Solarian-Free Trade Route

Deep Space

TMS Jatz

Captain Francis Fitzkeller sat in his office off the bridge, sipping a cup of tea as he watched the timer projected onto his wall turn from its normal blue to a blinking yellow, warning him that it was close to the time they would be exiting the Trade Route and should go to the bridge. He didn't need to, where the convoy was heading was perfectly safe, but he couldn't just brush off his job or hide in his office all day, which is why the reminder was there at all.

His ship Jatz was one of 4 cruisers and 4 destroyers selected for merchantmen escort duty, taking the hyperspace Trade Routes to the Stellar Democracy and splitting off a few charges there, then heading to The Nation of the Free to transit out to the Confederacy. He stood, brushing wrinkles out of his working uniform and walked out onto the bridge.

"How are things looking Lieutenant Nami?" He asked, a very young woman sitting in the command chair, her dark skin pale and sweat beading on her forehead. Francis put a hand on her shoulder, "Are you okay? Do you need to go to sickbay?"

Lieutenant Nami swallowed and wiped at her forehead, Francis looked around and saw most of the bridge crew quietly doing their duty, very pointedly ignoring the person who was supposed to be holding the watch. "Captain, Sir, I'm sorry I just..."

He placed a finger on his lips. "Listen Lieutenant, I understand you are nervous and very unused to being this far from home but you cannot let that show to the crew. It reflects badly on you and if word gets around you'll lose the faith of those under you." It felt odd to kneel down next to the command seat like a parent comforting a small child, but Nami had been a brilliant student in the academy, albeit a bit shy and reserved. He wanted to nurture that into an officer Callisas would be proud of, not one that would flop and be drummed out of the service. "Remember, while The Nation of the Free is a bit... chaotic, they know better than to attack guarded merchants or our naval vessels."

"They aren't our allies though." Nami said, distracted from her nerves now that she was focusing on something else. "And they have so few laws, a very wealthy system, what's stopping them?"

"Self preservation helps." Francis tapped a command into the chair and a hologram of most of human space sprang up front of them. "See here?" He pointed in at the single star labeled 'Nation of the Free.' "They only have one star system and while the Trade Route does provide them with an impressive economy, we still have more people in uniform to strike back if they make trouble."

She made a noncommittal noise and nervously dry washed her hands in her lap.

"Okay, fess up Lieutenant, what's bothering you?" Francis added a touch of command to his question. She might be young, but she was an adult, she shouldn't be acting like this even if she wasn't the most confident of personality types.

Nami looked around and bent her head closer to her Captain. "Sir, I'm afraid of going down to the planet."

Francis blinked in surprise. This was not what he had expected to be bothering the Lieutenant so much especially since... "but you signed up for a day down on the surface, I approved the list since we have to stay with the merchants that are just laying over here to transfer cargo. Why did you sign up if you're scared?"

Nami looked around again and Francis hit a command button, a sound-dampening force field shimmered into place around them.

"There, now they can't hear us or read our lips."

She let out the breath she's been holding. "Sir, I've never actually been anywhere except Callisas and my home planet of Centro. Callisas is a well developed, well policed world, with low crime rates. Centro is a cold backwater with a million permanent citizens scattered around the planet. Neither of them come close to matching the sheer madness of the tales I've heard from some of the older chiefs who have been here." She shuttered. "It's scary. I'm qualified in a sidearm, and there's obviously no law against it there, but I just," she shifted uncomfortably. "I'm afraid I'll take something illegal or get into trouble and die."

Captain Francis Fitzkeller might be young for his rank, but he was well traveled enough to have visited many places under the navy's banner and in company with The Admiral. He suspected that traveling with The Admiral gave him a special protection he couldn't exactly lean on if the woman wasn't here to throw her weight around. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I can understand being nervous, but it is good for you to experience life outside Callisas borders. Go down to the more touristy places and browse then come back up. No need to wander or try anything weird." He stood, beginning to reach to deactivate the force field when Nami rubbed her hands together and opened her mouth, then shut it. "What?"

She seemed torn before she finally spoke, "Some of the other lieutenants are planning to go down and take some illegal drugs, it's why I'm really scared to go."

"Don't go with them then." Francis said plainly. "Now remember it's not illegal here and as long as they show up sober for their next shift and don't murder anyone, I am willing to overlook it." Modern medicine could cure just about anything, and erasing any chemical dependency was fairly easy. Psychological dependency was a bit harder to work with and the navy preferred its personnel to not have crippling addictions. "So I am going to pretend the field was acting up and you didn't say that."

"Uh, thank you Sir." Nami said, her face flushing in embarrassment, reaching over to deactivate the dampening field herself, saying more loudly so the watch on duty could hear. "We have a minute until we exit the Trade Route Captain."

