(NERV Game Site – Official DAtS Offline Forums)

Number5Alive, Golddigger, BurtBacharach, CrazyCelt, Blaze, DoYouEvenLyft?, MarcoPolo, MightMakesRight, l33tpally, Bennie, SEA-TAC_Sweetie, Requiesce-in-Pace, MacD, HaveGunsWillTravel, Guardian, GunKitty, Chummer, Inquisitor, SemiSolidSnake, ElfMama, Not_the_Face!, Anonymous3, Anonymous4, Anonymous7, Anonymous9, AggregatorOfSorrows, M.Mollen, WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot, Dolcett, Backlog, DarkAvariel, Knocker, Hullu_Kapteeni, GrimDark, BloodForTheBloodGod, Queen’s_Bitch, BackDat@55Up, DoYouEvenDPS?, MajorTom, Parca, and DarkAngel are in the chat.

Number5Alive: Holy crap, have you seen the reports coming out of the Ihm Imperium? First dungeon discovered, and it looks to be brutal for starting teams.

Knocker: They just put out an announcement, suggesting it be for ‘experienced groups’.

Anonymous3: I heard there was this one guy who was going to try and solo it!

SemiSolidSnake: ‘Try’ being the operative word. Unless they’re a ninja or something, the captures we’ve seen of the dungeon are going to be nasty for a solo player.

Knocker: Well, that’s the point of dungeons, right? Help force people to group up?

Bennie: True. But I’m wondering how often you can run it. If you get a high-level group and grind it…

Inquisitor: Not possible. First group to clear said there’s a limit on dungeons. Only 4 clears per in-game month.

Backlog: So you stop before the boss room each time.

Inquisitor: Someone in the devs’ office thought of that, too. They have scripts looking for people who start a run and then stop it repeatedly. Unless you’re going to let a mob kill you and eat the death penalty repeatedly…

DoYouEvenDPS?: Well, that’s something, at least. You’ll still have to play the game to advance, instead of just grinding through dungeons to get to max level.

Parca: IS there a max level?

Blaze: No one knows. We know skills max out, but no one knows if the character level does.

MightMakesRight: Come on, Parca, your boss has to know.

M.Mollen: I’m only level 40.

l33tpally: What?!? How? With all the stuff you’ve done?

M.Mollen: Turns out I don’t have the right titles and certifications for Fleet Command. So sitting back and commanding battles in fleet actions doesn’t give me nearly as much level XP as it would, say, an actual Admiral.

Blaze: Damn, that’s harsh.

M.Mollen: Eh, not really. I basically set the pieces on the board, and then turn them loose. Once the battle begins, the Captains fight their ships. All I do is send new target priorities to the ships and wing commanders if necessary.

SEA-TAC_Sweetie: So you fought off a X’thari invasion and didn’t get any XP?

M.Mollen: Oh, I got some, just a fraction of what I would have gotten. Most of my XP for the battle came when I came up with the maneuver that allowed Shinokage to destroy her dreadnought.

M.Mollen: Actually got more XP fighting the Kul’tirans, since it was just my little freighter against three of their warships.

ElfMama: How did you pull that off? People are whispering that you have FTL missiles now!

M.Mollen: I used FTL torpedoes to destroy the ships, yes. Basically, just take a small FTL drive and physically remove the safeguards that keeps it from slamming into something large, like a ship or a planet. There’s some other stuff, but that’s the basics.

DarkAngel: How does that not violate the treaties?

M.Mollen: If I used it on a planet or moon, it would. The treaties don’t apply to ships. And since tarpits were a thing the research on this has been abandoned.

GrimDark: Did you really need another way to hideously overpower your ships?

M.Mollen: Yes, actually. While we didn’t lose as many big ships at Nuevo Edo as I’d feared, we lost a lot of our gunboats and there were a lot of casualties even on the ships that physically survived the battle.

Guardian: Especially in First Group, where we didn’t have bombers backing us up.

Parca: …

GunKitty: Now Parca, you know that’s nothing on you. An interceptor and bomber have different roles. Like a pistol and a rifle.

Requiesce-in-Pace: Speaking of rifles, the one you made for me is still working like a gem. And thanks, M.Mollen, for that ‘convenient tip’ on an upcoming bounty. I was there to claim it the moment it went live.

