Category: Patriots in Retreat

The bulkheads hummed in the bowels of the Merope-7. Mara palmed open the door to the cryo deck and stepped inside.

Cryotanks stood in their slots around the edges of the room. Windows in the upper sections showed the faces of those who were frozen. Sergeant Pallas, his chin tilted upward, his eyes peacefully closed. He looked as if he were about to ascend into heaven, if there were such a place. Mara had her doubts. The other members of his commando team were similarly frozen, ready to be thawed at her command. While they all looked so peaceful, in truth they probably expected to pick up their guns and fight the moment they awoke.

As she looked at each of their faces, Mara wanted nothing more than to tell them the war was over. She imagined the looks of relief on their faces as she thanked each one of them for their service.

Of course, where they would go next was anyone’s guess. As she thought back to her time on the Aegis, she realized that Sergeant Pallas was more likely to meet the news with disappointment than relief. The others, she hadn’t served with long enough to know their reactions.

You would be disappointed, too, if the war had ended before you’d had your chance to avenge your father.

The thought stabbed her like a knife. She could still see the Imperial officer’s face the moment before she’d blown his brains out. The terror in his eyes, mixed with the sinking realization that he was already dead. She’d expected that moment to feel satisfying. Instead, she’d felt dead inside ever since.

And yet, if she could turn back the clock and end the war, preventing that awful moment from ever happening, she didn’t know that she would.

The door hissed open, and Mathusael stepped inside. “There you are. Been looking all over for you, Captain.”

“Don’t call me that.”

He put a broad hand on her shoulder. “Hey. What’s wrong?”

“When is this war going to be over?” When can I stop sending people to their deaths?

“Last I heard, there’s some intrigue on Gaia Nova that could shape up to be another coup. Who knows what the outcome will be, but the odds at Vulcana are three to one that the war ends within a standard year.”

“Come on. You and I both know that’s bullshit.”

Mathusael grinned. “As a betting man, I prefer to see it as an opportunity. It’s not like our pay is going to get any better.”

“Some would say that it’s enough just to win our liberty.”

“And you?”

She smirked. “I’d put the odds at four to one that we get out of this damn thing alive. What difference does it make when you’re dead?”

“And yet, here you are.”

To that, she didn’t have an answer.

She walked past the commandos to the last cryotank in the corner. The face on the other side of the glass wasn’t peaceful at all, but contorted in terror and pain. Aaron Deltana: drop-ship pilot on the Aegis and former captain of the Merope-7. Now, little more than a brain-fried vegetable. She’d frozen him in cryo in the hopes that they’d find some way to cure him. But now, that hope seemed as far-fetched as a swift and peaceful end to the war.

“There’s only three of us left from Delta Oriana,” she said in their native Deltan. “Four, if you count Isaac. God only knows what’s happened to him. And Aaron might as well be dead, so that leaves just you and me.”

“What are you saying?”

“Three to one, Mathusael. One of us is gonna go, and it sure as hell had better not be you.”

“Hey, Aaron’s not dead yet. Don’t give up on him.”

Mara laughed bitterly. “Well, if Aaron doesn’t count, that means we both go down together. That certainly seems more likely. And with Aaron’s luck, he’ll probably end up drifting in space for another thousand years until someone finally finds and rescues him. The last Deltan. Poetic, don’t you think?”

“Stop.”

“It won’t all be bad, of course. They may even be able to cure him. But when he realizes that all the rest of us are gone—”

“Stop,” Mathusael repeated. He wasn’t laughing. His frown was so deep, his thick black beard hid his mouth. Mara hadn’t realized how much her words had affected him.

“Sorry,” she said. “Ever since the war, I’ve been something of a pessimist.”

“I’ve noticed.”

“In all seriousness, when this war is over, do you think we’ll be able to cure him?”

Mathusael grunted. “It’s a wide universe, Mara. I’m sure there’s someone out there who can help him.”

“How can you be sure?”

