polities involved? Maybe that’s how you do things in the Hegemony,” she regretted the barb as soon as she said it, but plowed on, “but most people expect differently.”

“The negotiations are still at an early stage, Captain.” Cziffra folded her arms. “The delegates need some secrecy to get the best bargains for their respective star nations. As talks progress, the text will be released for public review.”

Artemis glared suspiciously at the older woman, but she simply glared back. So she transferred the baleful stare to Yoshida, who coughed nervously and averted his eyes. “I’m not privy to the NITA talks, you understand,” he said slowly. “But what she describes does have precedent in interstellar treaties, including those within the League itself.”

“Fine. But that still leaves the actual content.” The captain rapped a hand on the table. “Like this part where the League apparently browbeat Longia into raising the foreign investment limit in their savings banks to seventy-four percent — including by investment funds. I’m pretty sure the restrictions on that exist for a reason.”

“Your concerns are noted, Artemis,” Cziffra said, her words rather more diplomatic than her tone. “At the same time, we’ve had experts from five different institutions in the Hegemony, League and the Interstellar Trade Council work out the details, and their base case projections all agree that the risk of a bank run or other such panic here on Longia will be minimal with the proposed changes, for any foreseeable financial crisis that could occur in any of the major polities qualified to benefit.”

And the worst case scenarios? Or the unforeseeable crises?

“I should say that the Kinh business community welcomes this particular clause, Captain,” Yoshida put in, perhaps motivated by a need to defend his fellow diplomat against the hard-case outsider. “The banking sector on Longia has been stagnating for several cycles now, and the added capital should add much-needed liquidity for the local economy.”

Artemis looked at him for a while, then shook her head. “Look,” she spread her arms. “I’m just a starship captain. If your economists say the deal will be beneficial, then I believe you. All the same, I can’t help but suspect that the real reason this clause exists is Goldstein & Sackett.”

Cziffra’s frown turned into a completely neutral expression, and she cocked her head. “Are you accusing one of the League’s most prestigious investment banks of manipulating the negotiations, captain?”

“Not quite.” Artemis shook her head. “But it seems to me that it, and others like it, have an undue influence on the process.”

The three of them looked at each other for a while, then the naval officer turned off the display and picked up her comp with a sigh. “Well, it’s not like any of us have any direct influence on the negotiations anyway. Thanks for hearing me out, at least.” She managed a small smile. “I’ll let you get back to your work.”

Yoshida nodded. “You’re leaving for the trip with the Polyfab people, right?”

“Yeah, in about... fifteen minutes.” She made a face. “I’d best be going now.”

“Enjoy your trip,” Cziffra said tonelessly.


The mini-aerobus settled gently on the dirt clearing next to the truck, thirty kilometers from Hue. and Artemis hopped out with Desai, the newsies from the Moonlight, and a bunch of local and Hegemony officials in tow, then took a moment to look down and admire her new garb. Vest, check. Cargo leggings, check. Boots, check. It might not have been as flattering to her figure as the ao dai had been, but it was also much more suited to a day outdoors.

Not that we’ll likely be doing anything more strenuous than a guided tour around well-cultivated farms. But hey, I like dressing up for the occasion.

The place was ringed with trees, a palm lookalike whose fruits contained a cyclic compound with remarkable efficacy against several common viral diseases. Someone had set up a plantation of the things here and persuaded the villagers to work on it, but investment dried up during the civil war. Now the locals subsisted on whatever they could grow, to eat or trade. Their lives weren’t outright miserable, but they could be a fair bit better off… which was why her entourage was here, she supposed.

A buzzing noise by her neck interrupted her thoughts, and she sighed and swatted at it. The original colonists had not brought old Earth’s mosquitoes with them — that species had been exterminated over a millennium ago — but there was a native analogue that substituted just fine. At least it didn’t carry Plasmodium or the dengue virus.

She looked to the east. The “welcoming committee” — apparently the entire village — was coming out now, and most of the visiting party was moving to greet them. The only people staying behind were the workers unloading the truck, Desai hovering over them like an anxious mother hen, the camera guy and his assistant unpacking his kit... and one of the three Longian soldiers who’d accompanied them, standing guard with rifle and unpowered body armor.

“Come on, Nath,” she said, tapping the tall inventor on the shoulder. “We’ve got to be polite guests.”

“Wha? Oh, ah, sorry,” he muttered sheepishly, and she suppressed an incipient grin as they walked over to the crowd.

A local suit made the introductions, and Artemis exchanged a handshake and smiles with an elderly woman who was named as (and certainly looked like) the village head. I seem to be doing this a lot lately. This was followed by the typical expressions of meaningless flattery, and passing candy to the kids, until Celly came floating by on her hoverpallet, beeping softly. The young ones gushed over the fancy contraption, far more complex-looking than anything most of them had ever seen, and one even reached out to touch it until his mother smacked his hand away.

Ah, the star of the show arrives. For a moment — a very brief moment, she’d insist to herself later — she actually felt slightly jealous of the machine.

“Do you have any plant matter you can spare?” Desai asked.

