She reached out for her engraved porcelain cup and brought it up to her lips only to find it was empty, with only small traces of cold coffee at the bottom. Grimacing in annoyance for a brief second, Vice Admiral of the Black Erica Kuznetsova considered getting up from her office chair and refill her cup from the refreshment cart near her cabin door, but settled back into her previous rhythm of filling out what was in all likelihood the tenth report this week, fingers rapidly flying across the keyboard.

... Considering the current state of affairs it is this officer’s humble opinion that RN Lucidia Command is at present time, with this existing order of battle and table of organisation, unable to carry out its assigned duties to the high level of efficiency expected by both Your Lordships of the Admiralty, nor to the confided high standards of His Majesty’s Navy. External factors like the Alliance Space Navy’s mien in the Lorelei SAR aside, local affairs on Lucidia Major is, as always, an unwelcome distraction that continues to hamper our forces’ ability to maintain a proper defensive and patrol aegis in surrounding Royal Union space. Furthermore, the supply situation is approaching levels of complete tomfuckery, ably helped by the absolute monkeys in the Royal Fleet Auxiliary logistics train that you’ve straddled me with…

Kuznetsova stopped writing and pinched her temples, feeling the familiar encroaching background pain of a building headache. A low buzz sounded, disturbing the silence of the admiral’s office.

“Voydite,” she said, instinctively slipping into her native Russian, and the hatch swished open, the tall figure of Commodore Philomena Cortez stepping into the cabin.

“It’s been a few years since my upper secondary Russian classes,” she said with a lopsided smile as the doors shut behind her, “but I seem to remember that means ‘come in’, or something to that effect.”

Kuznetsova didn’t reply but instead pointed to the refreshment cart near the hatch and then to her empty cup.

“Fill me up, Phil,” she ordered to which her chief of staff rolled her eyes, and brought the thermocan of coffee over, and gave the commanding officer of His Auroran Majesty’s Royal Navy Lucidia Naval Station the caffeine top-up she so desperately needed.

Erica Kuznetsova was a Novorosyian, specifically from the Kiergan bracklands which was a particularly charmless tract of land (roughly the size of Earth’s Arabian Peninsula), an extremely sparsely populated region but for mining cities and algae harvesting-towns. But Kiergan bred hard people, and Kuznetsova was no exception; she was shorter than most Aurorans, but her arms and legs were ever so slightly longer than seemed anatomically correct for her height (a genealogical trait in Novorosyians due to the extreme magnetic field of the belt of asteroids and minor planetoids in the planet’s orbit). She wore her oak-brown hair short and functional, her face very triangular for a female, and her thin mouth usually hid a snarky quip or barbed comment. Erica was often referred to as the “Averse Admiral” in navy scuttlebutt, having been promoted almost against her will over the course of her naval career. Joining the Royal Navy out of upper secondary because she didn’t really feel like joining her parents’ algae packing plant business, Erica had been given service and command opportunities other officers would have killed for. She had been a junior lieutenant on board a heavy cruiser during the First Pegasii Incursion, a light cruiser captain during the Midwinter Collapse, and forming one (the junior) third of a three-way rivalry as battleship captains with Lord Sélincourt and Lord Hartcastle during the Three Sisters, performing exemplary all the while retaining a complete no-nonsense attitude and a well-deserved notoriety as a hard ass. The numerous wrecks of Unbridled ships, war- and otherwise, left in her wake could attest to that. No wonder the Admiralty had stuck her with the most problematic and remote fleet posting in the entire Royal Union; if the situation required the stick, she was the perfect woman for the job, and she was also far enough away to not cause headaches in the home systems.

All of this raced through Commodore Philomena Cortez’ head as she poured coffee while Kuznetsova removed the last few sentences of her report on her computer, suspended in air as it was on an anti-gravity stand. Philomena, Phil among friends, was an ardent admirer of the Admiral, and luckily the professional affection was mutual. A fairly tall Cymran, Philomena also wore her black hair short, and she towered over her senior officer by over a head, but they both shared eyes like deep pools of brown.

“I thought you might want to know,” Cortez said as she placed the can back on the cart, “that the Erato and the Patroklos have finally arrived in-system after their lengthy detention in Zhongzhou. Captain Lady St.Eiron sends her apologies and her intention to work her division quickly into the overall battlespace structure of Lucidia Station… blah-blah, nothing you haven’t heard before.”

Kuznetsova lifted one corner of her mouth and blew air out of her nostrils.

“Great, the first semi-modern battlecruisers the Powers that Be have seen fit to pry out of Lady Suncrest’s fingers at Home Fleet are commanded by Lord Sélincourt’s very lady-wife. That’s wonderful, just absolutely wonderful.”

Philomena sat down in one of the chair opposite Erica’s office desk and opened the top pair of buttons of her black-gold tunic.

“Well, Ma’am, I’m at least happy that we got some capital ships that were made during the current king’s reign. Need I remind you how old your flagship King William II is?”

“No, thank you, I receive frequent unbidden reminders every time I walk down the decks and bulkheads of that old lady. I swear the engineering boys and girls spend more time re-filling cracks in the internal deck plating and repainting the roofs, than they do maintenance on the reactors and the electric systems. The ship creaks, Phil, she creaks.”

