Freya sighed as she checked on the resistance cells that she had created a few months after she had made landfall. The news was the same as it had been for the past six months. Some check-ins and some pretty speeches, but no action. It was probably better that way. The planet’s population was firmly pro-government, as it had been since the Monarch had been killed. The relentless barrage of propaganda rhetoric from the planet’s leading families had firmly won the planet over. In their eyes, the Federation were power-crazy fascists. The propaganda was so good that a lot of people ignored all the evidence that didn’t support what the government was spewing out and toed the party line. In the days and months after the Monarch broke up above the planet, there was plenty of evidence that what had fallen on the planet was not missiles, but what was left of a spaceship.

She had given aid to those who read between the lines and saw the evidence for what it truly was, but the propaganda was just too well done. The people didn’t want to believe that their government had caused so much destruction. Family members and close friends had turned on those that Freya had been helping and many resistance cells had fallen. Even with the advanced warning from her little hacking program, there was little she could do to stem the fall of so many cells.

Her little hacking program had worked beyond what she expected. It found its way into nearly every corner of every electrical thing that was connected to some kind of system. It had gotten so successful that she had to leak a tiny aspect to a company so that the bread crumbs led there instead of to a surviving Federation Marine that was somehow still alive on the planet. The company had taken what she had leaked and grown in size and reputation so that without her little program it wouldn’t survive now.

Thinking about her program made her check what it had learned lately. She read over the reports that it had stolen and frowned. There was not a lot of new information since that last time she checked on it five days ago. To combat the boredom and prevent herself from doing something stupid, she had taken to turning herself off for five days and only being on for anywhere from a single day to three days. It depended on what she was doing at the time. Doing so made time go much faster.

One of the first things she had done was buy the land where she had buried her ship. It was now a junkyard. She had a successful business for spare parts now right above her. She had started the business to cover for the fact that she wanted to fix the main battery in her main engine so that she was not burning so much fuel for her secondary backup engine. She did everything online so that she could save as much BacT fluid to create clones for respawns as possible, despite how tempting it was to download herself into a clone and do it face to face.

Her little program had discovered why the Federation wanted to replace the government. Some scientists had discovered how to create a very poor imitation of BacT fluid. The clone it created didn’t last long, only about five or so years before it fell apart, but it was enough for the leading families and those who they liked to live forever. The discovery was creating what the Federation had come together to stop. The planet Freya was on was slowly becoming a poor-man’s version of Earth before the war.

They didn’t have enough of their fake BacT yet to create respawnable soldiers, but they were getting close. Maybe in fifty years or so. Maybe sooner, if they could find a new scientist to replace the other one who had committed suicide after he was found out to be gay. It happened before Freya had crash-landed on the planet so there was nothing she could have done for the poor man. His dying had set the program back decades. It had gotten worse in the past year and a half since she had started to mess with the program as well.

Thoughts of the fake BacT made Freya check her security programs. One of the first things her little program had hacked its way into was the supply warehouse for the fake BacT. She had been able to steal four tanker trucks of the stuff. She simply used her own credits to hire truck drivers and paid them very well to go out during the attack and drive off with four of the trucks. A little digital, online editing and the trucks had been listed as being destroyed during the attack. It had been shockingly simple and very effective. So much had been destroyed during the fallout of the Monarch's death no one questioned that a few tanker trucks had been destroyed. Even if said cargo had been crazy important.

With the trucks, she now had enough to respawn two of the four divisions she had saved in her ship’s memory banks. The problem she had was that they would only have that one respawn each if she did so. She was not one hundred percent sure that it would be enough to take the planet. She thought about spawning the Colonel, but found she didn’t have clearance to do so. She only had clearance to spawn Gunnery Sergeants and lower. That made her think of spawning her new Gunny or Gunny Thompson, but she didn’t because in the end she didn’t think there was much they could advise her on. She decided to wait on the return of the communication from the space station.

Thinking about the return signal she checked her comms logs, but found nothing. She was starting to get worried. She had set up the new and improved FTL communication device she had created three months ago, expecting to get a return signal from her message a few days ago. So far she had received nothing. She told herself that it could take a little while to authenticate her message before they replied, but it was getting close to a week since she expected a return message.

She had created the new device nearly half way around the planet in one of the businesses she owned. She had never been there and had made sure that no one could track it back to her. She was not an expert, but she had had a good feeling that it was safe at the time. But now doubts were setting in. Did one of the families discover it? Were they tracking it back to her? She didn’t know and it made her afraid.