Someone pointed to a pile of fallen and pruned branches, and inventor and invention walked over to it. A force knife from his belt made quick work of cutting the wood down to easy bite-sized morsels (by Celly’s standards, at least), and he slid them by the handful into her intake. She made humming and churning noises, a few puffs of pale smoke emerging from her exhaust valve, and quite a few people — including more than a few of the adults, even the visitors — gazed at her with a mix of trepidation and fascination.

Within a minute she chimed like an oven done cooking, and a pair of sturdy green gloves came out on a tray at the other end. Desai picked them up and presented them to the village head, bowing theatrically. “For you, madam.”

She gave him a gap-toothed grin, accepting the offering… and froze as the sharp crack of a mag-rifle shattered the tranquil atmosphere.

Artemis spun around, dropping to a crouch beside the machine as the shot man — one of the local soldiers — fell over not three meters from her with nary a sound. Two or three other people instinctively ducked for cover as well; the rest stood around, stunned like a deer in a ground-car’s headlights. Many were civilians who’d never even been near a firearm before, and had no idea what was even happening, much less what to do.

More rifle fire burst from the trees, and in seconds a good number of these people were cut down like wheat under a scythe. Desai’s scream rang in her ears as a capsule punched through his left kidney, and she barely managed to catch him before he hit the ground.

A year or two ago, Artemis would have been one of those slaughtered like so many stunned cattle, or else be prone on the ground gibbering in terror. But not today. She propped her friend up against Celly’s boxy form — he was still breathing and conscious, thank goodness. Her pistol emerged swiftly from its shoulder holster, and she glanced only briefly at the bodies littered about her, mostly Longian or Hegemony officials. There was a lull in the fire as the attackers found all their targets dead or under cover, and she peeked carefully around a corner.

That one. The one by the burnt tree, with the grenade bandolier.

She leaned out, handgun drawn close in a two-handed grip, aimed and squeezed the trigger twice. The weapon was no compact civilian model, but a full-size League Navy-issue sidearm, and as it snarled fire, two eight-millimeter beads struck her target dead center. He fell over backwards; dead, incapacitated or perhaps just momentarily stunned, she didn’t have time to care.

Again she sighted, again she fired. That one went down as well, and then she ducked back into cover as the return fire arrived. Rifle rounds crackled and whined to her back, but Celly’s sturdy frame held up, and she took a moment to will her pounding pulse down.

The ground shook with loud explosions from where they’d parked the vehicles, and she gritted her teeth. There must be at least a squad out there. Maybe two. And how many of us are even still alive and armed? For all I know, it could be just me.

More gunfire rang out, this time from just across the square, and Artemis jerked her head to see Sergeant Du of the Longian Army leaning out from behind a building, squeezing off controlled bursts downrange at the attackers. She could hear a horrific scream from from the treeline, along with a few angry shouts, but there was no time to think about that as the popped out of cover again and fired some more.

The rebels — she was certain that was what they were, now — had apparently halted their advance along this axis, settling for angry bursts of fire from the cover of the trees. But there were definitely more of them closing in from other sides of the village, and her current position was hopelessly exposed. “Can you walk?” she whispered.

“I… I think so.” Desai was groaning in pain, pressing a hand to the red blotch on his dark shirt, and she squeezed her pistol grip tightly. If she tried to move him, they’d likely both end up being shot before they could reach safety, but the same would happen if they remained where they were. And she couldn’t just leave him…

She turned to shout at Du, motioning with her hands at a nearby shed, and the sergeant nodded and swapped magazines on his carbine. The long arm roared as he went to full auto suppressive fire, high-velocity magnetic rounds slicing through the thick vegetation, and Artemis threw Desai’s free arm over her shoulders and pushed herself upright. Ugh, he weighs more than he looks.

Each of the handful of steps towards the shelter of the building felt like a mile, but they made it through the double door just as the gunfire paused. She lowered him to the floor, then returned to the doorway and waved the Longian soldier over, and sent a series of her own shots at the signs of movement downrange. Du came running over, firing on the move.

He’d almost made it when two 45 mm grenades came flying from behind and landed within three meters to his side and back.

The explosions and the mangled body tumbling towards her sent Artemis sprawling with a shriek. Thankfully the dead sergeant had prevented the blast and shrapnel from doing more than scaring her, and she hastily scrabbled to her feet and slammed the door shut. A moment later, and it was barred as well.

She’d just started to reload her pistol when the back door at the other end of the building burst open, an armed figure with a red bandana rushing with a levelled gun. She started to dive to the ground, but even as things moved too fast for reasoned thought she knew her chances of making it before the rifle tore her apart were less than even and she’d never get the fresh mag in her gun in time anyway and she could already see the smirk on his face and —

The shrieking village headwoman ran out from behind a pair of water barrels rushing the rebel from the side, a large hatchet in her raised hands. She brought the improvised weapon down on his head, and even with the flat rather than the blade landing the blow he was sent staggering with a fractured skull. With a string of Vietnamese profanity she swung again, this time with the sharp side, and he fell to the ground with a strangled cry as the steel sunk deep into his thigh.