M.Mollen: Always glad to help.

WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot: Wait, so how’d you know that a bounty was going to be placed on the deputy of the Shining Path faction before it was announced?

M.Mollen: Because I happened to see the evidence the executors saw before they did.

ElfMama: Wait! Does that mean you killed those Shining Path people?

M.Mollen: Me? Why, I can assure you that no one of my description entered that building any time close to the event in question, and I had most recently been spotted seducing another Senator and taking her to a hotel for a lovely day in bed. Room Service can confirm me ordering food throughout the day.

DarkAvariel: So ‘I was fucking a Senator’ is your alibi?

M.Mollen: Indeed. And by this point, anything that comes out to the contrary will be wild speculation and completely unprovable conspiracy theories.

HaveGunsWillTravel: *snickers* They really didn’t know who they were dealing with.

Hullu_Kapteeni: You would think that if the Military, Intelligence, and Underworld all agreed that it was suicide to do this, they would learn, but politicians are the same everywhere, it seems.

Backlog: So what is next for Black Star? Going to go hit the dungeon in Ihm space?

M.Mollen: No, I don’t want to steal the thunder of the people over there. We’ve still got some rebuilding to do, and expansion plans are in place, but for now, I was thinking about just sitting back and being a freighter captain for a while.

BloodForTheBloodGod: Really? That doesn’t sound like you at all.

M.Mollen: Well, if I happen to find some undiscovered dungeons, I’ll try my hand. But I never set out to be a business mogul. Being a freighter captain is much more fun.

GunKitty: And it brings all-new opportunities to find beautiful women and sleep with them, yes?

M.Mollen: Well, there is that, true.

BloodForTheBloodGod: Ok, THAT sounds like you.

(Jom Gabbar Tavern, Keen-arra City, kisArra)

There was a LOT of talk in the tavern today. Why? Because a certain ship docked at the spaceport earlier in the day. That in and of itself wouldn’t be a big deal, but this ship was special, at least to the people in the tavern. Last time that ship was in port, there had been a minor shakeup as one of the groups of bandits were taken down, and Brojixl had gotten himself and his buddy killed when he started picking on the wrong crowd when he was drunk. Two of his cousins lost their tails! So when the black on black freighter appeared at the spaceport, calling itself Daughter of Trigon, well, people were wondering what could be happening now. This was the most excitement they’d had in a while, after all.

Of course, adding to the excitement were the rumors about who it was that was that owned that black freighter. The Starlight Raven had been shown several times on the trids, when that Black Star guy who went and threw the whole gorram universe into chaos decided he was going somewhere without a fleet. Black Star’s freighters and Assassins were pretty well known by now, especially with anyone who was stuck dealing with pirates. They were pirate hunters, which made the pirates a little nervous.

Others, it made reckless.

One man in rough-looking but functional desert clothes was trying to convince his friend about his latest plan to get them all out of this sandy hellhole. “Look, I got it all figured out. They only had a few people last time, right? We get the drop on ‘em, and we can take ‘em down, easy!”

The second man snorted at that. “Oh sure, Paul, that worked out real well for ol’ Brojixl and his boys, right? There wasn’t enough of Dakid’s head left for them to even figure out who he was, since that chem spill three years back burned off his fingerprints. Everything from the neck up was just gone!”

“Bah, that wasn’t the people from the ship. That was the Felisan that said she made custom guns.”

“Didn’t matter much to Brojixl, once she shot a hole in him.”

“Well, Brojixl was an idiot, trying to step up on the girl when she already had the big gun on him. Anyways, the catgirl isn’t here anymore, right? She shipped out, and ain’t been seen or heard from here since then. So don’t worry about her and her big gun.”

“Fine, fine. Say we don’t have to worry about the Felisan with the huge gun. That still means that even if they came with the same crowd as last time, there’s six of them to the two of us. Don’t know about you, but them’s bad odds. Especially when you know how fast that guy moved when he cut the Sandscale brothers’ tails off. Didn’t even hear the energy blade humming before their tails were on the ground, with one strike.”

