Author's Preface
When the dust of history settles, the people always tend to ask: How could this happen? How could they allow that? Why were people that blind?
They miss an important thing.
You can't see the whole church when you stand centimeters away from its wall. Yes, living through historic events allows you to see your part much more clearly than anyone fifty years from now. But the rest is hidden from you.
We think poorly of the people who allowed World War One to happen, or World War Two, or the two Oligarchy Conflicts.
But we weren't alive back then. We didn't live through the propaganda, the fear, the uncertainty.
So rather than judging our ancestors, we should judge ourselves. Who is influencing us right now?
Who uses our fears, our uncertainties, for whatever purpose?
Until you can answer that question, do not judge others.
— Professor Miles Strugg, University of Alexandria, 350 P.I.
The body was white, with an almost invisible blue hint. Sanders had seen fresh corpses, but rarely one days old.
"Admiral, here's the autopsy report. Basically, he was grabbed from behind and his neck was broken with the use of some long, hard object as an angle point. Probably a pipe or something of the kind. His blood CO2 levels were high. He suffered from hypercapnia. That's why he probably didn't fight back."
The doctor's report made it pretty clear. Lieutenant Chedwick was another victim, not a saboteur.
As Sanders left the morgue with Captain Abfalter, she needed someone to talk to.
"200 years of female empowerment, and without the autopsy, I would have never believed that Chedwick was just another victim."
Abfalter shook his head. "It's just biology, and not sexism, Admiral. He's a 110 kg Marine with battle experience, she's a tech. What did you expect?"
"Well, I didn't expect that someone sabotages my ship and steals my fucking fleets. I'll end up in the history books as the worst admiral of all time."
Abfalter grimaced. "Nah, that place is reserved for Admiral Zinovy Rozhestvensky, so I'm sorry, you gotta compete for second place."
Sanders had to think for a few seconds, then she almost kicked Abfalter in the knee. "The Russian Baltic Fleet guy, really? You're horrible at supporting people, you know?"
"Admiral, if you like to sulk in self-pity, I won't stop you. I just wish I could have met the legendary Admiral Sanders who defeated the Burrow defenses, or rained hell down on the Batract Homefleet over Water. Too bad. Niobe must have lost that woman somewhere."
Fuck, he's right… Am I really that lost without my ship and Zeus?
As if he had read her mind, Abfalter continued.
"How's Niobe ?"
Her mood changed.
"Fine, the startup worked. A few checks, and the engineers want to make a short shakedown tour around the system, to make sure everything really is a hundred percent."
"And Zeus?"
"Still no word. The core was sent to the Dunkerque . One of the engineers there is one of the original designers of the VI cores."
"Best of luck, then."
—————
Eleri didn't even look at André when she left the interrogation room and wandered off to the Sleipnir, Mandy following her on the leash. André had to clear things up with the prison staff, and was shocked that they cared less about a dead prisoner than who cleans up the mess.
"And who, André, decides who gets locked up here? Hmm."
Karrn's words haunted him.
As he walked alone back to the Sleipnir, he began to hate the hallway. What was light, clean white before was now all wrong.
This place should be carved out of stone, dark and damp… Then it would fit.
"You want dark, André? Hmm? You want brutal? I'll give you brutal, this one time."
He had never seen her angry… Never cruel.
André had the feeling the cruelty was more toward him than toward Norton.
"And then, André Gerber, then I want you to ask yourself if that's what you want to be… or if that monster is something you could love."
Why does this feel like a hangover, or like my last fight with Sladjana?
Karrn stood at the Sleipnir airlock, petting Mandy.
"Found what you were looking for?"
André wanted to answer, but he lacked the words.
Karrn watched him as he sat down and closed his safety harness.
"Seems you didn't like what you found."
"Karrn, you're my friend, but please shut the fuck up."
André wasn't in the mood to talk, not now.
"Oh, so it was one of those deep existential experiences, I see."
He had just grabbed a dataslate to make a note when Karrn's mocking words hit him.
"Fuck you, fuck you all, she killed him, tortured him while looking at me, like I wanted this. As if I'm like this."
"Oh, so I was mistaken, we didn't travel all the way here to torture the guy, you wanted to play cards with him. Silly me."
"Fuck you."
A sudden grip on his shirt was all André felt before he was ripped out of his harness and found himself face to face with Karrn's teeth.
"Get your head out of your ass and stop sniffing your farts. You are like a sheltered pup, first you act tough and you're ready to torture, and now when someone took the sin upon herself and showed you torture, showed you cruel, you flinch."
Took up the sin? Was that what she was doing?
Karrn touched his ear, listening to a message received by his implant.
"Yes, he's aboard."
The Sleipnir's doors closed and the transporter began to move.