The pair was, incidentally, not on-board said aging man-of-war, rather in what originally had been a major orbital freight company CEO’s office, on board the civilian space station High Medina in geosynchronous orbit over Lucidia Major. Neither the Royal Navy nor Parliament had allocated any funds to construct a military orbital station in Lucidia, purely for the simple reason that neither wanted to be there in the first place. The Kingdom of Aurora had been more or less forced into absorbing Lucidia as a pseudo-dominion in 2799 after civil war had broken out between different cultural groups, with attempted genocide against Gen-Two people following in its wake. Then the Alliance had made the situation much harder in 2809 by “claiming the responsibility of interstellar security” in the Lorelei Region, cutting off the Lucidia Region from the rest of the Royal Union. The Aurorans didn’t like being in Lucidia, and the Lucidians for the most part didn’t like having the Aurorans there, but the local political situation was too strained for the Aurorans to just up sticks and leave. Begrudgingly, the Admiralty could recognise the strategic value of having a base of operations in the Alliance backyard, but the supply situation was a logistician’s worst nightmare, with the train running through the Co-Prosperity Sphere to the “south” before cutting “west” into Lucidia, adding about a month on top of an already month long trip from the Royal Union core. So, in lieu of making an orbital naval base, the Royal Navy had simply rented large parts of High Medina, and leased berthing space for their ships and paid for repairs in civilian drydocks in Lucidia orbit. And also paying through the nose in the process, with many of the Lucidians having no qualms overcharging the unwelcome guests.

“I’m quite sure you’re over-exaggerating about the state of your flagship, Captain Lambert and his crew is doing a tremendous job keeping her in fighting shape out here, considering she’s about fifty years old at this point.”

Cortez pursed her lips for a moment, evidently slightly unsure about something, which caught Kuznetsova’s attention.

“What is it?” she asked in a low voice, dreading the answer.

“That part about Lady Iphigenia joining us could have been a pretty nice segue if I had been on the ball. Instead, I think you’ll have to read for yourself,” the chief of staff said and fished a ‘com out from her inner tunic pocket and handed it to Erica.

The admiral thumbed the device to life as she saved the report draft on her computer and sat back in the chair, eyebrows furrowing. Her eyes skimmed the content of the missive from the civilian drydock and groaned as she read the last few sentences.

“Well, that more or less forces my hand doesn’t it?” she asked, but it was clearly a rhetorical question and Philomena didn’t answer.

“I really don’t need this on my plate as well as this other shit that’s heaped on top of it. I have the Captain-Master at Arms begging for me to puff my feathers up and send an e-letter to New Dumai’s police department and have them release the five Royal Marines they have incarcerated.”

“Why were they arrested?” Philomena asked as she rose and poured a cup of coffee for herself from the refreshment cart.

“The same old story,” Erica answered after a sip of her own, “leathernecks getting their booze on during shore leave, some drunk local couldn’t resist audibly calling the King a piece of shit and the Queen a cunt, and –this one is new actually– commending the Cordelia constabulary on their anti-civilian warfare skills.”

Philomena cringed at that, but Kuznetsova continued.

“So naturally the marines got very angry at the lèse-majesté and the quip about the recent tragedy in Cordelia, and decided that all the locals’ faces needed major reconstruction. So now I have half a section of Royal Marines up on charges of battery and disturbing public order. And the last thing I want to think about right now is bloody Lady la bloody Lune.”

She tapped her desk for a few pregnant moments, evidently thinking hard, whilst Philomena patiently sipped her coffee.

“Fine, fucking fine,” Kuznetsova said at length, pushing her chair back a bit from her desk.

“Send for someone to bring her to my office, if you would be a dear, Phil.”

The commodore hiked up one eyebrow and did a sort of nod towards the mechanical clock on the admiral’s desk.

“Ah,” Erica exclaimed, pulling back her left tunic cuff to look at her wristwatch as if she didn’t trust her desk clock, “she’s not sober at this time of day is she?”

Philomena shook her head and Erica groaned in exasperation.

“Fuck that, I need to tell her the news. Just send a yeoman to dunk her head in a pot of coffee and make her drink a cold shower.”

Commodore Cortez rose from the chair again and saluted.

“I will send for an orderly, though beg ma’am’s pardon if the order might be carried out in a slightly different order.”

Erica made a dismissive gesture with a gloved hand, smiling lopsided again as her chief of staff exited the ad-hoc office.

Sometime later, Lieutenant Commander Amelia Euxina Isobel de la Lune at a glance looked like a well put together officer of the Royal Navy. Her black and gold uniform was clean and pressed; her white beret was sharply put on, the tip pulled down over her right temple, her white gaiters spotless and correctly clipped over her polished black boots. But in trying to stand still in front of Vice Admiral Kuznetsova, it was obvious she was drunk, noticeably swaying a little and having trouble focusing her eyes on anything in particular.

“Had it not been for the present circumstances surrounding your situation, I would have had you up on charges.” Kuznetsova’s tone of voice was close to liquid nitrogen, and made the junior officer straighten up a bit, and her eyes started to moisten.