He smiled. “How can you be so sure that there isn’t?”

Mara rolled her eyes at his non-answer. Then she realized it wasn’t a non-answer at all. He really meant it.

“I’m not sure of anything anymore,” she admitted. “All I know is that people are depending on me, even though my job is to send them to their deaths.”

“That’s not quite true. High Command makes the life and death decisions. Your job is to clean up their mistakes.”

“What’s the difference?”

His smile turned into a look of puzzlement. “There’s a huge difference. Your job is to help us live and find on, not to send us to our deaths.”

“Not when High Command says otherwise.”

“You should lose the pessimism, Mara. It isn’t doing you any favors.”

“On the contrary,” she retorted. “It’s an excellent defense mechanism. Pessimists are always right in the long run.”

“But they always get their timing wrong.”

She shrugged. “Why does that matter?”

“Because if all you do is wait for your world to end, you’ll never be able to change it.”

Mara stared at Aaron’s contorted face and pondered Mathusael’s words. He was right, of course. But then again, he didn’t face the same burden of command.

“We’ll be at Colkhia soon,” he said, breaking the silence.

She nodded. “That’ll make the crew happy. A short leave will be good for them.”

“Yes, it will.”

“How about your wife and children? Do you think you’ll hear from them?”

He chuckled. “If I do, it’ll probably be that she wants money or something. That, or some dashing young star wanderer has run off with her.”

“Who’s the pessimist now?”

“Hey, so long as she’s happy.”

The shipwide intercom switched on, with Apollo’s voice carrying through. “Attention all hands, we are making the final jump to Colkhia in five minutes. Captain and first officer to bridge.”

“Duty calls,” said Mathusael.

Mara nodded, making one last glance around the room. The men frozen in cryo were depending on her, as well as everyone else on the ship. Her decisions would determine whether they would live or die. If it was just herself, that wouldn’t be so hard. But to have the lives of so many others at stake—that was enough for her to envy the men under ice.

Chapter 1: A New Weapon

Ayesha bint Hasan Al-Hasani walked smartly down the main corridor of the GIS Starfall, the heels of her boots rapping against the floor in a highly satisfying manner. Her hair was as black as the depths of space, and she wore it down so that it came almost to her waist. She turned the heads of many of the men she passed, and that too gave her great satisfaction.

She reached the briefing room and palmed open the door. The lights were dimmed, the room nearly empty except for three men who stood around the holographic projector in the center. The one on the left was the admiral, a gaunt middle-aged man by the name of Orion. She had met him the previous dayshift, upon her arrival to the fleet. The one on the right was her commanding officer, Colonel Wallace of the Gaian Imperial Intelligence Services. They flanked a man whom Ayesha did not recognize.

“Agent Hasani,” said Colonel Wallace, greeting her with a smile and a nod.

“Colonel. And Admiral Orion, sir,” she said, nodding to the admiral. He gave her a more formal salute.

The third man gave her no greeting.

In a single fleeting glance, Ayesha sized him up. He had a full red beard, but looked no older than thirty-five standard years. He stood quite tall, with broad, muscular shoulders. Unlike the two officers, he wore a simple gray jumpsuit and a synthleather vest, a clothing style common on the Outworld frontier.

“Agent Hasani, may I present Captain Samson of the Starflight II.”

He’s not one of ours, she realized. Prior to her arrival, she had familiarized herself with the names of every ship in the fleet, as well as their commanding officers. The Starflight II was most likely a light civilian freighter, then, and Samson one of the Outworlders.

Which made him an enemy.

“Captain Samson,” she said, offering her hand.

“Call me Samson,” he said as he took it.

His hands were thick and caloused, with a little bit of engine grease caught between the cracks. Though he smiled at her, there was a grimace in his expression, and his eyes were subdued. It was abundantly clear to her that he was present against his will.

“And you may call me Ayesha,” she said, disarming him with a smile. His face became unreadable.