She went through the messages for her businesses to buy some things that would be helpful and some that were profitable. She had given herself permission to reclaim military junk through her little hacking program so she could buy stuff - so that when she spawned everyone, they would have something to work with. She could have made a stupid amount of money if she took her business seriously, but she was not a businesswoman - she was a Marine. Still, her little hacking program made making money fairly easy.

Her message center dinged, telling her that her online training was ready. One of the biggest lies the government and the ruling families had told the population was that the Federation had cut off all communications from the planet with the rest of the universe. In reality, they never lost communications. Now, only those privileged enough could access what the universe had to offer, and one of those things was online education.

As soon as she found that out, she had started using it to her advantage. First, she took courses on how to fix her ship so that she could fix or replace her main engine and her one broken respawn tube. It turned out that she had done a number on her ship, and there was nothing she could do to fix her main engine without some serious dry dock time. Something she couldn’t do without letting the wrong people find out she was still alive. She did fix her main battery so that she was not running on pure fuel anymore. She had also got her broken respawn pod working again, even if she hadn’t used it once since then.

Fixing her battery saved her from detection by the government. One of the things it had been checking for was the sale of fuel used by spaceships. Anyone who wanted to buy some had to have a license now and it was tracked by the government. With her battery running again, there was only a small risk when she had to buy more fuel to recharge it. So far she had been able to deflect detection, but she knew she wasn’t going to be able to do that forever. At some point she was going to have to respawn and shut her ship down.

She accessed her hacking program to log into the online training and used the subheading of adult entertainment to get access to her portal. The funny thing about using online training was that most people, at least on this planet, were not using it to better themselves. Instead they were using it to access online houses of ill repute. What Freya found funny was that the personal security on their browser history was better than a lot of their military systems. Even her hacking programs had problems accessing what type of brothels they were visiting.

When she first discovered that they still had communication access she had tried to find a way to contact the Federation Marines. The problem was that all off-world communications were heavily monitored. She could access classes or go to brothels without any problem, but if she tried to talk to anyone a world of hurt would rain down on her. She couldn’t even talk to any off-world companies or post things on websites without a face-to-face meeting with one of the ruling families’ patriarchs, and that was never going to happen. She had racked her brain for the past two years, but so far she couldn’t find a way to sneak a message to the Marines.

She had been taking post-graduate online training classes on FTL communications, focusing on corporate communications, to see if there was a way she could bypass the restrictions, but so far she hadn't found anything. She also knew that she was pushing her luck with those classes. It was only a matter of time until someone figured out what she was trying to do then she might lose access to the online training for good. So far her little hacking program was keeping her safe, but it wasn’t infallible.

She reached down to press the button to send her digital avatar into the training class, when her message pinged again. Looking down, she saw that she was getting a message from the business that housed her communication device. Hope bloomed across her chest as she waited for her decryption program to make the message readable. Holding her breath, she watched as the individual symbols became letters and the message slowly made sense.

The message was only a few sentences. It gave her a rough expected date of thirty-six years when a new troopship should be rerouted and arrive in her system, and a code word for her to use on her computer. It didn’t say what the code word was for, only that she needed to use it as soon as possible. She immediately deleted her online training course and typed in the code word she had been given. Nothing happened for a second, then the world blinked out and she despawned.

One second she was in her cockpit and the next she was standing in a conference room that was dominated by a long table. At the head of the table sat her Colonel. Surprised, Freya found herself snapping to attention. The Colonel, she noted, was looking down at something and was ignoring her. She thought about saying something, but before she could do so the Colonel looked up.

“Report.” She ordered Freya.

“Ma’am, the Monarch is dead.” Freya said, much to the surprise to both of them.

“Yes, I gathered that.” The Colonel said dryly. “Tell me what we have on the ground. Who is in charge.”

“As far as I have been able to tell, no one made it to the ground except me, Ma’am.” Freya told her boss.

“Dammit.” Cursed the Colonel, rubbing her forehead. “Okay, how long has it been?”

“A little over two years. I built a FTL communication device and contacted the space station we passed on the way here. I just got a return signal. There is a troop ship that is enroute to our location and it will be here in thirty-six years. I cannot give you an exact date, because they didn’t give me one.” Freya told her boss.

“Okay, we have a lot to do before then. What have you been doing since you’ve been down here? Is your ship safe?” The Colonel asked, looking up at Freya.

Freya took a deep breath then told the Colonel what she had done. When she was done, the Colonel was smiling. “No wonder they call you Magic. Nicely done. Okay we don’t have long. Your ship's computer doesn't have the processing power to keep this up for long. I’m sending you a list of a group of people I want you to respawn. They’ll have their mission downloaded. Contact me in a week for further orders. For now stop the five day offline thing until we get set up.” The Colonel ordered her.