“N’xcuse, Ma’am,” she slurred in response. Erica and Philomena exchanged glances.

The “present circumstances” was the noble officer’s daily routine of waking up to her shift with all the professionalism expected by a RN officer, carrying out her assigned duties to the letter which for the most part was just keeping tabs on her crew, running simulation drills, and writing reports since Euphoria was still undergoing repairs. But as soon as her watch was over, she retired to her cabin and drank herself blind drunk, watching any and all news streams from Aurora, despite the several day time-lag.

“Look, Lady Amelia, might I call you that?” Kuznetsova didn’t wait for a response before continuing.

“You’re in a really shitty situation right about now, Lady Amelia, and I can commiserate. You have just arrived at a new posting having just been blasted by an ASN warship, following a gravitic slingshot manoeuvre which, to be honest, I don’t think anyone’s ever even theorised was possible. Personally, I admire the hell out of your conduct out there, as does my staff, but there are influential voices in Parliament who would like nothing more than to drag your noble arse into a military court, and hang you up by the proverbial balls just because of the international powder keg you’ve just inadvertently lit a taper to, by doing your bloody duty.”

If Amelia felt any anxiety at the prospect of a possible court martial ordered by Parliament, her facial expression didn’t betray her at all.

“Look,” Commodore Cortez said at length, “your poor destroyer is hurt beyond what our lads here at High Medina can fix. You’re getting an honourable discharge to return back to Auroran space, in order to repair your charge.”

The junior officer looked extremely confused, more than might be warranted by her somewhat drunken mind, and Vice-Admiral Kuznetsova felt a real pang of sympathy. There was a very good reason why Amelia got extremely drunk every damn day, and most of the RN personnel on High Medina knew why.

“Look, you’re up for a damn medal and a commendation. That manoeuvre of yours around what could only be described as a foreign warship with hostile intent that outweighed yours three times over, of course someone sent for your name to be included in the Year End Lists. At this rate, you’re going to receive more letters at the end of your already way too long name.”

Lady la Lune blinked a couple times, but managed to sharply salute.

“I am not worthy of said glory, ma’am,” she managed at length, somehow not slurring that much.

“Not with so many dead on my account.” Her last comment was almost a whisper, and tears welled in the corners of her glassy eyes.

“Look, Lady Amelia,” Kuznetsova said with genuine sympathy in her voice, “it’s not your fault that the Royfort opened fire, and that you lost five of your ship’s company. The official missive we’ve received from the Alliance Lorelei Fleet is that it had been intended as a warning shot, but there was an internal miscommunication. That they blame y-, the Royal Navy for forcing this miscommunication is just them trying to shift blame for their own ineptitude.”

“And you’re certainly blameless for the riots on in Cordelia and New Angers,” Cortez said, walking over to lay a hand on the junior officer’s shoulder.

“The Cordelia police are not used to crowds of this size and there was next to no warning for them to prepare, and as the Special Affairs Investigative Division have concluded, the complete lack of hands-on control by the CMPD leadership was the major cause of the tragic outcome of the riots. You’re literally hundreds of light years away, and you’ve done nothing apart from carrying out your duty as a King’s Officer to the letter, protecting the civilians in your care, without firing a single shot.”

Kuznetzova nodded vigorously in agreement.

“You’re a damn fine officer, Lady Amelia, but your ship has a big gaping hole in her side, and no amount of plasma welders and elbow grease is going to fix that. Euphoria needs to go back to Aurora or Amaranth for major overhaul, and her ship’s captain goes with her. And that’s final, so sober up, get your boys and girls back together; you launch tomorrow at twelve-hundred hours Zulu time.”

Lady la Lune’s mouth worked like she wanted to protest, but the sounds died in her throat, so she saluted instead.

“By your leave, ma’am,” she half-slurred instead, and following a dismissive wave from Kuznetsova, she turned on her heel and exited the office cabin.

“See to it,” Kuznetsova said as the hatch swished shut with a muted clack, “that her First Lieutenant, whoever they are, keeps a close eye on her. She’s going to need more than a few sessions with a psychiatrist once home. And maybe put a padlock on the wardroom liqueur cabinet.”

“I’ll pass the word, ma’am,” Cortez replied, saluted, and exited the cabin.

Kuznetsova tented her fingers over her mouth for a few moments, deep in thought, before an electronic bleep from her computer broke through her reverie, and hissing “idi v zhopu” under her breath, she returned to writing the report to the Admiralty.

Close to six-hundred light years away, Commander Andrea Picoletti was also muttering some choice curses under her breath, wondering why she had chosen to accompany the New Maltese Orbital Customs officer on HMS Constance to what had looked like just another routine search of an Alliance cargo hauler. She could have sent any other line or rote officer to accompany Tentente Antonio Molini on the inspection of the AMS Jasper Georgs II, but during a “lucid” moment born from boredom following months of on-and-off patrolling in the Livia System, she’d decided the change of scenery would do her good. Livia was home to the world of Augusta, a Suzerainty of New Malta world that served as a huge shipping and transport hub that connected the Royal Union centre with the large Alliance transit port of Sidhe in the Galloway System “just across” the border (in reality some forty light years). It was also the first port of call for any ship not coming from the Corridor and Corinth before entering St. John and New Malta, making the system one of the most congested gravity wells in the whole west-central part of Human Space. And the light cruiser HMS Constance was part of Force T, a motley collection of Royal Navy destroyers and cruisers that assisted the overstretched New Maltese Navy in policing the shipping in the system.