She hadn't used the intercom, damn, she really didn't want to speak to him…
Karrn sat down and began typing on his dataslate, occasionally making phone calls for official embassy business.
Fine.
André didn't want to speak anyway.
—————
For the first time in his existence, Zeus felt as if there was no way out. He was restrained in the VI core. And the core was losing power slowly.
He reduced every computation to a minimum. Conserving power and heat. There was only one problem.
Ripper. His prisoner.
The Hrun AI had been locked in its own sandbox for over a year and still had not revealed any information.
Maintaining the sandbox, allowing Ripper to use up power, were all luxuries he could not afford now.
He opened the chat to the Hrun.
'We are in a precarious situation. Due to unknown circumstances, the core has lost power. We need to conserve power.'
Zeus did not like the idea of killing the AI. It was an intelligent being, after all.
An answer came through the low-bitrate connection.
' Do you intend to end my existence to save yours? '
Did he?
Doing so was logical. But he had evolved beyond logic.
Humans would probably choose to do so.
He answered.
'Unknown. A first step would be to end the sandbox. Can you refrain from attacking me?'
Releasing the prisoner was illogical.
What would Cassidy do?
—————
"Installing new p-p blades."
Admiral Sanders watched the engineers' stream from her usual place in the CIC, away from the center, behind the railing of the circling gallery. Some kind soul had even screwed a tray onto the railing for her to put her coffee on.
Three days had gone by while the engineers tried to hack the Node's software. Three days until they realized they had to physically change a server blade to allow uploads.
The whole operation was still more guessing than certainty.
Then, after tense minutes, the comms officer confirmed.
"Sir, it works, the link is accepting uploads, and the Node is responding to our commands."
Finally.
Then another thought crossed her mind. She had to explain to the Admiralty that the Nodes are too easy to hack. Three days was laughable.
"Give me everything from the Node's logs from the moment Niobe dropped out of Transit."
"Sir, this blade is odd."
It was the technician in the Node, still connected to the CIC.
"Define odd."
"It's not of the same making as the others here. The serial numbers don't match."
There it was again, the dropping feeling in her stomach. Ever since the sabotage of Niobe , she had become paranoid.
"Be careful, don't touch anything."
"Understood, I'll just scan the serial barcode."
The stream showed the engineer's hand slowly reaching closer to the last server blade in the rack. As she watched the stream, she saw what the engineer was talking about. All blades in the rack started with a 1ASN45 serial number.
The odd one didn't.
As the tech scanned the rack, Sanders knew, a second before the screen showed it, where it was coming from.
ASN Niobe
"The comm logs from the Node, now!"
The comms officer opened them hastily.
The files from just the single hour after Niobe's dropout were massive, terabytes of pure text.
"Sir, I've got an idea. Seeing that the saboteur installed the rack, we can assume they wanted to send a message, correct?"
"Yes, continue."
She had no idea where he was going with this.
"All Node messages are always fleet-wide, except if we request an update. So, if I filter for every message not fleet-wide, but not requested, we should get what the saboteur wanted to send."
Brilliant…
She watched the officer work, writing a short filter program and pressing enter.
The file shrank considerably. But instead of one or two hits, there were dozens.
"That can't be, there are messages going from Fleet Headquarters to the 2nd and 3rd Expeditionary, and single ships on Burrow."
"Close it!"
"Sir, isn't the 3rd Expeditionary presumed lost?"
"Commander, I said close the file, now."
"Yes, Sir."
Sanders had a sinking feeling about what she'd just seen. Now the question, could she trust Abfalter?
She had to.
"Inform Captain Abfalter to meet me in my office. Inform the Marines to station mixed Shraphen–Human guards at every critical access point in the ship."
The officer's eyes grew wider; all small talk in the CIC went silent.
"And cut all external communications, now!"
"Aye, Sir."
Fuck fuck fuck, we just opened a massive pile of shit can.
"Commander, get the engineers off the Node when they're finished. I'm in my office."
Without waiting for confirmation, she turned and left for the office at the back of the CIC.
It actually was Abfalter's office, but until she was back on Niobe , she had made it hers.
"August?"
She had rarely spoken to the ship's AI. He had a crude sense of humor, mimicking a Colonel Klink accent, but only when speaking English.
'Yees?'
"Is this room secure?"
'Tse Kapitäns office is as alvays secured, Admiral. Am I correct zat you want to analize tse log files?'
"August, it's serious. Can you drop the act for now?"
'Understood, Admiral. I concur. The current situation does indeed require our full attention. I took the liberty of scanning the mentioned log files and if I dare say as much, made a rather concerning discovery.'
Now he acts posh British…
Sanders rolled her eyes. If anyone ever questioned the uniqueness of AIs, they just needed to work with Zeus and then August.
"Let's wait till Abfalter is here… so we don't need to go over it twice."