Someone on the outside was firing, rifle capsules lashing at the outside and sending jagged splinters spalling from the interior, but the old woman didn’t even flinch. The door was on the wrong side of the doorway, too risky to close, but she grabbed a nearby wheelbarrow and pushed it in front of the opening, then tipped it over on to its side. Artemis finished reloading and moved to help her dump a couple of barrels in front of the door as well, and then they toppled one of the tool shelves for good measure.

Okay, that should discourage any hasty attempts to rush us, at least for a while, Artemis thought with a calmness that surprised herself as she took up a covering position behind a fertilizer crate at an angle to the door. And the windows are shuttered and grilled, so nobody’s getting in easily that way either. Still, her grip tensed again, and she cast a quick glance at the elderly lady now hiding behind a shelf, bloody hatchet still in hand, they’ll likely swarm us under if they all rush us at once. Or if they can breach the front door.

The grenade launcher was firing again, and she quickly raised an arm to shield her face as the explosions tore gashes into the front wall. And that’s assuming they don’t just decide to burn the shed down around us. For ***’s sake, I’m a starship captain, not a Marine…

Already she could hear more angry shouts outside, along with a few loud bursts of gunfire, and braced for the assault. But no-one came. For thirty seconds they contented themselves with a few pot-shots from the outside. A fresh grenade volley blew most of the front door into splinters, but the bar somehow held, and the losses they’d already taken seemed to discourage an attempt to storm the building.

More angry shouts were audible; it seemed as if an argument was going on. Then more gunfire — but not aimed at the shed this time. Then — she jerked her head up — the series of deep roars from a discharging rocket pod, followed by explosions far louder than any she’d heard today. The earth shook with the rippling hell-roars of the TV-guided munitions on either side of the building, and on their heels came a stream of thirty-millimeter cannon rounds, tearing apart anyone and anything caught in the open.

For several more seconds the gun bursts continued, then… silence, blessed silence.

She sidled to the battered front area of the shed, coughing at the thick dust hanging in the air, and slowly, tentatively, opened one of the window shutters. Through the rising smoke outside she glimpsed the matte grey form of a Havoc atmospheric gunship circling overhead. She didn’t know how it’d gotten here so fast, but the fact remained that it had just about saved her life, and she almost sagged to her knees in relief.

She turned to look at Desai, still lying on the floor, and grasped his hand. His pulse was still weak, irregular, but at least the rebels’ attempt to assault the shed didn’t do much more than daze him.

“Is Celly alright?” he whispered.

Artemis looked out the window again, observing the ground she’d overlooked earlier, and her fingers tightened. The dirt road separating their shed from the building across was gouged with a row of craters, and several bodies’ worth of limbs and entrails — she had to fight down a sudden wave of nausea — had been scattered about in ugly splotches of red and black. The line cut straight through the point where Celly had been on display; nothing recognizable was left of the machine or the pallet she’d been resting on, only a thousand shards of smouldering debris.

“Sorry, Nath. She’s gone.”

“Damn,” Desai muttered, and passed out.

[close]

[Midnight Kitsune]

Back when I was writing The Marenos Crisis, I tried to write two or at least one chapter ahead of what was posted on the forum; a "buffer" to allow me to update about once a week, so to speak. But since Crossfire has no update schedule to speak of anyway (update once a week? ahahahahahaha) there's no point to the buffer, so I'm emptying it. New chapters will just come out when they're done. (Does anyone even care any more?)

Anyway:

Chapter 7: Politics

Spoiler

“Um… are you sure about this?”

Artemis Archer eyed her reflection in the mirror with a degree of trepidation, twisting and turning to examine every part of her new ao dai. The traditional garment clung to her well-defined curves that four decades of life had done little to unshape, its lush white color a neat contrast with the equally form-fitting black leggings. Truth be told, she liked what she saw. While she’d never been one to feel vain about her looks, neither did she object to being considered attractive any more than the next woman. But…

“I think you look lovely,” Cziffra put in.

The captain shook her head. “Thanks, but it’s not that. It’s just that wearing this thing feels… I don’t know. Like I’m being disrespectful. Or a plagiarist.”

“That’s one way to look at it. On the other hand, given the context you could say you’re showing respect by taking up their ways while on their world.”

“But…”

“Oh, do relax, young lady.” Artemis looked miffed at the patronising wording, but Cziffra just went on. “I’ve already spoken with President Cong, and he assures me it’ll be fine. No-one will complain.”

“If you say so.” She cast another glance at the woman in the mirror. “Well, it won’t hurt to do it at this one event, I suppose.” And I wouldn’t mind taking it home with me, she thought briefly, but set it aside.


“Ah, the famed Captain Archer!” the tall man with the close-cropped black hair and an equally dark suit exclaimed. He took a few steps forward on the finely polished tiled floor and held out his hand. “Welcome to Longia.”

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. President,” Artemis replied in her finely honed diplomat’s tone, gripping his hand firmly. “I’ve been looking forward to seeing your world.”