"Thank you Lieutenant."

The Nation of the Free

The Planet of the Free

Francis looked out the viewport as his shuttle wove the dance of a craft in crowded airspace. Most planets had a tendency to restrict where space stations and their craft could be. His own home of Callisas-3 kept all spaceborn infrastructure to the equatorial orbital zones, creating dense, but organized orbital space.

Given the few regulations this place had, The Planet of the Free's orbital space was saturated with space infrastructure, placed wherever there was room and sometimes where there wasn't. It was almost another layer's worth of atmosphere it was so thick. Stations of all sorts hung where they had been built, surrounded by the craft that serviced them, shuttles, civilian and military alike, wove courses through the structures like snakes through rocky ground. There was no orbital control to tell everyone where to go, you flew and you made sure you paid attention to your sensors.

As a captain, and a fairly junior one at that, he really shouldn't be going planetside as while his assurances to a young officer who had a bit of nerves about a new place was much more expendable than the man that commanded the ship. He had business here, though he had begged off on the understanding that he took a couple of marines to guard himself with just in case.

Space black soon gave way to a light blue sky filled with clouds, the shuttle breaking through the cloud layer to reveal the land below covered with buildings of all shapes and sizes, with no coordination in style, some plastered with flickering ads while others looked more like ominous monoliths. Green plant life speckled the tops and sides of the sky and spacescrapers here and there, and as Francis watched, and felt, his shuttle jink hard to the side to avoid an atmospheric craft flying too close to its own path.

This planet was a mess, but it had its uses, and some friends.

His shuttle dove lower towards his destination, dodging between layers of air vehicles with a precision of a pilot who had prepared for this. The largest spacescraper on this half of the planet, a white building with occasional black accents loomed before them, the shuttle now heading straight for what appeared to be a solid wall.

Passing through the hologram to a well-kept, well-lit shuttlebay, the Callisas shuttle settled down into its designated spot. He waited as the flight crew went through the landing checklist and his marine guards stood, grabbed their rifles and stepped out of the shuttle before him to check if the bay was secure. Once he heard one of the marines call back in it was all clear, he walked out as well.

"Captain Fitzkeller!" A tall man, easily around 2 meters tall with dark metallic red hair and beard that matched the blood red irises he also had. As he strode forward his uniform had obviously once been the pure white with black rank markings, but had since been colored in with a psychedelic mix of reds, blues and purples. "I didn't expect to be getting," he jumped a little as the door to the bay slammed shut. "Damn it! Lebev! Get that fixed or else I'll throw you off the top floor of this building!"

"Sorry Comrade Commodore Magnatovich! I'll get right on it!" A reply from a man wiping his hands on a grease-stained rag before he jogged up to the hatch to check it himself.

"Comrade Commodore?" Francis asked. "Seems I'm not the only one who got a promotion. How are you Kaminov?"

"I told you, call me Kamya!" Kaminov Magnatovich, the long time friend he had come down from orbit to visit in person, flashing bright white teeth in a grin at him. "So how have you been, why the guards? Don't trust me anymore?"

"The CO of the convoy said I couldn't leave the ship without them, so like the good little officer I am, I agreed and picked the two worst marines I could find." He responded and saw one of the marines crack a grin as they fell in behind Kamya and Francis as they left the bay behind. While they walked, chatting, Francis let his eyes wander over the crowds of people they passed, a great many of them having unnatural hair, eye or even skin patterns, some having cybernetic advancements far beyond what most of the galaxy deemed acceptable and even fewer having body modifications like extra arms or eyes.

The Nation of the Free truly lived up to its name. Few regulations meant it was the one place in the universe where there were no repercussions to making a designer baby, changing your, or your child's, body in ways far beyond what most of the rest of humanity considered normal. To most people there was a vast difference between editing a life-threatening disease out of existence and giving all your offspring blue hair and four arms. Not to The People of the Free, it didn't matter to them so their population was often an impressive explosion of colors and oddities that still slightly unsettled Francis as he watched a person with what looked like tail walk past, he was unsure if it was real or cybernetic.

"Still haven't gotten that stain out of your uniform?" He finally asked, and Kamya looked down at his uniform, a puzzled look on his face.

"What stain?" He asked before realization hit him. "Oy don't go dissing my uniform, I don't complain about you wearing purple all the time now do I?"

"No, but you would look less like a walking puddle of oil water if you just wore regular uniforms." Francis said as Kamya stopped in front of a door, pressing his palm onto the panel beside it.

"Everyone knows it's the sign of a weak officer to not personalize their uniform." Kamya gave a look at the marines and Francis pointed to beside the door.

"You two stay out here and make sure no one tries to get in. And no matter how many free drugs you get offered, don't take them." He admonished, getting the other marine to smile as they took up their posts.

