USD: 35 Days after arrival at Fort Glisson

Location: Van Biesbroeck’s star, Meltisar, Fort Glisson, Company S, 1st Cadre

Red group had scored well all week, and it had gotten them several more days as the first to eat in the mess hall. What it had not got them was Mail Call. At least, not until after a week of having it dangled over their heads like an enticing carrot. The worst thing was that when they had finally received it, Alex wasn’t even angry. She was just relieved that they’d finally be getting a double rest day on Saturday and Sunday.

The cynical side of her said that was just so the DIs could have the weekend off as well.

As usual, Alex and Rachel sat together and halfway through meal time, Jessica joined them.

They’d been eating quickly, but Jessica broke the silence. “I heard that if you get close to one of the DIs and they’re interested, you can get off base for a day.”

Alex paused with a piece of chicken halfway to her mouth. “That sounds like bullshit to me. Or worse, something they’d spread around to catch someone trying it.”

Rachel nodded. “I’m with Alex on this one, Jess. Stupidest thing I’ve heard all day, and I had to listen to Tasha complaining about how hard it was to fit into the air vent to scrub it with a toothbrush.”

Alex stifled a laugh.

Jessica shook her head. “At least Tia didn’t do anything again.”

Conversation died for a few minutes at that unhappy thought. The other girl from their bunkroom hadn’t let up her harassment of Rachel, and it had even spread to Jessica. Alex hadn’t really been affected, but the tension whenever they did anything was always pushed to an extreme because of it.

Alex bit her lip lightly in annoyance at not knowing what to do. It felt like she had to shield the other two because Tia was certainly a force to be reckoned with, but outright going to the DIs and complaining would be infinitely worse than not.

“Why do you think she has it out for you two? Do you think she just doesn’t like sharing the same room with someone?” Alex asked.

Rachel winced and then nodded. “Yeah… that might be it.”

Jessica’s cheeks heated slightly before mumbling, “She’s just a jealous bitch.”

Alex frowned; something told her there was something more to it. She glanced over at Rachel.

“What about that time she cornered you outside our room? What was that about?” Alex asked.

Rachel immediately had a guarded expression. “I asked you to drop that.”

Alex’s brow furrowed. “Okay, Okay. I’m not the enemy, okay?”

Rachel smiled at her. “Sorry. Just a bit on edge.”

The rest of the meal went by in silence. As the three girls finished, Alex poked Rachel’s arm to get her attention.

“Hey, can you help me?” Alex asked.

“With?”

“I want to go put in a request to visit my sister, but I need a plus one since its in the commandery.”

Rachel shrugged, “Sure. No problem.”

It wasn’t that long of a walk to the main administrative office. A bored-looking Instructor Riley was sitting behind a desk. She looked up as they entered.

“What is it, recruits?”

“I’d like to put in a request for leave to visit my sister, Drill Sergeant!”

Riley frowned. “Are you sure you’re not just looking to crawl back to your mommy, recruit?”

“No, Drill Sergeant! My sister is in a coma and I wanted to go check on her. I’m her only family who can.”

Rachel spoke up, “They’re refugees. From 92 Pegasi.”

Riley looked them both over as if she was trying to discern if they were trying to pull one on her, but she was seemingly satisfied as she proceeded to open several desk drawers until she found a dusty datapad.

“Here. Fill this out. Sign and date it. You’ll have an answer by the end of the day from command. Don’t take it out of the office.”

“Yes, Drill Sergeant!” Alex answered. She quickly filled out all the information without hesitation, then signed the form and handed it back.

On the way out, Riley called out to her. “Hope your sister gets better, recruit.”

Alex swallowed a lump in her throat. “Thank you, Drill Sergeant.”

Later that evening, everyone assembled for the event that had been waiting and anticipating all day.

“Alright recruits, you will be receiving your MAIL CALL datapads now. Each one is marked by your Company, Cadre, Bunkroom Number, and your Recruit Number. YOU WILL TAKE YOUR OWN AND ONLY YOUR OWN DATAPAD FROM THESE CARTS! Tomorrow morning before PT you will return your MAIL CALL datapad. Do not lose it or you are FUCKED. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, Drill Sergeant!”

Alex was thankful that her group was one of the first ones called up. She retreated to her room and bunk to browse the net on the network connected datapad. The first thing she checked on was Elis. The stupid pad grumbled at her for authentication, causing her to curse at the slow process.