She took a quick moment to study the figure before her, recalling the lengthy dossier she’d gone over on the way to Kinh. President Trinh Duy Cong. People’s Democratic Party, elected c.206, with 54% of the popular vote. Styled a reformer who got rid of the entrenched interests in government and rejuvenated the economy. There was more, but this would suffice for now.

“And so you shall!” This guy was positively gregarious. “We have much to share with our friends from the League and the Hegemony. But first, please,” he waved at a long, smiling row of men and women just behind him, “allow me to introduce my cabinet.”

She smiled, exchanging meaningless pleasantries with minister after minister, starting with the Deputy President. This was already starting to feel a little too much like her posting back on Haesteus Prime, but at least it was a new setting, and everyone seemed pleasant enough. Gracious, even.

Well, mostly. Some of them seemed to give off that same slimy vibe that the customs officer at the port check-in had, albeit with different sins involved — and much more artfully concealed. On the other hand, perhaps she was just reading too much into meaningless cues. She sure hoped so, at any rate.

The formalities done, she quickly glanced around the palatial atrium. Even with her cursory inspection, the Great Hall’s architecture and decorations revealed a carefully crafted combination of local and offworld styles, precisely arranged to create a clear display that nevertheless avoided the ostentatiousness all too many leaders of minor worlds liked to slather over their homes. Sunlight streaming in through the arched windows illuminated the dark geometric patterns on the floor, and twin dragons danced overhead on the painted dome rising above.

“So, how do you find my modest abode?” Cong sidled up beside her.

“It’s… very skillfully done. Tasteful, too. I’m impressed, Mr. President.”

“Marvellous, isn’t it? Yet not nearly as marvelous as yourself.” She blinked, and he bowed slightly. “But please, call me Cong. Here on Longia, we prefer to dispense with the impersonality of surnames, especially among good friends like our two magnificent nations.”

“Um, alright… Cong.” She wasn’t prepared to reciprocate with the given name thing just yet.

He put on an effusive smile. “Good! But I mustn’t take up any more of your time; everyone who’s someone in Longia is here at this event, and they’re just dying to meet you. And then there’s the photo shoot, of course.” She startled as he grabbed her sleeve, tugging her towards a group of finely-dressed people off to one side. “Come, come! It would be most impolite to keep them waiting.”

Artemis looked around hastily, and her gaze met Syeira Cziffra’s from a distance. The captain’s expression was beseeching: Help me!

But Cziffra just made an ambiguous hand gesture, gave her a commiserating smile, then turned and disappeared into the crowd.


One photo session and far too many introductions later, Captain Artemis Archer stumbled wearily into a mercifully quiet side lounge, surreptitiously wiping her brow. There were just a few minor dignitaries occupying the couches here, presumably taking cover from the endurance socialising outside, or perhaps just taking a moment to enjoy their drinks in peace and quiet.

Dear god, I never want to have to go through that again. Oh wait, I’m going to have to put up with such events every other day I’m here, aren’t I? Ugh, maybe I should just call in sick the next time…

“Captain Archer?”

She spun around as if an assassin were closing on her with a knife, coming face-to-face with a suited man holding a glass. She’d seen at the meet-and-greet earlier, but couldn’t place his face. Uh, damn. How do I explain “sorry, don’t remember you even though we just met” without causing offense? “Can I help you, Mr., uh…”

“Chung. Deputy Defence Minister Chung.” He didn’t seem offended by the slight; in fact, he didn’t even seem to notice. “I was wondering if I could ask a favor of you.”

“Um, go on.” Already his expression was making her concerned.

Instead of answering, he walked over to the window, and she stared after him for a moment before following him there. For a few moments they gazed out together at the tranquil palace garden.

The greenery outside tended towards the naturalistic style she favored, with the fencing hedges virtually the only straight lines visible. In place of the orderly rows of flower beds she’d expected of a palace garden, she observed blossoms in irregular clumps and little groves of trees, punctuating the footpath-strewn lawn.

“Longia is in danger,” Chung said after a while. His voice was low, and she felt her fingers clench into a pair of fists before she exhaled sharply and made them relax.

“How so?” She had to stop herself from casting a furtive glance back at the other denizens of the room.

“You know of the rebel movement here, I presume.” He waved his glass slightly at the scenery outside. “Everyone thought them crushed in Operation Column a few cycles back — we even captured and executed their public leader Hùng, along with almost all of the LRF’s inner council. And indeed, they’ve been mostly quiet since with just sporadic disturbances, a few raids and bombings here and there. But a good portion of the inner circle was never found, and now… we have evidence that they are receiving arms and other aid from unidentified offworld parties.”

“How bad is it?”

“Ground armor. Warships, possibly gathering at a secret base in the system we have yet to find. For that matter, credits to suborn our own soldiers. We already have three flag and general officers believed to be on the take, and who knows how many more lower down.”

Artemis glanced at him. “I’m not sure you should be telling me all this.”

His shoulders shifted in what might have been a shrug, or a sigh. “I’m afraid I’m running out of options. I cannot get my boss — or President Cong — to take my concerns seriously. He seems certain that the Hegemony presence here will discourage any serious effort by the rebels that might provoke a large-scale response. For that matter, all my inquiries with the Hegemons themselves seem to be getting stonewalled somewhere in their pipeline, and even I am not in a position to demand clarification.”