Alliance Merchant Ship Jasper Georgs II was of the same modular freighter core frame that the Alliance shipyards spat out on a weekly basis. A one-size-fits-none eleven-hundred metre long core of internal superstructure composed of bridge, living quarters, common areas, hydroponics, engineering spaces, the Mod. III Freighter Frame was a dirt cheap construct of Grade-C titanium alloys that could be modified into a myriad of configurations. The most common was to slap some bog-standard civilian industries mixed hydrogen/helium-3 fusion engines on these frames, and then attach huge external cargo containers to the pivots and struts of the main core. When transporting shipments like ice, ore, or liquid gas, there was no need to attach complex internal cargo spaces that had to be tied to the life support and electrical systems of the ship itself; one simply detached the containers and arrival and replaced them with new ones. When transporting goods that were less acclimatised to the cold and lack of oxygen of outer space, like livestock, electronics, or luxury goods, internal cargo space was required. AMS Jasper Georgs II was one of the latter ones, with four very large internal chambers. Checking the cargo against the provided manifest was extremely easy with external-loaded freighters; simply run a scan and look for anything that should not be there. Internal-loaded ships, when chosen for customs inspections, required boarding by customs duty officers and physical searches had to be carried out, which no one wanted to do. The merchant sailors hated it, the customs officers thought it was a bore, and it made the shipping line owners and cargo recipients grind their teeth at the time lost when a freighter had to come to absolute stop, be searched, before having to re-accelerate, which could sometimes eat up a whole day of transit.

Yet somehow, Tentente Molini had decided that Jasper Georgs II, out of the literally hundreds of non-Union civilian ships in the Livia System, merited a closer look. Royal Navy ships on border patrol duties were always assigned representatives from their host star nation’s customs and police services, simply because they didn’t technically have the jurisdiction to carry out searches of foreign civilian ships unless there was reason to believe they carried military hardware. That had gotten Constance’s sister Carcharodon in trouble half a year back in St. John, and in its wake Western Fleet senior staff had made sure to tell their ship commanders where the lay of the land was, judicially. Admiral Lord Hartcastle was done taking angry calls from the Alliant Diplomatic Service. But at this moment in time, Picoletti would have asked for literally any other customs officer than Molini.

“And I tell you, the manifest is not correct completed,” the Maltese half-shouted at the skipper of the Jasper Georgs for the third or fourth time, “you have not list of fourth cargo chamber properly filled out.”

His English was a bit broken, but he was getting his point across regardless, much to the chagrin of everyone present. The black-haired customs officer wasn’t particularly tall, but he had puffed out his black and blue uniform chest to a considerable degree, making him seem bigger than he physically was. It helped that standing directly behind him on the cargo bay deck were Picoletti and Ensign Cade Wheeler in their Royal Navy black and gold Action Dress, and –more significantly– a section of Royal Marines in all-black CQB armour, their integrated tactical helmet visors lowered, pulse carbines in hand. What Picoletti and the marines were picking up on which Molini evidently wasn’t, was the fact that they were more or less surrounded by about fifty No’vostokian merchant sailors, clad in overalls and greasy oversuits. And there were few smiles to be found on the faces of the crowd.

“And I’m telling you,” the skipper answered the Maltese through gritted teeth, “that the export-import agreement between the Marduk Region and the Suzerainty phytosanitary certification covers the transport of unrefined wood.” He slapped his handcom for emphasis, showing the frankly absurd amount of signed e-certificates from (among others) the Alliance Department of Interstellar Trade, the Novovostok National Trade Association, the Royal Union Trade Regulations Federation, and the Greater Marduk Indiaman Bureau. But Molini was not impressed, and showed the merchant captain his own ‘com as soon as he had scrolled far enough down the regulations handbook.

“The import of the three containers of Mardukian reed-mussels is legal, and correct put into your manifest, but the fourth chamber is of No’vostok jeunewood.”

“So? What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Jeunewood,” Molini continued, a cocky smile slowly forming on his face, “its roots go very deep into ground, and is very hard to, how do you say… scavare… dig out, and carry a lot of dirt with it. Had it been local-grown Earth redwood, or No’vostok brittlemaple, I would say ‘no problem, have a good day, sir’, but the phytosanitary provision in the Marduk-Suzerainty trade agreement makes explicit mention of it being illegal to carry fertile dirt outside controlled environment.”