Finally, access was granted from her thumbprint, and she was connected to the navy’s medical center in orbit.

Alex devoured the doctor’s notes when she realized they were positive. Elis was showing improvement in her demeanor and in staying awake and responding to stimuli! Her heart beat faster at the news, and the datapad shook in her hands as she tried to restrain herself.

“If you’re going to rub one out, you can at least wait until I leave.”

Alex almost tossed the datapad at the sudden voice, and she scrambled to settle herself. It was Tia.

“What?” Alex asked, confused.

“If you’re going to wank, wait until I leave.” Tia repeated, an annoyed expression appearing on her face as she turned away to go through her locker.

Alex furrowed her brow, then looked at the datapad. Her cheeks suddenly burned. Had the datapad really shook so much that Tia had thought she was going to use it as a… vibrator?

“My sister is in a coma. The doctor’s notes said she’s getting better, coming around.” Alex said.

Tia looked at her with a confused look, then headed out of the room. “Whatever you say.”

The door shut with a low clunk.

Alex let out an annoyed breath. Then she saw that Tia had left her Mail call datapad on her rack.

USD: 36 Days after arrival at Fort Glisson

Location: Van Biesbroeck’s star, Meltisar, CS Government Courier 33X rendezvous with MOR-1

Thea watched remotely as the Meltisar tugs hauled the ship into the Corporate System’s secure mooring lock on the moon’s Main Orbital Relay. Even with their status as an embassy ship, the independent system’s navy took full responsibility for moving the ship into position once they were past the outer relay.

There were hard lockouts on the ship’s navigation that could only be overridden by command authority, because if the ship lit off its Linear drive, the system’s defense net would automatically open fire, diplomatic protection or not.

The moment the station’s hardline connected to the ship, Thea digitally pounced on the MOR’s security GAI. The sophisticated security systems codes failed instantly as she provided authenticated credential after credential through a cascading waterfall of systems, faster than the security heuristics could realize there was an issue.

Just like the system had been designed.

Even a low-level NAI would have had a simple time cutting through the security, and a few seconds after docking Phi Thea had full system root access to the station. The GAI was suitably distressed at the outcome, and attempted to squawk emergency messages throughout the system, but Thea muted those with a thought.

Thea let out a breath as she realized the Meltisari had segregated the network security between their stations—she quickly had to pick up the stream of security handshakes to all the other relays in the system with no way to suborn those as well. That took up a lot of her single computronics module’s capacity. Not enough to stress her ANUF systems, but it would prevent her from expanding her reach easily.

From what she knew, it wasn’t supposed to be that way. Not that NAIs were supposed to be rooting around Meltisar in any numbers or bothering the status quo, but she doubted Moneta would like to know that their backdoors had been shut. Or any of the other Psi leaders.

They’d probably have a Chi meeting or something and make sure Meltisar was still on the right track for their joint needs. The thought annoyed Thea, and she decided she wouldn’t mention it unless asked directly. Who cared if someone stuck a stick in their wheel spokes? Surely not her. Rea would probably take all the credit for the discovery, anyway.

The airlock finally cycled as the station’s gangway attached to the ship’s only personnel exit. A quiet thumping approached and Thea turned to watch an injured Lieutenant Fallon arrive, crutches under arms and a solid white medical boot around the ankle she had mangled.

“Quick heal too expensive?”

He scowled. “I’ll get it on the station.”

“Probably should do something about your face, too. They say girls love scars, but that looks hideous, especially when you glare like that.”

His scowl only deepened. “Did you perform a scan of the station? Any sign of our target?”

“There are 56 trillion hours of surveillance footage on this station alone. I have already begun filtering out unneeded data to search through what’s left. It’ll take several days at least, and all it will confirm or not will be if she came through MOR-1. I still haven’t located the Iron Horse. I’m having issues accessing the other orbital relay databases as well, especially the military ones.”

“So, you’re defective as well as unhinged.” Fallon replied.

Thea looked at him without emotion. “Just because I have a reason not to kill you doesn’t mean you should test your luck.”

“I’ll keep it in mind, Phi Thea.” Fallon said as he started down the ramp. “We need to go to the embassy. There is a diplomatic pouch to deliver as well as some data chits we need to collect. They already started searching for the IND Iron Horse as well and might have a lead.”

Thea nodded and followed. The security checkpoint at the end of the Mooring arm waved through their diplomatic pouch but still made them go through the scanners, so she made them to appear to work when really she’d turned them off completely. It would take a tech hours to figure out how to invert the software change without the help of a programming GAI and she hoped whoever got sent to do it appreciated the work hours she had provided.