“That’s nothing. He just got the drop on the two of them, while they were all looking at the catgirl. You could have done that if you’d had his blade.”

“Maybe, but we don’t got anything like that, and it is still six of them to the two of us.”

“So we go and grab a few more guys. Nothing says we gotta do this just the two of us. And it is always the one guy with a whole group of women, right? So we sucker in as many as we can. The ones as can’t fit or don’t wanna go when we take the ship, they get to keep the girls. We get a ship like that, and we’ll be living easy once we’re someplace we can run it like a freighter ought to be, or just sell it.”

“Why sell it? Why go through all that if you’re just going to sell the ship to someone offworld?”

“Because that’s a Black Star ship, and they’re stuffed full of all kinds of goodies, which means someone will pay a ton for one if we can get it to them without too many eyes on us. We’ll be set up for life on some little planet where we can act like gods!”

“Set for life, right. Until he comes back and kills us all. He’s one of those ‘Nomad’ types! They don’t stay dead! You’d just have him angry and coming after us. You think he won’t want to find whoever shot him and took his ship?”

Paul frowned, and said, “Fine, we don’t shoot him. We got that collar that was on the whore Billy killed last month, right? Cleaned the former owner’s signature and everything, so just waiting on one of us to slap it on someone and then they belong to us. So we put it no the guy, yeah? Suddenly, everything he has belongs to us. We get him, the girls, the ship, his company, everything!”

The other man considered that, and said, “Well, that’s the first somewhat smart thing you’ve said all night, Paul. Now, how are we supposed to get a collar on the bastard? He isn’t just going to let us walk up and put it on him. And then we’re still at the 6 to 2 thing.”

“Like I said, we get some guys to help. Maybe not as many as we were thinking when it was just to take the ship, but how many guys you know would be willing to risk their lives to have a cute slavegirl like the ones he brought in last time? And you really think someone like that is going to go and not find anything valuable on this rock? Even if it is just a load of spice, we can make it worth whatever we sell our stuff here for, at least.”

“Fine, that could work. I think the Dusthaven crew is due in tonight, so lets go see if we can’t convince Triswil and his boys to help us out.”

(Smuggler Trading Post, Keen-arra City, kisArra)

“Well, well, it has been a long time since I’ve seen you around these parts.”

I’d just pulled off the mask of my stilsuit to talk to people inside the trading post, and it looks like I was recognized almost immediately. Looking over to the speaker, I grinned when I saw a familiar face.

Doctor Wellington Ehyu

Human Male

Level 90

Titles: Doctor, Trader, Conditioned Physician

I offered my hand to shake, since the doctor had always done right by us, and said, “Doc, good to see you again. I’ve been pretty busy, what with all the craziness going on, and thought it would be a little too visible to show up here for a while until some of the stuff died down.”

“Of course, of course. I can only imagine the things people would say if you’d brought your fleet here. How you convinced the Confederacy to allow you to actually build all their warships in their home system I’ll never know.”

I laughed at that, “Oh doc, you know it is probably just the same as how you convinced the Empire to let one of their prized Conditioned Physicians out of their sight! I just did it, had a good explanation for anyone who asked, and didn’t bother with permissions. Oh, and I can be incredibly persuasive if need be.”

Ehyu laughed at that. “All right, there may be more truth to that then you’re letting on.” After all, someone who had undergone the Conditioning was someone that could be trusted to treat the Imperial Royal Family themselves. They were utterly loyal to those they served, and could not be broken, coerced, or bribed to harm their masters. For one of that rare group to be outside Imperial control was almost unheard of.

I grinned, and said, “So, as you probably heard a half hour before we actually made landfall, my ship’s back in system, and I was looking to see if there were any jobs that needed doing before I went on to my next port of call. After the recent bit of unrest, it is probably best if I’m not over by Dimiya anytime soon.”

“What did you do this time? Last thing I’d heard, you’d basically gotten your fleet mauled protecting that planet you found from those creepy X’thari. Damn bugs don’t have any appreciation for business, let me tell you!”