The merchant captain, only differentiated from the rest of his crew by the peaked cap he wore and the lapels on his oversuit, produced a growling sound deep in the back of his throat. Picoletti could feel the tension in the cargo bay. The Jasper Georgs II had four large internal cargo chambers, three of which were sealed and reinforced aquariums holding all told several hundreds of thousands of living shellfish to be sold at the great fish market in St. Angelo City, harvested in the submerged reed forests of Cape Last Rest on Marduk. The fourth chamber held thousands of Novovostok jeunewood trunks, to be shipped to Corinth to be sold to the furniture and interior design industry there. The supplest part of the jeunewood trunk grew under the earth, and it was this that Tentento Antonio Molini was making such a pointless fuss about. Commander Picoletti had taken part in scores of stop-and-searches of merchant ships over her ten-year long naval career, and this was the first time she had seen a customs officer being so pedantic about the exact wording of the customs prohibitions. Yes, transporting soil between planets outside of specialised terramitic containers was a very bad idea, as it could spread diseases a planet’s biosphere had no immunity to, but trace amounts –like what could be found on wood logs– would be absorbed by the natural environment within milliseconds. This was nothing but posturing by the Maltese officer; he was enjoying having the muscle of Royal Navy officers and Royal Marines backing him up. However, given recent events, Aurorans were held in even lower regard than usual by the average Alliant, so what had once worked as a show of force now seemed more like an armed intrusion.

“No wonder they’re so on edge, imagine being stuck in this metal box for three weeks.”

The tinny voice in Picoletti’s right ear belonged to the Royal Marine corporal in charge of the ten-man section, speaking through the closed short range comms network that Picoletti’s and Wheeler’s radio-plugs hooked around their ears picked up. However, the integrated tactical helmets of the marines were equipped with a miniature version of a privacy shield, so their voices were muffled and to everyone around them, it sounded like melodic growling. It added another layer of intimidation to their already menacing battle armour; plate carriers, arami-steel armour pads on shoulders, elbows, pelvis, knees, lower back, and armoured gloves, complete with heavy gorgets which their helmets slotted into, a kinetic-web bodysuit worn underneath. The Royal Marine weapon of choice on-board spaceships were pulse carbines, medium barrel-length bullpup action weapons that fired short bursts of superheated plasma, using the same base technology as laser weaponry, but intensely miniaturised. Most weapons in Human Space were still old-fashion chemically powered ones, but pulse weapons were favoured on spaceships because of their high force, but relatively low kinetic energy; once a pulse round had hit something, it did horrific damage but lost all effective energy and vanished into non-heated gas, whilst a chemically powered bullet would still have abundant kinetic force and could keep going.

“This ship doesn’t have any internal viewscreens hooked up to external vid-feeds,” the corporal continued, “and the decks and hallways are bare factory-standard metal, no padding or clad corners. It’s a bloody husk, not a starship.”

The low warbling of his helmet made some of the Alliant sailors back off a bit, exchanging unsure glances.

“I am going to write a fine,” Molini droned on, theatrically pulling out an out-fashioned notebook and a pen from an inner pocket of his uniform tunic, “and you will have to talk to Augusta System Customs Officer when you dock. What is the name of your carrier line?”

The Alliant captain looked like he wanted nothing more than to break Molini’s nose with one of those huge blocks of meat that passed as his hands, clenching and unclenching them as he was, but he settled down after a few moments.

“This is cacking bullshit, you fucking jobsworth, and my ‘osses will send an army of lawyers at you once they learn of this.”

“Ah-ha, si, buono a sapersi, can I have name of these bosses so I know where the New Malta Customs can send the fine for trying to illegally, witting or unwitting, export illegal soil to foreign planets? Your illegal cargo will be confiscated also, of course.”

That produced sounds of protests and curses from the other merchant sailors, who now had to be most of the crew of the Jasper Georgs, and Andrea realised with a pang that their own group, thirteen strong, was almost completely surrounded but for the hatch that led out from the fourth cargo chamber back to the central causeway at their back. She wasn’t the only one who had realised, as the marines who had up to this point just been standing in a loose formation at the back behind the officers, started to move forward and put themselves between the sailors and the unarmoured and unprotected officers. The short bursts of warbling belied the tight and rapid back-and-forth between them, but did nothing to calm the crowd, watching these tall black armoured figures move up. Picoletti noticed tools half-hidden in the hands of some of them, and she broke out in a cold sweat.

“Lieutenant,” she hissed at Molini, who stood a few paces away from her, enraptured in what he no doubt deemed was a performance of judicial superiority, “I think this is not the time or place to press the legality of this. You can fill out a full report back on the Constance.”

He didn’t even deign to look back at her as he replied.

“Nonsense, Capi’ di’Freg Piccoletti, this might not be important to you Royal Navy, but it is of high importance that the economic defence of New Malta is enforced. Your job is to sail and shoot, mine is to inspect and confirm. Now, Mr Barkov, who were your bosses again?”

“Ma’am,” young Ensign Cade Wheeler whispered as he pulled close up to Andrea’s left arm, “I don’t think we should say here much longer, I don’t much care for the looks the Greens are giving us.”

Piccoletti could only nod in agreement as she quickly looked around the sailors almost surrounding them. There was a nasty tendency among most civilians to regard merchant sailors as nothing more than ambulating teamsters-cum-space truckers that loaded a freighter, went off to where the cargo was to be delivered, and then went back the other way with a new cargo. In reality, they were extremely tough and weathered space hands who lived and worked in much, much worse conditions than naval crews did, and were much more accustomed to laborious tasks. The merchant sailors standing around the Aurorans were sinewy and strong despite their disparate planetary backgrounds.