“And so you’re turning to the League. But in that case, shouldn’t you take it up with Ambassador Yoshida or Captain Horn? I’m not here in any real official capacity.”

“I know, and I’ve already been talking to them… with not much more success, I’m afraid. The ambassador in particular seems more concerned about stepping on our government’s toes, or the Heg’s.” Eyes closed briefly — in pain or in contemplation, it was hard to tell. “At the same time, you’re also an experienced combat officer, and one widely respected both in the League Navy and the general population.” He looked straight at her. “If you were to lend your voice to my aid in the League’s civilian or military circles, I think we might finally be able to get someone to listen.”

She looked back for a while, then nodded. “Alright. I can’t promise anything, but I’ll relay your concerns.”

“Thank you, captain. That’s all I can ask.” He emptied his glass. “And now, I’m afraid I must return to the party. You should be getting back soon as well, Ms. Archer.”

He turned around and walked away without another word, and she returned to contemplating the garden. But her mind was already far from the greenery outside, or the rough-and-tumble of the socialising just beyond the door to her back.


Five individuals at the round table in the run-down apartment looked down at the news broadcast on their tri-display, with varying emotions ranging from general indifference to cold fury. The item currently drawing their attention was a short piece on the buddy-buddy session at the Presidential Palace, the top Longian government officials fulsomely welcoming their Hegemony and Persean guests. Included was a human interest story on Artemis Archer, the new star on the block, with lengthy paeans of adulation that would have shamed a prespace medieval courtier.

Janet Cardigan, formerly of the Hegemony Navy, lifted her gaze from the small projector to glance briefly at her companions. Even after several months of working together, she still didn’t fully like what she saw. Carlos Casajo, the Tri-Tachyon agent (at least that was what she suspected he was, although she didn’t know for sure and didn’t really want to know) sat on the other side of the table, being his usual quiet-as-a-mouse self. So be it; she’d never really considered him more than a walking piggy bank anyway. Next to him were the Jaffer twins (fratenal), who were good at breaking heads and rubbing underworld elbows but not much else.

She looked at the fifth member of the party, and the incipient frown on her face eased a little. Arnaud Bennett was the only other member of her little cell whom she could rely on. Supposedly a… business operator whose concerns in the Neutral Space were increasingly being harassed by the growing League presence, he intended to discourage them from further such interference, and he worked hard — and efficiently — to accomplish this goal. Whether he was gathering useful intelligence or smuggling truly copious amounts of weaponry onto a planet, he was reliably, almost frighteningly competent.

“It seems our adversaries have found a celebrity to play dove for them,” she said to the group, letting just a hint of anger tinge her voice. They’d known, of course — known well in advance — but it was still infuriating to actually see it on the vid. “I suppose it was too much to hope that she’d have a mishap on the way here.”

“Indeed, it seems quite troublesome.” That was Bennett, stroking his goatee thoughtfully. “But under the right circumstances, it could work to our advantage.”

Cardigan cocked an eyebrow at him. “How so?”

“An attempt that fails, and fails publicly, costs far more prestige than no attempt at all.” He nodded at his fellows, his face expressionless as always. “If our ambassador of friendship here were to botch her mission spectacularly, it would greatly curtail the influence of both peace factions involved, and our purpose will be served quite neatly.”

“Mm.” That was certainly true… but also easier said than done. Try as she might, she couldn’t foresee any way this might be pulled off right now, though she expected something would occur to her further down the line. If nothing else, she could always be assassinated, although under the wrong circumstances that might produce the opposite of the intended effect.

Still, it’s awfully tempting…

She turned back to the display and glared at the smiling face of the orange-haired woman in the white ao dai, seen posing with her newest BFF the President of Longia. It was a face she’d known well since that day, after she’d used all her connections — what was left of them after she’d saved the scraps of her career — to learn everything she could about those who had been responsible for her humiliation. A face whose very sight filled her with a cold, bleak hatred.

“Do you have any suggestions on how to do that?”

Bennett shook his head. “For now, I believe it would be most prudent to wait and see for a while. It’s entirely possible that her efforts may stumble without any intervention on our part, and even if they don’t our chances are better if we could turn up a suitable vulnerability. In the meantime, we can get started on undermining her credibility a little. Soot that halo a bit, so long as we don’t push it too hard. For instance, what about those records from Sekos?”

She didn’t know whether she wanted to smile or scowl at that thought. True to form, a typically pompous, arrogant, self-righteous ***… Aloud, she said: “That’s a consideration, yes. However, even with the right spin some people might be predisposed to view her even more heroically,” the very word was bile on her tongue, “in that light. We’ll definitely want to do our homework first before we commit to anything.”

“I concur. In that case, how about —”

[close]

Chapter 8: Conflict

Spoiler

The long meeting had finally adjourned, and the various officials, diplomats, industry representative and other such sorts at the long, well-polished began getting up and leaving. This was done in a smooth, entirely orderly fashion — almost no-one there wanted to spend a single second longer than necessary in the conference room after that just-concluded three-hour slog, even if the results had been favorable, but it wouldn’t do to be too obvious about it.