“Samson will be your partner for the next several missions,” Colonel Wallace explained. “He is a well known merchant pilot and will help you infiltrate the target systems without arousing suspicion.”

His fingers danced across a keypad, and the holographic projector came to life. It showed a three dimensional starmap of the frontier systems between the New Pleiades and the Coreward Stars. The Imperial battlefleet’s location in the vicinity of the Bacca system was marked in red. On the far end of the projection, the Troya and Vulcana systems were marked as the primary and secondary objectives of the military campaign.

“The Outworlders have developed a device, known as a “jump beacon,” that allows them to pull starships out of jumpspace at a designated location,” Wallace explained. “We have obtained a working prototype of this device and are in the process of manufacturing more. Your mission is to fly ahead of the battlefleet and use the device to concentrate our forces when we attack.

Sounds simple enough, Ayesha thought. Of course, even the simplest battle plans always fell apart upon contact with the enemy.

Admiral Orion stepped forward. “Our first target will be the frontier system of Colkhia. The Outworlders will expect us to strike first at Bacca or Iayus, as the expeditionary fleet did. Since the jump beacon device gives us a much greater range of attack, we will use the element of surprise to our advantage.”

Ayesha glanced at Samson out of the corner of her eye. Why was the admiral revealing their to someone who was clearly the enemy? Because he was her “partner,” she no doubt would be tasked with keeping him under control. That had the potential to end rather badly.

“Do you have any questions, Captain?” Orion asked, directing his question at Samson.

“No,” Samson answered, his voice low.

“Very well. You are dismissed.”

Now the real briefing begins, Ayesha mused as Samson left the room. When the door hissed shut and the three of them were alone, Colonel Wallace turned to her.

“Do you have any questions, agent?”

“Yes,” said Ayesha, folding her arms. “Who is that man, and why is he my ‘partner’?”

“Samson is a well-known figure in the Outworlds,” Admiral Orian answered her. “He has contacts across the New Pleiades, including several officials within the Outworld Confederacy.”

“He is also very… prolific,” Wallace added.

Ayesha raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“He has a reputation for keeping a lover in almost every Outworld port. By some estimates, he has almost a hundred children with nearly as many women.”

Impressive, Ayesha mused.

“The expeditionary fleet picked him up in the retreat following the first Battle of Colkhia,” Admiral Orion continued. “Although he denied working with the Outworlders, he was found with top-secret military documents stored on his ship’s computer. We subsequently detained and interrogated him.”

“Why wasn’t he executed?” Ayesha asked. The Gaian Empire did not formally recognize the Outworld Confederacy, instead classifying them as pirates. Imperial military doctrine called for them to be spaced.

“The intelligence services quickly found use for him,” Colonel Wallace answered. “Samson may be promiscuous, but he is also a family man, of a sort. When we made it clear that we knew the names and locations of several of his lovers, he agreed to work for us.”

So you’re blackmailing him. And you expect me to keep him “loyal.”

“What happened to the expeditionary fleet?” she asked.

Admiral Orion’s face reddened. “That information is on a strict need-to-know—”

“And Agent Hasani needs to know, Admiral.” Colonel Wallace turned to her. “The expeditionary fleet was repulsed with nearly sixty-percent losses. The entire campaign was a disaster.”

So the rumors are true.

“What about the Starfire?” she asked.

“It was lost at the first Battle of Colkhia, and is presumed to be in enemy hands.”

Admiral Orion scowled. “Our initial losses have proved quite costly, but only because of the edge that our enemy’s innovative FTL technology has given them. Now that the field has been equalized, we will crush them in one swift stroke. Your mission, Agent Hasani, is the key.”

“And how do I know that this Samson can be trusted?”

“He can’t, of course,” Colonel Wallace answered. “But I hardly think that will prove an obstacle to someone of your talents.”

“Certainly not.”

“The fleet is counting on you, Agent Hasani. Indeed, the Empire is counting on you. Do not disappoint us.”

Ayesha scowled. “Don’t insult me, Colonel. I know my duty.”