A fleet of five Helian capital cruisers was floating in space, heading for one of the countless asteroids of the Kairer field. The fleet’s flagship was the Ravager, leading the way for the rest of the starships. William and Natasha were on the bridge of the Ravager, overlooking the gargantuan asteroid their ship was approaching.

It was at that moment that the tactical officer Kiroshato arrived to the bridge. He raised his hand, saluting the admiral and William. “We’ve reached asteroid Z-5. We are ready to proceed with the plan to take over the pirate base. The men are alert and ready for combat.”

“Proceed as planned,” Natasha ordered. “We’ve already ran countless drills in the simulation chambers, so everyone must know what to expect I hope. I thus expect the takeover to be swift.”

“Yes, Madame!” Kiroshato saluted once more and left the bridge to organize the landing.

“Pay close attention,” Natasha said to William. “This is your first military operation. It should provide you with invaluable insights on command. A military campaign is fought on three levels; logistics, strategy and tactics. Logistics is the most important aspect. An army not properly supplied will collapse on its own. We supplied in Daxiturn and thus we do not have to worry about this. Strategy is the conduct of the entire military campaign. Our strategy is a cautious but reliable one; sending fighter scouts to detect enemy presence and then moving to clear each asteroid base with overwhelming force. Tactics are the plans for individual combat operations. Our current tactic is to land troops with carrier vessels at various points of the asteroid facility and have fast-moving squads made up of few men search each room and corridor for enemies, clearing the entire base from hostiles.”

Natasha could see that William was looking at her with a most bored and disinterested look. She loudly sighed, dismayed with the Chancellor’s son. “You don’t care, do you? I just wasted precious minutes of my life for absolutely nothing!”

William raised his arms and flashed a wide grin. “I told you, I am not really interested in military stuff. It’s just not my thing.”

All of the sudden, the admiral grabbed him by his shirt. “Listen to me!” she shouted, her voice full of anger. “Your father tasked me with teaching you the art of war. You will learn it whether you want it or not, understood?!”

William chuckled. “I’ve got to say, I find the angry you quite arousing. You really turn me on…”

The rectangular shaped carrier vessel was heading to asteroid Z-5. On board the ship, forty blue-armored Helian troopers were preparing for the touchdown. Some cracked jokes while others were nervously tapping their foot. Ron was among those soldiers. He was completely silent, unable to laugh at the occasional jokes his comrades made. His mind was focused on the upcoming battle.

Corporal Karter, being leader of the squad, was barking various commands to ensure everyone was ready. The soldiers were arming, checking and rechecking their weapons. A deep rumbling ensued as the carrier vessel landed awkwardly on one of the asteroid’s decks. The landing was bumpy, causing the soldiers to feel jolts and bangs.

“Men!” Karter barked. “It’s time to land. Let’s kick their asses!”

“Yeah!” all the soldiers roared in unison.

Hands tightened on the weapons, as the soldiers prepared for the landing. Mechanical hums could be heard as the front of the vessel started to lower towards the ground. The troopers barged out of the ship, rifles at hand, and swarmed the deck. It was empty, void of any signs of life, as if it had been abandoned some time ago.

“Do not let your guard down!” Karter shouted. “Our scouts detected enemy presence here, and I am sure we will find some pirate bastards.” He then approached one of his men. “Vladimir, take twenty of the men and lead them to the designated coordinates. Do not disappoint me!”

“Yes, sir!” Vladimir replied, saluting his superior.

Karter and the remaining twenty troopers, Ron among them, made their way through the stale-smelling, dark, seemingly abandoned facility. They hurried their way down one corridor after another, finding no signs of pirates.

“Where did everyone go?” one of the soldiers commented.

“Maybe they got wind of us coming and fled like the cowards they are,” another joked.

Karter suddenly shushed them. “Message from command!”

“Squad C!” the soldiers heard from their comns. “We detect hostile presence in the room on your right.”

“Copied!” Karter replied.

The corporal pointed his finger at the door, giving the signal for his troops to storm in. The soldiers broke down the door and charged inside, rifles at hand and aiming forward. The room was dimly lit while its only furniture was a round table in the middle of the room. The soldiers saw seven women trying to hide in a dark corner, all of them young with torn clothes and utterly petrified by the presence of the Helian soldiers.

“Shoot them!” Karter, who had also walked into the room, ordered. “We’ve got orders to take no prisoners.”

The soldiers aimed their rifles at the women but, for a brief moment, hesitated to pull the trigger.