Artemis waited until most of the suits had exited, then walked over to the two people she’d wanted to speak with. “Ambassador, Madam Cziffra. A moment of your time?”

The two diplomats turned from their conversation at one end of the table to look at her, and she looked back evenly. Syeira was by now a familiar figure, but she’d only met Tetsu Yoshida a couple of times before. He was an unassuming man of modest build (she was actually a fair bit taller than him), and seemed to have exactly three distinguishing visual characteristics: a full, black beard; a brown vest he seemed to wear everywhere; and a pair of old-fashioned spectacles that would’ve made him look like someone’s nice but odd uncle — if such uncles today didn’t routinely get corrective ocular mods, at least in the League.

“Yes, Captain?” he said, adjusting the bridge of his glasses. “What can we do for you?”

“I just need something cleared up.” She dropped her mobile on the table and activated the volumetric display. “I found this while on the way here this morning.”

The displayed item was an e-poster by an anonymous party, vehemently denouncing the Northeastern Interstellar Trade Accord that the Hegemony and League were negotiating with a number of independent worlds between their respective territory. Specifically, it claimed to expose a number of clauses from the secret text of the draft treaty which covered Longia, either alone or as one of several polities affected. In particular, clauses that might go over well with parts of the Kinh business community but a lot less so with the general public.

“Is there any basis to these claims?” Artemis said. Her tone was mild on the surface, but there was no mistaking the demand behind it.

Cziffra made a face. “This is quite interesting. As the author themselves point out, the details of the Accord are supposed to be a secret.”

“Yes, that’s another thing that bothers me about it.” She jabbed a finger at the display. “Why is the text of such a major agreement being kept from the public, and even the legislative bodies of most of the polities involved? Maybe that’s how you do things in the Hegemony,” she regretted the barb as soon as she said it, but plowed on, “but most people expect differently.”

“The negotiations are still at an early stage, Captain.” Cziffra folded her arms. “The delegates need some secrecy to get the best bargains for their respective star nations. As talks progress, the text will be released for public review.”

Artemis glared suspiciously at the older woman, but she simply glared back. So she transferred the baleful stare to Yoshida, who coughed nervously and averted his eyes. “I’m not privy to the NITA talks, you understand,” he said slowly. “But what she describes does have precedent in interstellar treaties, including those within the League itself.”

“Fine. But that still leaves the actual content.” The captain rapped a hand on the table. “Like this part where the League apparently browbeat Longia into raising the foreign investment limit in their savings banks to seventy-four percent — including by investment funds. I’m pretty sure the restrictions on that exist for a reason.”

“Your concerns are noted, Artemis,” Cziffra said, her words rather more diplomatic than her tone. “At the same time, we’ve had experts from five different institutions in the Hegemony, League and the Interstellar Trade Council work out the details, and their base case projections all agree that the risk of a bank run or other such panic here on Longia will be minimal with the proposed changes, for any foreseeable financial crisis that could occur in any of the major polities qualified to benefit.”

And the worst case scenarios? Or the unforeseeable crises?

“I should say that the Kinh business community welcomes this particular clause, Captain,” Yoshida put in, perhaps motivated by a need to defend his fellow diplomat against the hard-case outsider. “The banking sector on Longia has been stagnating for several cycles now, and the added capital should add much-needed liquidity for the local economy.”

Artemis looked at him for a while, then shook her head. “Look,” she spread her arms. “I’m just a starship captain. If your economists say the deal will be beneficial, then I believe you. All the same, I can’t help but suspect that the real reason this clause exists is Goldstein & Sackett.”

Cziffra’s frown turned into a completely neutral expression, and she cocked her head. “Are you accusing one of the League’s most prestigious investment banks of manipulating the negotiations, captain?”

“Not quite.” Artemis shook her head. “But it seems to me that it, and others like it, have an undue influence on the process.”

The three of them looked at each other for a while, then the naval officer turned off the display and picked up her comp with a sigh. “Well, it’s not like any of us have any direct influence on the negotiations anyway. Thanks for hearing me out, at least.” She managed a small smile. “I’ll let you get back to your work.”

Yoshida nodded. “You’re leaving for the trip with the Polyfab people, right?”

“Yeah, in about... fifteen minutes.” She made a face. “I’d best be going now.”

“Enjoy your trip,” Cziffra said tonelessly.


The mini-aerobus settled gently on the dirt clearing next to the truck, thirty kilometers from Hu?. and Artemis hopped out with Desai, the newsies from the Moonlight, and a bunch of local and Hegemony officials in tow, then took a moment to look down and admire her new garb. Vest, check. Cargo leggings, check. Boots, check. It might not have been as flattering to her figure as the ao dai had been, but it was also much more suited to a day outdoors.

Not that we’ll likely be doing anything more strenuous than a guided tour around well-cultivated farms. But hey, I like dressing up for the occasion.