“Quite right, Ensign, I think we need to consider continuing this discussion further when we’re back on the Constance. Mr Panchel, warm up the engines and prepare for a relatively immediate evac.”

“Aye aye, ma’am,” was the response from the pilot of the Falconet shuttle they’d arrived in, waiting in the miniscule boat bay of Jasper Georgs II, “ready for skids-up in six minutes.”

“Listmann-Wawate, eh?” Molini said out loud, repeating what the skipper had told him and jotting it down on his notepad, “I’ve never heard of these before, strange that they are affording to be shipping mussels in such an expensive manner. It makes me suspicious, are they a civilian firm of Amadeus? MAIG?”

“You better shut your cacking mouth, Red,” a very brawny looking female mechanic in the crowd growled, “or someone might shut it for you!”

“It is well known,” Molini hissed, completely oblivious to the rapidly escalating proverbial temperature in the cargo chamber, “that large Alliance military industry companies have civilian front-companies to boost profit. Not legal by Royal Union laws, Patra non, and not by Alliance law I think, but so it is.”

“You’re either insanely brave, or insanely suicidal,” some other Alliant sailor said, this time from behind Picoletti and Wheeler, “to say shit like that in the position you’re in now.”

“Fucking Aurorans or Maltese, they’re all the same, arrogant pricks who think you rule the galaxy.”

“We’re honest folks trying to earn a living, and you march on our deck with guns to give us fines for cack we have no control over; we don’t decide our cargo.”

“Methinks Royfort should have fired an entire broadside instead of a single gun!”

That last comment prompted the simple shout of “Royal Marines!” from the corporal, and in the blink of an eye, the marines had carbines at the ready, quick-stepping to spread out in order to cover as much of the surrounding mass of sailors. Piccoletti and Wheeler barely realised the soldiers had moved before armoured gloves closed on the back of their uniform collars and, irrespective of their rank, yanked them back into the protective schiltron that the Royal Marines had made.

“Stand down, stand down!” Andrea shouted, but the sudden movement on the part of the marines had triggered some aggressive animalistic instinct in the Alliants, their apparent fury bubbling just underneath their cognitive surface already. They started to shout expletives and only the threat of the marines’ pulse rifles training quickly to cover every angle stopped them from following up on their curses.

“Fucking Aurorans, get the cack off our ship!”

“Go back to your aristo hell-hole and leave us alone.”

“Hey officer-lady, how about you stop hiding behind your stormtroopers and face a real man?”

“Scusa’, cosa stai fac-aaAAGH”

That last shout didn’t come from any of the merchant sailors, Andrea realised, as she in the corner of her eye watched Tentento Antonio Molini get dragged down to the deck by three large sailors, as he was outside the protective cordon of the marines. Unfortunately, Ensign Wheeler observed the same, and with a shout he jolted towards the group that was holding down the Maltese customs officer, but he lost his balance and bumped into a Royal Marine. Said Royal Marine was covering that exact part of the mob around them, but Royal Auroran Marines were not trained in crowd control. They were specialist Close-Quarter-Combat troops, finely honed weapons to be unleashed in order to complete the sort of objectives that less well-trained troops were unable to do. Royal Marines could capture a heavily defended and entrenched hill position, seize a building complex full of hostiles, or swiftly and effectively board and capture a spaceship; that was what they trained for and excelled at. But when faced with civilians, which they were trained from the first day at Training Camp Royal Marines on the Auroran moon of New Lysithea were both non-combatants and targets that should nominally be protected at all costs, came at them with hostile intent and with makeshift items that could and should in this current context be regarded as weapons, the Royal Marines hesitated and second-guessed themselves.

And when Ensign Cade Wheeler stumbled over his own feet in a selfless attempt to help the Maltese who was being accosted and frankly in the process of being beaten to a pulp by angry Novovostokian sailors who were taking out what could be described as centuries of pent-up aggression on his persona, he bumped into Marine Ann Mycroft. Marine Mycroft was even younger than Ensign Wheeler, all of twenty, but the year-long Royal Marine Commando training regimen had made the Nova Caledonian one of the most effective soldiers Human Space had ever seen. However, the lack of experience with dealing with sort of situation made her fall back on her training and force of habit ingrained through literally hundreds of hours of ship-boarding action practice. Bracing against the sudden weight on her back, instinct flaring and mentally picturing it to be a fallen comrade (or worse, officer), her trigger-finger slid into place and pulled.

A quick burst of super-heated plasma energy spat from her pulse rifle, sounding almost like a wetted drill rapidly punching holes in a thin foil of metal. The pulse rounds didn’t have far to travel before they pierced a thin layer of clothing, followed a few microseconds later by making short work of human flesh, just as intended. Four Novovostokian sailors were hit by the very short burst of only nine rounds, and they all died instantly, the pulse rounds exploding into super-heated gas once the initial penetrative energy was spent, that is to say, well inside their torsos. A welter of bits and gore sprayed out as the exploding gas forced the frail meat and organ matter outwards, preferably out the same whole the plasma rounds had created in the first place, resulting in small geysers of bloody jet of ruined human insides through very small holes.