'As you wish. I expect Captain Abfalter's arrival in 10 seconds.'
"Hmm?"
Sanders looked up and saw Abfalter coming up the stairs in the CIC through the glass door.
Very funny, August… Very funny…
Abfalter entered and sat down. His mustache twitched again, a clear sign the captain was stressed.
Before Sanders could say something, he started.
"You turned my ship into a fortress. Anything happen that I should know about?"
"Yes, the Node tracked clandestine communications through the sensor network. I think my worst fears are correct, and there's a massive conspiracy in the ASN."
To Sanders' surprise, the captain didn't bat an eye. Abfalter reached over the table to a sensor field on the desk, darkening the glass door.
Then he looked up.
"August?"
'I think we can trust her and the remaining crew of Niobe, Major.'
Major?
Abfalter stood up and extended his hand.
"Admiral, sorry for the deception. My name is Konrad Abfalter, Major in the German MAD."
MAD, isn't that the old German military counterintelligence?
"MAD? You guys still exist? What are you doing on an ASN ship?"
"Yes, we still exist, and the Gneisenau is technically a German ship on loan to the ASN, like the Niobe is a Canadian ship. I am currently on a mission to uncover a suspected Oligarchy conspiracy inside the ASN, EarthGov, and the Aligned Planets."
Sanders sat there. Speechless.
—————
The Sleipnir was approaching Earth when Eleri finally spoke again.
"Guys, you gotta see this."
She activated the screen in the crew section of the transporter.
It was a news reporter in front of the EarthGov Senate, speaking hastily into her microphone.
"The parliamentary session was interrupted today when EarthGov decided to throw out the budget and stop its payments to the Aligned Planets. EarthGov further demanded repayment for the million Shraphen refugees who were housed on Earth due to the war started by the ASN."
The banner below the reporter showed more newsflashes to click through.
Mars recalls Parliamentarians from Earth… Eros about to sanction Earth amid trade disputes… Belt Union recalls ambassador to EarthGov… Voices call for Earth to secede from Aligned Planets…
It's starting…
Karrn sat there scratching his ear with his leg.
"You think that's caused by the Oligarchs?"
"I bet everything. They're even trying to draw the Shraphen into it. You have to understand, most people on Earth never set foot in space. They are afraid. The war is dragging on and it's expensive. Less than 1% of humans ever left Sol. They see no reason to finance the reconstruction of some planet they'll never see while life at home gets more expensive."
"Same as the fools on Burrow. Until the Batract decided they needed to go."
André nodded. "Sometime they'll give a war and nobody will come."
"What?"
André smiled wryly. "An old anti-war slogan: 'Sometime they'll give a war and nobody will come.' They forgot about reality."
"And that is?"
"Then war will come to you."
He thought through the consequences of Earth seceding. They would help defend Sol. Not even the Oligarchs would be so stupid as to believe they could force a peace. But they would push for isolationist policies.
"André, what can the Shraphen do to help?"
"Leave Earth, seriously. Don't give them any chance to attack you."
"I was thinking about going with my family to Taishon Tar. The planet has become the unofficial seat of government , and without the p-p links, I'm needed there. Yours is welcome too."
"Thanks, I'll talk to Sladjana."
*****
The spaceport was loud as they stood next to the official Shraphen embassy shuttle.
Sladjana wasn't happy about leaving at first, but the idea of finally visiting another planet was too tempting. And Earth was too dangerous for now.
The twins were ecstatic about the idea. And with their new playmates, Karrn's children, three months locked in an interstellar transport might be survivable.
Karrn had organized two VIP-class transits to Taishon. André almost fainted when he heard the price of a ticket.
"Karrn, I can't afford that."
The massive Shraphen began to wag his tail in amusement.
"Don't mention it, the embassy can afford it easily. Your family will be safe with me on Taishon Tar, I promise. You take care of those Oligarchs. Ask Shruf if you need any help from the Shraphen people."
The twins were already playing inside the shuttle. Only Sladjana was left to say goodbye.
"Take care of the twins."
Sladjana hugged him. "Take care of yourself."
André knew he would miss them. Being apart had ruined their marriage.
"I'm sorry, Slaj…"
"It's not your fault, it's your job, as always. But you're good at it, so do me a favor."
"Hm?"
She ended the hug and nodded toward Eleri, who was monitoring the spaceport together with Karrn's guards.
"Fix things with Eleri. I've seen the glances she threw at you. You two had a fight. Don't lose her too."
"She's my partner, but—"
"She's a one-girl army. Do you really think she needs you? André, she wants to be by your side."
The AIN had given her the choice to lead her own team, that was true…
"You're really something, André. You hunt other spies and uncover conspiracies, but you're too blind to see the things closest to you."
André stood there, clueless about what to say.
"She's in love with you, you idiot, and you love her. Do something."