“Do it!” Karter repeated.

While the other soldiers put aside their doubts and were about to fire their guns, Ron was still unable to pull the trigger, his hands shaking. His breathing was swallow and his heart racing. ‘I can’t!’ he thought to himself. ‘I can’t shoot w-‘

Pew! Pew!

“What?!” Ron screamed.

The women had taken out their hidden laser pistols and were firing at the soldiers, who were unprepared for this sudden surprise attack. Laser bolts were flying all around them. Ron could hear the agonizing screams of Karter, the slim corporal lying on the floor in a pool of his own blood.

Ron jumped to the left, barely avoiding enemy fire. He took cover behind the round table, turned his rifle at the women and began shooting, his past hesitation gone. The sounds of laser fire echoed across the room. One of Ron’s bolts hit one of the women. He could see her lying on the ground, screaming as blood was flowing from her wound. The rest of the women were quickly taken out, being no match for trained Helian soldiers.

“Incoming enemies!” Ron could hear from the comn. “I repeat! Incoming enemies!”

Ron and some of his fellow soldiers turned around to see more than thirty pirates storming the room, all of them equipped with laser rifles and metallic battlefield uniforms like the ones Helian soldiers were equipped with. The pirates aimed their rifles at the Helians and began firing, their rapid shots taking off five soldiers at one go.

“Take cover!” one of the soldiers shouted.

Taking cover behind the round table, Ron and other soldiers began firing back, but they were clearly on the defensive. The pirates’ rapid fire had pinned them down. The soldiers were coming out of the cover, firing and then taking cover again, trying to make their every shot count.

Ron was sweating and his face had become ashen white. It seemed to him as if every time he dared to stick his head from the cover, the pirates were firing at him. He barely got any chances to fire back. As he managed to briefly take a peek at what was going on, he saw that a group of pirates was trying to flank them, moving around so that they would have a clear line of fire from which they could pick them off.

Ron pointed with his finger two soldiers. “You, follow me. The rest, fire at those at the front to cover us.”

No one questioned Ron’s initiative. They had no leadership and no one else seemed to be rising up the occasion. Ron and the two soldiers sprung from their cover, shooting down the enemies that had been trying to flank them. Before the other pirates could turn their attention at them, Ron and the other two soldiers had jumped back to their cover.

Ron let out a sigh of relief. “We did it. We fucking did it!”

“We are still outnumbered and pinned down,” one of the soldiers reminded him. “We only took out a portion of the-“

His words were interrupted by a renewed barrage of fire by the pirates. The loud sound of laser fire was overshadowing all other noises.

“Fuck them!” Ron cried out, coming out of his cover to fire at the pirates. It was at that exact moment that a group of Helian troopers charged inside the room. Being fired from both sides, the pirates were decimated, one after the other falling lifeless on the metallic floor. A pool of blood formed around the bodies of pirates and soldiers, a ghastly sight.

“Who is in charge?” the Helian corporal leading the reinforcements asked.

Ron pointed at Karter’s corpse. “He was.”

“You will be temporarily promoted to leader of your squad for the remainder of the mission” the corporal replied. “My name is Renard by the way. It seems that the pirates had somehow got wind of our plans and set up a trap for us. Five more squads are under attack. We should come to their aid.”

Ron nodded and led his squad to the coordinates that Renard gave him. He and his men reached a wide hall, in which a group of pirates had pinned down Vladimir and ten more Helian soldiers with their rapid fire. Vladimir and his men had been taking cover behind some metallic boxes, trying to withstand the overwhelming firepower of the pirates.

Before the pirates could turn around and face Ron and his men, the Helians were already firing at them. There were screams and blood; bodies falling and blood splattering across the hall. The cries of the wounded echoed across the hall. It was a quick, brutal affair.

With the pirates exterminated, Ron and his men approached Vladimir and the surviving soldiers of his squad. “You are alright?” Ron asked.

Vladimir was still in shock, his breathing hard and fast. He had seen action before but this was entirely different. “We… we…were ambushed. My… men…men were decimated. One after other. Dead. Dead…”

Ron sighed. He knew only too well that feeling. “We prevailed. That’s what matters.”

Natasha was in her office, looking at the live feedback on the operation. Every few seconds, reports of a new ambush and the names of those who had died were coming on her computer screen. She lowered her head to her desk and heaved a heavy sigh. Her face seemed drained of color, the casualties weighing heavily on her mind. She understood that as a commander she had to accept certain casualties, but the debacle was beyond her wildest fears.