The place was ringed with trees, a palm lookalike whose fruits contained a cyclic compound with remarkable efficacy against several common viral diseases. Someone had set up a plantation of the things here and persuaded the villagers to work on it, but investment dried up during the civil war. Now the locals subsisted on whatever they could grow, to eat or trade. Their lives weren’t outright miserable, but they could be a fair bit better off… which was why her entourage was here, she supposed.

A buzzing noise by her neck interrupted her thoughts, and she sighed and swatted at it. The original colonists had not brought old Earth’s mosquitoes with them — that species had been exterminated over a millennium ago — but there was a native analogue that substituted just fine. At least it didn’t carry Plasmodium or the dengue virus.

She looked to the east. The “welcoming committee” — apparently the entire village — was coming out now, and most of the visiting party was moving to greet them. The only people staying behind were the workers unloading the truck, Desai hovering over them like an anxious mother hen, the camera guy and his assistant unpacking his kit... and one of the three Longian soldiers who’d accompanied them, standing guard with rifle and unpowered body armor.

“Come on, Nath,” she said, tapping the tall inventor on the shoulder. “We’ve got to be polite guests.”

“Wha? Oh, ah, sorry,” he muttered sheepishly, and she suppressed an incipient grin as they walked over to the crowd.

A local suit made the introductions, and Artemis exchanged a handshake and smiles with an elderly woman who was named as (and certainly looked like) the village head. I seem to be doing this a lot lately. This was followed by the typical expressions of meaningless flattery, and passing candy to the kids, until Celly came floating by on her hoverpallet, beeping softly. The young ones gushed over the fancy contraption, far more complex-looking than anything most of them had ever seen, and one even reached out to touch it until his mother smacked his hand away.

Ah, the star of the show arrives. For a moment — a very brief moment, she’d insist to herself later — she actually felt slightly jealous of the machine.

“Do you have any plant matter you can spare?” Desai asked.

Someone pointed to a pile of fallen and pruned branches, and inventor and invention walked over to it. A force knife from his belt made quick work of cutting the wood down to easy bite-sized morsels (by Celly’s standards, at least), and he slid them by the handful into her intake. She made humming and churning noises, a few puffs of pale smoke emerging from her exhaust valve, and quite a few people — including more than a few of the adults, even the visitors — gazed at her with a mix of trepidation and fascination.

Within a minute she chimed like an oven done cooking, and a pair of sturdy green gloves came out on a tray at the other end. Desai picked them up and presented them to the village head, bowing theatrically. “For you, madam.”

She gave him a gap-toothed grin, accepting the offering… and froze as the sharp crack of a mag-rifle shattered the tranquil atmosphere.

Artemis spun around, dropping to a crouch beside the machine as the shot man — one of the local soldiers — fell over not three meters from her with nary a sound. Two or three other people instinctively ducked for cover as well; the rest stood around, stunned like a deer in a ground-car’s headlights. Many were civilians who’d never even been near a firearm before, and had no idea what was even happening, much less what to do.

More rifle fire burst from the trees, and in seconds a good number of these people were cut down like wheat under a scythe. Desai’s scream rang in her ears as a capsule punched through his left kidney, and she barely managed to catch him before he hit the ground.

A year or two ago, Artemis would have been one of those slaughtered like so many stunned cattle, or else be prone on the ground gibbering in terror. But not today. She propped her friend up against Celly’s boxy form — he was still breathing and conscious, thank goodness. Her pistol emerged swiftly from its shoulder holster, and she glanced only briefly at the bodies littered about her, mostly Longian or Hegemony officials. There was a lull in the fire as the attackers found all their targets dead or under cover, and she peeked carefully around a corner.

That one. The one by the burnt tree, with the grenade bandolier.

She leaned out, handgun drawn close in a two-handed grip, aimed and squeezed the trigger twice. The weapon was no compact civilian model, but a full-size League Navy-issue sidearm, and as it snarled fire, two eight-millimeter beads struck her target dead center. He fell over backwards; dead, incapacitated or perhaps just momentarily stunned, she didn’t have time to care.

Again she sighted, again she fired. That one went down as well, and then she ducked back into cover as the return fire arrived. Rifle rounds crackled and whined to her back, but Celly’s sturdy frame held up, and she took a moment to will her pounding pulse down.

The ground shook with loud explosions from where they’d parked the vehicles, and she gritted her teeth. There must be at least a squad out there. Maybe two. And how many of us are even still alive and armed? For all I know, it could be just me.

More gunfire rang out, this time from just across the square, and Artemis jerked her head to see Sergeant Du of the Longian Army leaning out from behind a building, squeezing off controlled bursts downrange at the attackers. She could hear a horrific scream from from the treeline, along with a few angry shouts, but there was no time to think about that as the popped out of cover again and fired some more.

The rebels — she was certain that was what they were, now — had apparently halted their advance along this axis, settling for angry bursts of fire from the cover of the trees. But there were definitely more of them closing in from other sides of the village, and her current position was hopelessly exposed. “Can you walk?” she whispered.