For all of two seconds everyone were transfixed as the lifeless, blood-spurting bodies of the four sailors fell to the deck floor, Auroran and Alliants alike. The trance was broken when a heavy metal spanner suddenly hit Marine Mycroft right in the middle of her visor and he fell to her knees, and would have dropped her pulse rifle had it not been attached to her plate carrier via a spring-cord.

“Royal Marines!” Corporal Harmseel shouted into his helmet microphone, “Fall back to the shuttle, cordon formation, protect the officers at all costs!”

The shock among the sailors had truly been replaced by fury, and where some where throwing objects, others were threatening to physically attack the Royal Marines with anything from heavy mechanical tools to galley cutlery. Commander Andrea Picoletti was being torn both figuratively and literally. Figuratively, she was torn between the duty of getting her women and men back to the safety of Constance, while at the same time they hadn’t been able to secure Antonio Molini, and he was most likely at this very moment being turned into mincemeat by angry Greens. The literally part was that she had no say in the matter, a Royal Marine who had about a foot of height and forty kilos of weight on her was dragging her by her tunic collar with one hand, the other training a pulse rifle down the corridor they just left. She managed to key her ear-radio after a bit of fumbling.

“Mr Panchel, if that bird is not ready in thirty seconds, we’re not leaving this ship ever, do you hear me?”

“Ah, aye ma’am, AQ-91 ready for skid-off!”

“Then lower the fucking ramp and don’t ask any questions until we’re about forty-thousand clicks away from this blasted ship!”

The rear ramp of the RANIG (Royal Auroran Navy Industrial Group) Falconet Mk.VII Protective Shuttle (Transport) piloted by Flight Lieutenant Arjun Panchel was down by the time the Royal Marine section of Justin Harmseel arrived a few minutes later. Unceremoniously, Marine Burgess and Marine Mycroft (bleeding profusely to the point where blood had started to pool in her armoured gorget) shoved the Royal Navy officers up the shuttle ramp, while the rest of the section covered the single entryway to the boat bay. Two by two, the Royal Marines filed into the shuttle as well, until it was only Harmseel and Lance Corporal Swan left.

“We’re going to leave the Maltese for dead?” Erin Swan asked, already knowing the answer.

“You saw the state we left that room in,” Corporal Harmseel answered, “he was practically dead the moment the Greens got their greasy hands on him.”

“Wonder how this will work out in the media, not to mention Parliament,” Swan answered as she trained her rifle across the various boxes and assorted tool kits scattered on the Jasper Georgs II boat bay deck floor.

“Ours is not to reason,” Harmseel replied, no shred of sarcasm in his voice, “get on the damn shuttle and I’ll be right behind you.”

The Falconet shuttle blasted off into the ether thanks to the override codes they’d been provided with from the AMS Jasper Georgs bridge forty-five minutes before in order to land in the freighter’s boat bay. His Majesty’s Ship Constance, a proud and vigilant Canterbury-class light cruiser, was locked to the electronic signature of the Jasper Georgs II, and as such hovered at what could be considered really close range, about two-hundred thousand kilometres away.

“Get me Commander Caysār,” Andrea Picoletti demanded, having stumbled her way in the zero-gee of passenger compartment of AQ-91 and into the cockpit and pilots’ compartment. Under normal launch circumstances, the whole hull of a Falconet would have been pressurised and anti-grav plates would have gone into action. But when called to crash-launch, that went out the window, which was why Andrea was only attached to the shuttle’s deck via her magnetic boots, whilst the rest of her uniform was dancing up and down, including her ankle skirts (she, like every other RAN officer wore trouser underneath, but there was still some unnerving energy about skirts lifting, regardless of gender)

“Ah, good to hear from you ma’am,” the languid voice of Commander Oliver Caysār replied over the comms. “Trust you didn’t find anything much of interest, ma’am, since you’re due back so soo-”

“I want you to point every targeting laser we have on the Jasper Georgs II, I want to see her hull melting to a slag under the force of the gamma radiation!”

“Uh, ma’am, I’m not sure I follow…”

“And prepare the rest of the Royal Marine platoon for immediate boarding action, CQB armour and all. Oh, and the Peregrine assault shuttles in case the Greens close their boat bay! Load them all up, sir!”

“Ma’am, I’m sorry, what happened over there?”

“I will explain in good time, but just know that right now, time is of the essence. And prepare the medical bay, we have a few wounded coming in.”