“Yes, Ma’am.” Freya replied, nodding her head.

Seconds later, she was back in her cockpit with a new message blinking at her. She quickly opened it and saw a list of names. The list contained five marines and one navy chief petty officer. The only name that she recognized was Jesus. She wondered if it was the same Jesus that helped her when she first got out of her tier 1 missions just after boot camp then later during the tournament. Shaking her head, she started the respawns.

Five minutes later, Freya watched the respawn pods open and five people stepped out. One of them was her Jesus. The Marines quickly got dressed while the navy guy stood there naked, looking confused. It looked to Freya that he was reading his message while the others looked like they were doing the same thing as they got equipped.

Jesus looked up at where her camera was after he had his armor on. “Magic, that you?” He asked, still looking at the spot where her camera was.

“It’s me, big guy.” Freya replied smiling.

“Good.” He said, before he started pulling his weapon out of the printer. “You got a way out of this mess?”

“If you mean a tunnel, then yes. It’s small and you have to crawl to get out, but it leads to a back room in a nearby office.” Freya told him. “What do you need?”

“I’m going to need access to some funds.” He said as he and the other Marines adjusted their armor to look like civilian clothes. The navy guy finally started to get dressed. To Freya's surprise he also had some armor. Granted it was light armor, but she didn’t expect a Navy guy to have any armor.

“Setting you up as a manager now. How much do you need?” Freya asked, as she added his name and gave him access to her accounts.

Instead of answering her, Jesus looked at the navy guy. “Senior Chief, what do you need?” He asked him.

“At least fifty thousand credits, and a place to work.” The Navy guy replied, as he pulled out a small machine gun from the locker.

“Can you work with that, Magic?” Jesus asked looking back at the camera. “Make the place, if you can, far from here. I don’t want this to be traced back to you.”

“I have a few places, and you have access to far more than fifty K.” Freya told him. “How far away do you want to be?”

“Do you have access to vehicles?” He asked her.

“What kind do you want?” She asked, smiling. Ten minutes later, she watched her security feed as they drove off in a really nice off-road vehicle. She had no idea what their mission was, and she was not dumb enough to ask, even if it was Jesus.

A week later, she entered the code word into her computer and found herself back in the conference room. This time the Colonel was not alone. She was with Lt. Shen, the First Division Commanding Officer. He was looking down at the table that was somehow also a huge tablet. He looked up as she appeared.

“I knew you were my lucky charm.” He said, with a very nice smile. Blushing, Freya looked towards the head of the table where the Colonel sat watching her.

“Here’s the next list. Outfit them the same way you did the others.” The Colonel told her.

Freya only had time to nod before she found herself back in her cockpit. She did as she was asked and sent the next group of five marines and one navy woman off to wherever their mission took them. Over the next month, Freya sent out one group after another. Once the groups were out, the Colonel told her to go to a schedule of five days off and three hours on. If the groups needed her, they would get in touch with her during that time.

Six months later, she was given a new list of people to respawn. This time it was fifteen navy people and eight marines. They were to take over her junk yard, with the marines providing security. In the next few months, the navy guys started breaking down her junk and sending it off to the groups who had gone before. One of the navy guys took over her businesses so she had no idea where the money was going or what they were doing with it.

The years started to fly by and the Colonel ordered more and more navy guys out to be respawned and Freya had less and less to do, as they took over everything. They even had a white-hat hacker take over her little hacking program. He did complement her on a well-written program. She even lost her ability to use the online training programs, as others needed to use them. In the end, she was left with so little to do she was very glad she was only awake three hours every five days.

The years passed at a frighteningly fast pace. During this time, the navy guys who were running the junkyard started to take parts off of her ship and send them off to who knew where. It didn’t take her long to realise that her ship was never going to fly again, especially when they removed all of her maneuvering engines. In the end the only thing left of her ship was the respawn tubes and her cockpit.

“Magic.” The Colonel said, acknowledging her as she appeared in the conference room once more. The conference room had grown, and along with it the table. There were a lot more people, both marines and navy officers, working there now.

“Ma’am.” Freya replied, standing at attention.

“We got word from the Raja, the incoming troop carrier. It will be in orbit in a few weeks. I’m sending you back to your platoon. Your new mission... Our new mission is to take down the alien tech that destroyed the Monarch. You’ve done a wonderful job, and I’ll remember what you have done here, but your job is done. I need you back working with your people.” The Colonel told her.

“Yes Ma’am, whatever you need.” Freya replied, excited to finally get out of her cockpit. Then it dawned on her what the Colonel had said. Her platoon? She opened her mouth to ask her what she meant, but found herself in a respawn pod that was not part of her ship.