Shortly after Brettn climbed into bed, Old Bess let herself in and joined him. Sharing his bed wasn’t new to Brettn, Old Bess was never comfortable sleeping alone for as long as he’d known her – so, most of his life. It didn’t matter who, so long as she could twine the tentacles on her flanks with someone else, it was enough to keep nightmares at bay. They’d known each other so long now that neither of them bothered to ask the other for permission.

When he wasn’t around, she found her usual solution: someone else looking to share a bed, but for different reasons. She’d never cared about that sort of thing, and Brettn knew better than most that money was hard to come by.

“They’re completely crazy,” Brettn grumbled to her. “You can’t fight the Empire. What’s he going to do, kill a billion soldiers a day by himself? He might manage to halve the Empire’s armies by the next millennium.” He rolled his eyes.

“That depends on what he has planned,” Old Bess said drowsily.

“What are you talking about? He’s got no chance. End of discussion,” Brettn scoffed.

“The war on Sesscera four lasted fourteen years,” Old Bess said as she scooted closer to him on the cot. “They fucked up the Terminal in their system, completely shut it down. The Empire had to use lasers to launch the army there, seven years to get there, or something.”

“And then the Empire landed a billion soldiers on their planet and killed everyone,” Brettn scoffed. “It’s the same story on every planet or station or whatever. The Empire has a hard-on for war, and they don’t use lube.”

“It doesn’t change if no one tries,” Old Bess sighed as she settled in.

“Wait,” Brettn said, sitting up to look at her in the darkened room. “You’re not considering going with them, are you?” he asked incredulously.

“Maybe I wanna go on an adventure. See a ‘Primitive Planet’ in the flesh,” Old Bess said dreamily.

“Die in a hole on a planet where no one knows your name?” Brettn hissed.

“It wouldn’t be much different here,” Old Bess groused. She curled into herself, a vain attempt to make herself appear smaller. “At least I’d die for something. Here, I could die if someone decides they don’t wanna pay me one night.” Brettn felt her shiver against him, her grip on his flanks tightened. “Let’s talk about something else. This is gonna give me nightmares.”

Brettn wasn’t sure how to respond to that. She hadn’t mentioned the million other ways she could die on Torus Terminal or any station or any city on any planet. A meaningless death was commonplace. Maybe that was why the Empire could maintain a military on volunteers, despite the high turnover rate.

“Alright,” Brettn said. “What do you wanna see on this ‘Primitive Planet’ of yours?” he asked, curling around her. He squeezed her tentacles with his own, and he felt the tension in her start to relax.

“I wanna see a tree,” she said with a happy sigh. “And the grass! Oh, can you imagine grass?” she added, suddenly excited. “I haven’t ever seen grass except in those little plastic bags they come in from the hydroponics farms. What about you?”

“What about me?” Brettn said, doing his best to keep the disdain out of his voice. “I’m not going.”

“Fine, you’re not going,” Old Bess snapped. “But if you were gonna go to a planet, what would you wanna see?” she asked, insistent.

Brettn didn’t answer for a long moment. It took him that long to wonder if he knew anything about living on a planet. Old Bess and Brettn were spacers from the moment of birth. They’d never once seen the open sky or felt gravity that wasn’t from a big spinning Torus.