The door suddenly opened and William barged in. “That was one big fuck up!” he loudly exclaimed. “Maybe you are the one who needs to study on the art of war.”

“Evidence suggests that they knew of our movements,” the admiral calmly replied, her voice monotone and void of emotions. “I’ve ordered a full investigation to find out how this happened. I have also raised our security to the maximum level and ordered a strengthening of our cyber defenses.”

“Have we at least managed to secure the asteroid?”

Natasha nodded affirmatively. “Most of it has been secured. Our troops are now clearing the last bits of resistance.”

“What’s next? Are we going to proceed as normal?”

Natasha got up from her desk and headed to the window of her office, which offered a view of the space outside.“We will be more cautious in our approach than before, but we cannot afford to lose time. Let this become a lesson to you; in war, you do not have the luxury of wailing about past mistakes or setbacks. You need to move fast to correct your shortcomings and then proceed to fight back.”

“You’re the boss. Hope that you know what you are doing.” William paused for a brief moment. “Can you please explain me how the fuck did those pirates got hold of military-grade weaponry and armor? This looks like a real war against a professional military rather than a cleanup of pirates.”

“I told you in the club that the Prince has organized the pirates into a formidable, professional force thanks to his extraordinary charisma and ability to get the different factions to work together.”

“You did? I guess I was too busy trying to bed you to notice,” William chuckled.

“Something that won’t be happening.”

“I loved the way you shuddered when I embraced you.” William approached her and suddenly embraced her.

“Back off,” she softly murmured but made no attempt to escape from his embrace. “I mean it.”

“Why? Are you afraid that if I don’t you will find yourself surrendering to your feelings for me? Isn’t that why you’ve made no attempt to escape from my embrace?”

“Because I have to deal with the consequences of what just happened. While you may be thinking with your penis, I am thinking with my brain.”

“Ouch!” William laughed. “That was uncalled for. But fine…” He backed off. “Make no mistake. Sooner or later, you will admit your feelings for me.”

“I will never, ever do that.”

“We’ll see.” William winked at her and left the office.

“That man…” Natasha murmured as she softly sighed.

The headquarters of the Pirate Coalition were based on one of the remotest asteroids of the Kairer field. In a wide room, the leading pirate officers were discussing the conflict with the Helians. The most noticeable thing about the room was that there were no windows. Instead the walls were covered with control panels. There was a huge bank of movable viewscreens lodged in the center of the room, directly above a massive discussion table where most of the people inside the room were sited.

A grizzled old man with shaggy white hair and a long, flowing unkempt white beard made his way into the room. The dark metallic military armor he was wearing made him appear far more fearsome though and so did the flaming, youthful brightness in his eyes. At once all the men in the room got up from their seats and rush to bow before the man.

“You may rise,” he said, his voice stern and authoritative.

One of the men, a very tall, handsome man with brown eyes and brown hair named Simone, spoke. “Prince, the trap we set on asteroid Z-5 was a resounding success. We’ve calculated the Helians had sixty-five casualties. I told you Cleva would be of great help to us.”

“The greatest casualty they suffered was their morale,” Prince Raoul observed. “They are afraid. They’ve lost their confidence. They shall be far more cautious now and less willing to take the necessary risks to defeat us. We will be making full use of that weakness.”

“I agree, my Prince. What exactly do you propose?”

“We should strike against them with our fighters. They are few, but the Helians will be too afraid to commit fully their entire force against us in fear of being lured into another trap. Our fighters can strike fast and then fall back. In our asteroid bases, we will be leaving behind small squads to engage in guerrilla warfare against the occupying forces.”

Simone nodded in agreement. “This should cause them severe casualties.”

“But it will only delay them unfortunately. We do not have the military forces necessary to force them out of the Kairer field. We need to strike a temporarily alliance with the Alliance.”

“The terrorists?!”

“They are the only ones who have the necessary troops to inflict a defeat upon the Helians. They will be invaluable allies to our cause. Together, we will deal a humiliating defeat to the Helian regime.”

“But will they agree to an alliance? They’ve never allied themselves with pirate factions before.”

“They will because we offer them the chance to cripple an entire Helian fleet. They will not want to miss this chance.”

Simone nodded. “Will try to establish communications with them. I do know that one of Cleva’s regular customers in the brothel has connections with the Alliance. He should be able to get us into contact with them.”