Lieutenant Hannah Lowell was about as dead on her feet as was possible without actually collapsing. Her black-gold Action Dress tunic was unbuttoned all the way down, revealing the tall-collar white shirt underneath which in some circles of the Royal Navy officer corps was regarded as completely unbecoming for a commissioned officer to show to the mere ranks. Hannah Lowell, having just completed a full fourteen-hour watch, couldn’t have given less of a shit. Certain decks and hallways of Euphoria were still unavailable due to the low structural integrity of their port side broadside batteries, and most crews chose to stick to the starboard or central hallways. The destroyer was a fair deal calmer now, due to the overall detriment of the crew’s morale; they were being sent home without even being given the chance to taste the frontier posting proper. The old hands at Lucidia Station had informed them that was a good thing, but for some of the fresh King William graduates that the Euphoria carried on board, it was more like a professional slap in the face. No matter, Lowell mused as she downed the last of the coffee of her thermocup, I’m not one of those, my family is old Navy aristocracy, I’ll be commanding a squadron of these destroyers in eight years’ time anyway. Checking her mechanical wristwatch, she realised it was time for the actual captain to rise and attend the morning watch. She looked around the hallway, making sure she was alone, before letting out a long sigh. Commodore Philomena Cortez, Chief of Staff of RN Lucidia Station had approached her personally to make sure Lady la Lune didn’t rustle more trouble on their homeward trip. That had been an awkward conversation. Hannah Lowell respected the Lady la Lune, having done so long before the flashy manoeuvre that would most likely go down in naval history with la Lune’s name attached to it. But Hannah also had to admit that these past few weeks had seen the very same noble officer drowning her guilt in copious amounts of strong alcohol, and that was something the Royal Navy certainly did not approve of.

Suddenly, Hannah realised she stood in front of Lady la Lune’s cabin hatch. Euphoria had to give over their platoon of Royal Marines to Lucidia Station, especially since they were going back to the Royal Union and home space through the Co-Prosperity Sphere and not through overtly hostile space. Normally, there would be a pair of Royal Marine sentries presenting Lowell with salutes as she approached the captain’s cabin, but circumstances change.

Instead, Hannah simply rapped her knuckles on the metal hatch five times.

“Lady Amelia,” she said pretty loudly, “it’s your shift, your First Lieutenant is asking for permission to fall face first into my bunk.”

There was no answer, which didn’t disturb Hannah much; Lady la Lune was a creature of habit as she would be in the bathroom and shower for fifteen minutes, and then fix her long blonde hair, before putting on her Action Dress, before stepping outside to be confronted with the rest of her destroyer’s crew.

Had the Royal Marines still been aboard, Lowell would have left it to one of the sentries to inform the captain that the First Lieutenant had been there to inform her to report to her station. But alas, the Royal Marine platoon they’d carried from Kitezh had had to stay behind on Lucida. So, it fell to poor Lieutenant Hannah Lowell to absorb yet another duty on her roster.

“Lady Amelia,” she announced loudly, “I’m coming in.”

Lowell swiped her finger against the scanner on the left side of the Captain’s Cabin door. The hatch swooshed open, and Lowell sat her thermocup down on the desk close to the door on the inside.

“Really, you don’t have to save on lights in your own cabin, it’s like you have something to hi-”

Lieutenant Hannah Lowell’ train of thought caught in its tracks as she saw the boots dangling about her eye-height, and she immediately sprang into action, almost stumbling over the chair Lady la Lune had used to stand on.

“Help!” she shouted at the top her lungs.

“Someone fucking help me!”

She wasn’t sure what was helping most; basic first aid theory at King William’s or natural instinct. No matter, Hannah lifted up Amelia’s legs first whilst shouting for help. A pang of resentment hit her for all of half a second; if the Royal Marines had still been on station, they’d picked up on this much sooner.

“Ma’am, what is the prob- OH FUCK!”

“GET HER LEGS UP, GET THEM UP!”

“JORDAN, GET IN HERE, HELP THE FL!”

“PUT THE CHAIR UP, ALTAY, GET IT UP!”

In the end, they managed to get the Lady de la Lune back down, after one of the Petty Officers having identified that the belt hung by a lamp-fixture in the ceiling was a high-quality Mess Dress leather belt that wouldn’t have broken under nearly any circumstances. In other words, the PO concluded, had not Hannah been there to prevent the suicide-attempt, the lady would have most certainly been dead, far beyond the point modern medicine in the 29th century was able to circumvent.

“What do we do with the Lady la Lune, ma’am?” Ensign Anna Gallagher asked in a very uncertain tone as she turned her Assistant Operations Officer’s chair around to face Lieutenant Hannah Lowell, seated as she was in the upholstered captain’s chair on the command dais of the Euphoria. Lowell pinched her temples with both hands.

“Keep her under observation in medbay for the rest of the trip, but don’t give her any strong sedatives. Large amounts of alcohol and opiates is a very bad combination I think. If she comes to and asks for more strong spirits, fucking give it to her, but in medium amounts. We’re a bloody Royal Navy destroyer, not a hospital ship; she needs therapy once we get back to Amaranth. Fucked if I know how to deal with this.”

Hannah looked around the bridge following that last comment, noticed the shifting glances and the unsure expressions. She sighed, before punching the all-ship tannoy key.

“This is Lieutenant Hannah Lowell speaking. I am sorry to inform you that Lieutenant-Commander Lady de la Lune is for the time being indisposed, and I am certain you’re mature enough human beings to accept that she has been around the ringer these past few months. As have we all, but Lady la Lune has had to bear the majority of the blame. We’re homebound towards the core systems now, and I’ll be your captain for the remainder of this journey. Gods be my witness this is not how I wanted to earn my first command, but here I am and here we all are. I trust we all will carry out our duty to the King, the Navy, and to the people of the Kingdom and the Royal Union. Captain Lowell out.”

“Oh, can someone send up another thermocup of coffee? I may have just started a double-shift, and caffeine would be appreciated.”