“I wanna feel the sun,” Brettn finally said. “I read a story once about this fella who would lay in the sun, and it talked about how warm it felt. Sounds pretty good to me,” he explained.

~~~{~{@ || (-(-_(-_-)_-)-) || @}~}~~~

The General’s office had regained its traditional layout: desk, and couches, and glass table back where they belonged. The General, too, was back in his place as the Thief-Taker General of Torus Terminal as if none of the events of the previous night had ever happened. He spent his morning speaking with secretaries, informants, thieves, and thugs. Organizing assets, collecting information and blackmail, organizing the latest ransom scam, and receiving his share of the collected protection money.

The Viribus went back into seclusion on the upper floors, for all the station knew: nonexistent. But the Singer joined the General in his office, observing the day’s routine from one of the couches with a sour expression. But she hadn’t raised objections yet, and the General was happy to put off the conversation he knew she wanted to have.

Old Bess marched into the General’s office with Brettn in tow and insisted she go to war. The General didn’t respond at first. He looked up from his desk, stared at her a while, and then nodded as if he had expected nothing less of her.

But when Brettn declared, “Where Old Bess goes, I go,” the Human snorted derisively.

“Here’s your ticket, Brettn. Enjoy the next few months in transit, try not to lose your lunch during zero-acceleration maneuvers,” he said as he retrieved a plastic case from a drawer in his desk. The plastic folder contained a programmed ticket for egress, and a passport – something Brettn had never owned. Most odd of all, a credit chip rested on the top. “Take it and leave,” he ordered.

“Hold on,” the Singer said, cutting through Brettn’s shock at the sudden rejection with her sharp tone. “What’s this about? You said last night, if they wanted to fight, they could stay.”

“Brettn didn’t say he wanted to fight,” the General said. “If he won’t fight, he can’t stay. And if he won’t leave, I’ll kill him,” he said with a final glare at the Ventusi.

“Kill him!?” the Singer surged to her feet, hands balled into fists. “Why?” she asked desperately.

“Because there are still assets on this station in a position to ruin my plans,” the General snarled, turning his glare to the other Human. “One whispered word to the wrong idiot on the street, or in the wrong room and everything could be jeopardized. Not to mention what might happen if my enemies on this station decided to pick up Brettn and interrogate him. You think he won’t talk?” he asked incredulously.

Brettn struggled to swallow as the General’s sharp eyes met his once again. “I’ll fight,” he struggled to say. A strange sound at the edge of his hearing made it difficult to concentrate – it was his hearts, he realized, trying to jump out of his throat. “I j-just have some questions.”

“Oh, Brettn,” the General said, the honey in his voice did little to hide the steel in it. “Please, ask your questions,” he said as he stood from behind his desk. He snapped his fingers, and one of his employees shut the doors to his office firmly.

Brettn, encouraged by his continued ability to be alive, steadied his breathing. “The Empire is gigantic. There are thousands of worlds. You and your three friends are impressive, but four people are not an army of billions,” he explained. “How are we supposed to not die the moment we meet resistance?”

The General stared at Brettn for long moments before finally nodding, a surprising show of respect. “There’s that detail-oriented head that attracted me to you in the first place, Brettn,” the General said with a smile. “It is indeed an interesting problem, but not an impossible one. Many conflicts I remember from our homeworld involved small forces causing havoc against a much stronger foe.”

“Most of them were also run by fanatical leaders doing what they could to dismantle democracy and install their dictatorships,” the Singer added with crossed arms. “Or if it’s Vietnam you’re referring to, the communists won, and they went on to establish a regime of re-education and assassination-“

“This is not a discussion of morals, Singer,” the General snapped. “Brettn asked a question, and I will be answering it.” He turned away from his desk and moved to the rear wall of the office, revealing the secret panel and the wall of safes and cabinets behind it. He pulled out a rolled-up sheet and laid it out over the stacks on his desk, revealing a mess of dotted lines and labeled spots.

“The Empire never broke the light speed barrier,” the General began. “So, to get around the rocket problem, the Empire constructed Laser Highways between stars. Stations outfitted with powerful laser arrays that can aim at light rider ships, pushing them until they reach near light speed and then decelerating them again as they approach their destination.

“The highways are slow, but faster than using ballistics to toss ships between stars at more mundane speeds,” he explained, pointing to the dotted lines scribbled across the dotted sheet. “But the Empire also developed an interesting bit of technology, the Anti-Euclidean Engine,” he turned a meaningful glance to the Singer, “a wormhole generator. They call stations outfitted with Anti-Euclidean Engines Terminals.

“The Empire guards its Highways and Terminals jealously, but once the Terminals come online, the Highways go mostly unused except by the people maintaining them. A secondary system, just in case of a failure at a Terminal.

“Laetus has one Terminal and one Highway station,” the General explained, pointing towards a set of lines and dots painted onto the map with red ink. “By removing both, we can isolate the entire solar system from the Empire once again. Destroying the logistics line keeping the armies on Laetus supplied and reinforced will cripple our enemy for at least ten years,” he said.

“Okay,” Brettn said, turning over the information in his head. Still, he found holes. “But how long has the Empire been on this campaign? By now, they must’ve built supply shelters to last them at least that long,” he said. “And how do you plan to take the stations down? The lasers on Terminals and Stations aren’t just for pushing ships around. They can melt ships just as easily.”

“The Empire’s campaign on Laetus is Top Secret,” the General explained. “Top Top Secret. They don’t want anyone, especially their neighboring nations, to realize they’re moving an invasion force around – even if it’s within the Empire’s borders. That would violate the treaties they just finished signing.”

He turned around again and pulled a series of files and folders from a safe that he opened with practiced ease. Some of the sheets bore soot stains and bloody smears. He stacked them on top of the map, displaying the litany of red ink declaring the files property of the Empire and the extremely high-security clearance needed to access them – before the General had stolen them, that is.

The General nodded again, his smile growing predatory. “And laser arrays can melt civilian ships,” he admitted. “But, I don’t plan to take back a solar system with my newly acquired fleet of shipping tugs.”

Brettn frowned at that. He hadn’t even realized the General had any ships, let alone anything worth calling a fleet. And what other options did he have outside of civilian craft? “If you’re suggesting you can somehow convince a patrol boat to surrender to one of those things, I’ve got news for you,” he said with a deadpan expression.

The patrol boats were small, lightly armed and armored gunships. Capable of carrying a boarding crew to rescue stranded ship crews or arrest ships in the area that refused to follow the laws. Things like smuggling, flying without an active RFID, or flying too close to the station without contacting traffic control. A kind of necessary enforcement done by mercenaries and paid for by the corporations that owned the docks.

“My sights are set on much more lucrative prey, Brettn,” the General said as he turned around and strode toward his wall of safes. Carefully, almost reverently, he spun the dials to open one of them. From inside, the General pulled out a lumpy package and set it on top of the pile atop his desk. “Easily replaced, but not easily acquired,” he bragged, uncovering the object with a flourish.

An amalgam of polished steel and electronics rested within the plastic packaging. Usually, Brettn would have no idea at all what the significance of some esoteric bit of equipment was. But, often, bits of metal and wires didn’t have the Imperial Seal laser etched into them, or packaging that read “Anti-Euclidean regulator module 48-A.”

“The Empire will respond quite hastily when they realize someone stole a part of an Anti-Euclidean Engine. This won’t delay the activation of Torus Terminal, but it will bring a valuable prize into my trap,” the General explained. “An Imperial Corvette.”