“I… I think so.” Desai was groaning in pain, pressing a hand to the red blotch on his dark shirt, and she squeezed her pistol grip tightly. If she tried to move him, they’d likely both end up being shot before they could reach safety, but the same would happen if they remained where they were. And she couldn’t just leave him…

She turned to shout at Du, motioning with her hands at a nearby shed, and the sergeant nodded and swapped magazines on his carbine. The long arm roared as he went to full auto suppressive fire, high-velocity magnetic rounds slicing through the thick vegetation, and Artemis threw Desai’s free arm over her shoulders and pushed herself upright. Ugh, he weighs more than he looks.

Each of the handful of steps towards the shelter of the building felt like a mile, but they made it through the double door just as the gunfire paused. She lowered him to the floor, then returned to the doorway and waved the Longian soldier over, and sent a series of her own shots at the signs of movement downrange. Du came running over, firing on the move.

He’d almost made it when two 45 mm grenades came flying from behind and landed within three meters to his side and back.

The explosions and the mangled body tumbling towards her sent Artemis sprawling with a shriek. Thankfully the dead sergeant had prevented the blast and shrapnel from doing more than scaring her, and she hastily scrabbled to her feet and slammed the door shut. A moment later, and it was barred as well.

She’d just started to reload her pistol when the back door at the other end of the building burst open, an armed figure with a red bandana rushing with a levelled gun. She started to dive to the ground, but even as things moved too fast for reasoned thought she knew her chances of making it before the rifle tore her apart were less than even and she’d never get the fresh mag in her gun in time anyway and she could already see the smirk on his face and —

The shrieking village headwoman ran out from behind a pair of water barrels rushing the rebel from the side, a large hatchet in her raised hands. She brought the improvised weapon down on his head, and even with the flat rather than the blade landing the blow he was sent staggering with a fractured skull. With a string of Vietnamese profanity she swung again, this time with the sharp side, and he fell to the ground with a strangled cry as the steel sunk deep into his thigh.

Someone on the outside was firing, rifle capsules lashing at the outside and sending jagged splinters spalling from the interior, but the old woman didn’t even flinch. The door was on the wrong side of the doorway, too risky to close, but she grabbed a nearby wheelbarrow and pushed it in front of the opening, then tipped it over on to its side. Artemis finished reloading and moved to help her dump a couple of barrels in front of the door as well, and then they toppled one of the tool shelves for good measure.

Okay, that should discourage any hasty attempts to rush us, at least for a while, Artemis thought with a calmness that surprised herself as she took up a covering position behind a fertilizer crate at an angle to the door. And the windows are shuttered and grilled, so nobody’s getting in easily that way either. Still, her grip tensed again, and she cast a quick glance at the elderly lady now hiding behind a shelf, bloody hatchet still in hand, they’ll likely swarm us under if they all rush us at once. Or if they can breach the front door.

The grenade launcher was firing again, and she quickly raised an arm to shield her face as the explosions tore gashes into the front wall. And that’s assuming they don’t just decide to burn the shed down around us. For ***’s sake, I’m a starship captain, not a Marine…

Already she could hear more angry shouts outside, along with a few loud bursts of gunfire, and braced for the assault. But no-one came. For thirty seconds they contented themselves with a few pot-shots from the outside. A fresh grenade volley blew most of the front door into splinters, but the bar somehow held, and the losses they’d already taken seemed to discourage an attempt to storm the building.

More angry shouts were audible; it seemed as if an argument was going on. Then more gunfire — but not aimed at the shed this time. Then — she jerked her head up — the series of deep roars from a discharging rocket pod, followed by explosions far louder than any she’d heard today. The earth shook with the rippling hell-roars of the TV-guided munitions on either side of the building, and on their heels came a stream of thirty-millimeter cannon rounds, tearing apart anyone and anything caught in the open.

For several more seconds the gun bursts continued, then… silence, blessed silence.

She sidled to the battered front area of the shed, coughing at the thick dust hanging in the air, and slowly, tentatively, opened one of the window shutters. Through the rising smoke outside she glimpsed the matte grey form of a Havoc atmospheric gunship circling overhead. She didn’t know how it’d gotten here so fast, but the fact remained that it had just about saved her life, and she almost sagged to her knees in relief.

She turned to look at Desai, still lying on the floor, and grasped his hand. His pulse was still weak, irregular, but at least the rebels’ attempt to assault the shed didn’t do much more than daze him.

“Is Celly alright?” he whispered.

Artemis looked out the window again, observing the ground she’d overlooked earlier, and her fingers tightened. The dirt road separating their shed from the building across was gouged with a row of craters, and several bodies’ worth of limbs and entrails — she had to fight down a sudden wave of nausea — had been scattered about in ugly splotches of red and black. The line cut straight through the point where Celly had been on display; nothing recognizable was left of the machine or the pallet she’d been resting on, only a thousand shards of smouldering debris.

“Sorry, Nath. She’s gone.”

“Damn,” Desai muttered, and passed out.

[close]

Damn straight I care!

[c plus one]

Well-written, non-adjective-overload, non-Mary-Sue, cliche-avoidant game fiction is a pleasure to read. Please continue to favor us with yours, Histidine.   Not many player/writers can even reach such a level, let alone do so consistently.