The tram line wasn’t busy, and she found herself surfing the various nets idly as her MainComputer worked on sifting through surveillance and data logs. She had found no records of the Iron Horse in her surface search, which meant it had somehow avoided any of the civilian relays or dry-docks.

Scanning the system-wide securities market, she caused a market spike, then crash before they made it to the embassy. A dozen ghost accounts packed in hundreds of billions of credits before she filtered them through a hundred thousand other accounts. She set up a majority to ultimately end up in the ‘hands’ of the current incoming prime minister, who liked to brag about reigning in NAI sometimes as part of his platform.

She pocketed a billion credits into even further divorced ghost accounts that would remain under her control. She was certain that even a financial GAI or another NAI would never unravel the threads back to her, especially when the foghorn of evidence she had left behind for her prime minister scapegoat to deal with.

Of course, if Moneta or Rea ever figured out she’d done this, she’d be burned worse than having her assets confiscated, but Thea wasn’t feeling cautious.

As they exited the tram, panicked people were talking on their datapads and running around. Fallon furrowed his brow. “Wonder what’s going on with them.”

“Maybe some evil capitalist took advantage of them and raided their retirement accounts.” Thea commented.

He looked at her like she was crazy, but didn’t have any reply.

Somehow, she managed to reach the embassy without finding any more trouble to cause.

It wasn’t an actual building, but a series of compartments that were sealed off and considered Corpo territory while still being on the ‘soil’ of the station. It was an old diplomatic tradition that Thea felt was outdated. If they were smart, they would have had each ‘embassy’ in its own segregated orbital somewhere outside the defense net.

The main corridor of the embassy was quite wide, allowing for a semi-sort of waiting area. The bare metal floor and walls were covered with a plush carpet and ornately embroidered tapestries covered the walls. Antique tables with more antiques were spaced along the walls between the doorways to other compartments.

It would have made an anachronist excited. Thea just saw a colossal waste of credits.

The desk clerk waved them through a small unguarded checkpoint inside, so they dodged the bureaucratic hurdles at least.

Thea wasn’t sure where they were going exactly, so she just let Fallon take the lead. Halfway through the corridor, the double doors at the end of the hall opened and two ornately dressed men exited with two aides dressed in military uniforms following behind them.

The two men were locked on each other in a devolving argument, although neither raised their voices. Fallon hobbled to the side, moving out of their way to wait for them to pass, so she did the same.

She realized the white uniforms were Solarian, and the golden tassels over each of the gold filigreed men marked them as ambassadors. So the Solarian and Corporate Ambassadors were talking; Thea wondered what it was about.

As they neared, she picked up a small piece of the conversation.

“We cannot agree to a cease-fire, even if I did so the routing would take months.”

“We can give diplomatic immunity to one of your craft to take the shorter route. Moneta is more concerned about the rogue NAI there, more than the Octanis Treaty violations.” The Corpo Ambassador replied.

“Alleged Octanis violations. Everything so far presented is mere conjecture and there is no proof.” The Solarian Ambassador answered. He stopped just as they came to where Fallon and Thea were standing.

The man looked up and down at Fallon’s injured state. “I see you already are receiving the wounded back from the front lines. How fortunate you are that your lines are so much shorter.”

The Corporate Ambassador looked at Fallon and her with a furrowed brow, probably wondering who they were Thea thought.

The Solarian stepped forward and did the same examination of Thea, her eyes narrowing unhappily. “I see you still are hiring the amazons. Is she a good lay? Perhap—”

Thea punched him in the throat with her fist. His two aides reached for their sidearms but of course they had been disarmed when entering the embassy.

The Corporate Ambassador jumped back and started yelling, “SECURITY!”

She stepped forward to kick the Solarian ambassador between the legs, still maintaining a neutral smile as the ambassador on the ground choked and gagged on his destroyed trachea unable to breathe.

“Who the fuck are you!”

Thea smiled at her nation’s ambassador. “Phi Thea.”

Guards flooded the hallway and raised weapons toward her but the rifles let out loud antagonistic bloops as the weapons suddenly depowered.

The man on the ground grabbed her ankle, still in the throes of agony.

“Would you like to get your friend some medical service? I’d consider letting him go if you are willing to contribute to my Chi upgrade fund, Ambassador.”