John was lying in bed, staring at the ceiling. His face betrayed his boredom. He let his thoughts to float without direction, only interrupting them every so often to check his watch. ‘I never imagined a mission to the Helian capital would be like this…’ he thought to himself. ‘I should be happy that I am lying in a hotel room and doing nothing for a change instead of being hunted down by Helians, sentient androids or gangsters, but damn do I miss some action!’

It had been two days since they retrieved Susan’s data pad but D-4009 had made little progress in making sense of the algorithms. Beck had been too busy visiting his family and making arrangements for the medical practice he was planning to open while Lutherson was investigating various clues that were leading to nowhere.

John was thus left in his room, doing nothing but meditating, sleeping or lying in his bed. As John got up from his bed to check his watch, he heard a loud knocking on the door.

“Yes?” he asked.

“It is me, Master,” D-4009’s robotic voice was heard. “May I enter?”

“Sure,” John nonchalantly replied.

D-4009 walked up to John and announced with a wide grin on his face, “I want you to please come with me to Mister Snow’s room.”

“Why? Did you finally make some progress with the data pad?”

“Indeed, Master. You are very bright.”

John could barely contain his enthusiasm upon hearing this. “Yes!” he loudly exclaimed, laughing. “Finally! You saved me. I mean it. The boredom was killing me.”

“I am happy to be of service to you.”

John followed the android to Lutherson’s room. John ringed the doorbell and, with the detective’s permission, they entered. Lutherson was in his bed, studying a data pad. It was his personal pad, which he used to store all the information he had collected on Susan’s case. The detective was reading and rereading it, but could make no progress in the case.

“What do you want?” he asked, still looking at his data pad.

“I made a breakthrough with regards to Miss Susan’s data pad.”

Lutherson at once jumped from his bed. “Tell me!” he shouted. “Now!”

“Oh my! You sure are excited. Well… aside from the various algorithms that my programming could not comprehend, Miss Susan’s data pad also contains a set of coordinates.”

“How did we miss this?” Lutherson wondered.

“With the file containing hundreds of algorithms, it is no wonder you missed them. Miss Susan must have not wanted people to notice the coordinates, hence she hid them between all those algorithms.”

“What can you tell us about those coordinates?” John asked.

“They point to a government research facility in this very city. The ‘Institute of Science and Research’, a government agency responsible for technological innovations. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find much info on the web with regards to what connection this Institute could have with the so-called ‘Project Epsilon’.”

“That’s it!” Lutherson exclaimed. “That’s the connection between Susan, project epsilon and the murder. Sean told me that his sister was a researcher. She hadn’t told him any details about it except that she was working for the government. I am sure she must have been working there.”

“She was fired from her job, you told me,” John chimed in. “She must have been fired from that Institute, where I am sure she was working on that project. The government must have wanted her silenced, so they killed her and made it look as if her husband had murdered her. It was all a cover up!”

“Of course, this is only a hypothesis. A valid one, but we shouldn’t be rushing to conclusions. We need to go to that Institute and check for ourselves what they are researching.”

“I am sure they will let us in, if we ask them politely…”

“You are a sorcerer, aren’t you? With you, I am sure we can manage to break in.”

“Breaking inside a government research facility, eh? That might be fun, especially when compared to those dreary hotel rooms…”

“Am I interrupting anything?” a voice asked. John, Lutherson and D-4009 turned around to see that it was doctor Beck.

“Hey, doc!” John said. “Nice seeing you. How are your preparations going?”

“Well enough.” The doctor frowned slightly with a worried look on his face. “I need your help. With my nephew.”

“We’ve got a case to investigate!” Lutherson protested “We-“

“We will help you,” John interrupted. “What exactly do you need from us, doc?”

“He… well… he got mixed up with a street gang selling drugs. My cousin doesn’t know about this. I haven’t told him yet. He already has too many things on his mind and I wouldn’t want to worry him more. I discovered it by accident really. I tried to talk my nephew out of this but he doesn’t want to leave. He likes one of the girls in the gang and is afraid that if he leaves the gang, he will lose her affection. I want you to do something about it. Maybe beat the crap out of those bastards?”

“Will do it,” John replied. “You’ve been pretty helpful so far, doc, so it is only fair that we help you. We owe it to you.”

Lutherson sighed. “Instead of investigating what may be the biggest government cover up in history, we will waste time on street gangs… Great!”

Beck facepalmed. “You know, I’ve been trying to control my temper and to try not to curse, but you are really pushing me…”

“We can do both,” John said. “First deal with the gang and then take a look at the institute. Those next few days should prove exciting.”