"Yes Sir!"

As Francis walked into the apartment he took off the purple outer coat of his uniform, revealing a white undershirt and flopped down on a couch. Kamya shook his head and snapped his fingers.

"There you go, the anti-bug field is up, so, why did you come and visit me old friend? I have never seen you outside of trailing behind The Admiral like a lost puppy. So? What's up?"

Francis chuckled. Kaminov Magnatovich had been only a Comrade Commander when he had first met the man during a training mission where The Admiral had kept a small crew aboard her ship to personally oversee their progress for around a year back when Francis had been a mere lieutenant. It had been an expensive undertaking for his own nation, but one he was grateful Their Majesty had been willing to invest in. One of the stopovers had been here at The Nation of the Free, and fighting simulation battles against Kamya gave him an appreciation for the sometimes strange tactics and ways of the Free Navy. And it had netted him a friend in the form of the Free officer he now talked with. "I came to see what information you got about her," He crossed his arms, "Anything I don't know."

Kamya shook his head. "I may be genetically engineered to be just about perfect but I am not a mind-reader. Be more specific or I might start asking for payment."

"Anything on her whereabouts? Our sources have been coming up blank for the last year since she left our yards and are getting desperate." The Callisas officer explained. "We don't need to know where she is, but we usually have at least some whispers and we have nothing."

Kaminov frowned and sat down on the couch next to Francis, rubbing his metallic red beard thoughtfully. "I haven't heard anything either, so unless some super secret Free Black Ops source is holding an ace they haven't been paid for yet, I doubt I know more than you. Last I heard I think the Solarians were trying to corner her in your neck of the woods. That sound familiar?"

"Yeah," Francis moved a bit closer to Kamya. "I was cleared to tell you, so I won't get in trouble, but Novu Sol sent out a task force under the guise of a 'convoy escort' to our capital to try and pin her down. They didn't succeed but it was a big push for them to make."

Kamya leaned back, placing his arm along the back of his couch, looking down at his longtime friend and sighed. "Guess we'll just have to wait, like we always do. The Admiral serves at the beck and call of our nation's wallets not that actual call. If she's laying silent in some underdeveloped star system until Novu Sol gets the most recent stick out of their ass then all we can do is wait."

He shouldn't miss her, he was a captain in the Callisas Navy, The Admiral was a for-hire teacher and honest-to-gods psychopath, but she shaped his sense of duty and taught him skills he never knew existed. Being loyal to The Admiral was not something to be particularly proud of, however there was always a sense that she had a plan and a reason for her actions. She had taught him, taught Kamya, taught countless other navies how to fight when Novu Sol turned their backs on those they saw as not worth the effort.

Francis stiffened in surprise as Kamya pulled him in close to his side, resting his chin on Francis's head.

"You okay?" He asked softly. "You look worried."

Francis leaned into the embrace and closed his eyes. "I worry about The Admiral sometimes."

"She can take care of herself." Kamya pointed out.

"I know she can, but I worry what it will mean for everyone once she is gone. She represents so much to us smaller nations out here."

"Like being free to be our own people." Kmaya said, "I don't know what I would do if Novu Sol came here with a war fleet and took over, imposing laws and restrictions on the freedoms we hold so dear. I would fight and gladly die to stop them, but I would die and all The Admiral would of done at that point is trained a bunch of dead Navy personnel. We know why Novu Sol trains people, but why does she train people? It can't just be for the money."

Francis laughed. "At this point I think the Intelligence Office just assumes she's doing it to stick the middle finger to Novu Sol, she had more money than any one person could possibly desire, if she vanished to retire in the Confederacy somewhere she would be set for life!"

"I've really missed you Francis." Kamya's voice was softer as he pulled the man fully into his embrace. "I am really scared that Novu Sol might make a play to absorb us, they got the TriStar Systems and that leaves The Nation of the Free as the only democracy they'll acknowledge outside of their control. The galaxy is never truly safe, but..."

Novu Sol had a bad habit of eating smaller nations for breakfast under the guise of 'training.' Francis shuttered and pressed a bit closer into his arms.

"Such is the game we play Kamya." Francis said, "We try to survive at the feet of a giant and pray that when our people call on us to fight for them, we can bring the giant to its knees." He freed his arms from the embrace to hold Kamya's face in his hands. "But I think for now, we enjoy what freedoms we have." He pulled Kamya down so the other officer was laying on top of him, giving the Free man a hungry kiss that left both of them a bit breathless.

"You sure you have the time?" Kamya's red eyes flicked up to the door of his apartment.

"I did not come down here just to talk intelligence, Comrade Commodore." Francis grumbled.

"Oh, well then Captain, my sincerest apologies," Kamya gave a hungry smile, "let me make that up to you."