I shrugged, and put on a long-suffering expression. “What can I say? Some people hate it when others have success. Especially when those successes start getting in the way of their political ambitions. The Shining Path types were getting pissy with me because I made the Imperial Civil War a helluvalot shorter, so they never got to get involved and try to get their pound of flesh from the Empire. Then I went and found a whole new colony, and instead of getting them to join the Confederacy, I convinced them to become a free port. Oh, and the Terran Empress backed their claim, so they couldn’t get a foothold in that arm of the galaxy and play gatekeeper to make sure the other groups stayed out. Beating the X’thari with a few light ships and being outnumbered across the board was just the last straw, it seemed, so they started getting a little unfriendly towards me.”

Ehyu smirked, and leaned forward against his counter. “And when they started getting unfriendly, that’s when one of the biggest mercenary groups in Known Space gets their asses handed to them by a freighter, and a whole bunch of Shining Path types end up dead due to ‘internal politics’, huh?”

I nodded. “Yes, a terrible shame, that. When I left, there were some rumors going around that several of the people who had died were apparently falsifying their tax records to appear more successful than they were, as they were all flirting with bankruptcy when people went to divide their estates. Even the one with that ‘dead man switch’ life insurance policy wouldn’t have been able to pay out if the bounty hadn’t been put in escrow long ago.”

“HA! They ‘just happened’ to all go bankrupt, hmm? I seem to recall a lot of big businessmen, criminal types, and old money politicians in that crowd. They all have some kind of accident?”

“Well, I wouldn’t know about that. But in other news, my company received a lot of untraceable anonymous donations to help us rebuild and expand our fleet as thanks for helping to stop the ‘X’thari aggression’. Very nice, whoever those anonymous donors were.” I sighed, and said, “But at any rate, I figured that it would be best if I was away from Dimiya for a while, until people find something new to get excited about.”

Ehyu nodded sagely, a smile on his face. “And you figured that there was no better way of removing yourself from the public eye than by visiting the most remote, desolate place in the entire Confederacy.”

“Except for Jagloth.”

Ehyu frowned, but then nodded. “Yeah, except for Jagloth. Damn shame about that. Lot of good people dying for nothing. But like I said, you came all the way out here just to hide from the press?”

“And to see if there were any jobs worth doing while I arrange for a load of spice for my freighter. Going to see about opening new markets.”

“Oh? And what market would you be trying to open? Not that I’m against more money coming into our little world, but a bit of information would help.”

“Well, as it so happens I’m friends with a few people on Nuevo Edo…”

“Just ‘friends’ is it? Been hearing talk from the couple of Nomads who come through here, trying to build their rep with the smugglers like you did. You been very friendly with a lot of beauties, and not just the ones you brought with you.”

“Well, I can’t help it if I was an attractive man on a planet full of women, now can I?”

“Well, to tell the truth, I might have a couple jobs that’ll need to be handled, and I can get you a line on some spice cheaper than the normal rates. Private holdings, you understand. Not worth much here, but when you take it off world…”

“The price goes up, I understand. So, what is the catch on this ‘private stock’ of spice?”

“Well, it is an old man’s retirement fund. Only, I’m not nearly old enough yet to considering retiring, so I might be willing to cut a deal on the price of the spice in exchange for a couple favors.”

“I’m listening.”

“Simple really. I want to go somewhere that I’m not always getting sand in places best left unmentioned. A lovely planet with a large number of available women sounds like a perfect place to relocate to. But since I’d be giving up my retirement fund, I’d need to work. So perhaps you know a couple ears you could talk up old Ehyu to as I establish a medical practice there?”

“Doc, you are going to LOVE Nuevo Edo.”

(Keen-arra City, kisArra)

“Captain, there is a large concentration of individuals gathering outside the ship.”

I perked up as Raven began speaking in my ear as we left the Trading Post, with several jobs to keep us busy while Ehyu settled his affairs on kisArra. I hadn’t expected to come in here without some excitement, but this was a little earlier than I thought it would be.

“Well-wishers, thieves, or killers?”

“Unknown at this time, but most likely killers and certainly thieves. I have already shot two with the underbelly turret as a ‘warning’ when they got too close.”

“Good thing I filed the appropriate paperwork and got permits for lethal defense of the ship, then.”

Shearah giggled. “You mean you bribed the stationmaster.”

I shrugged, since facial expressions were useless with the masks we wore. “Same thing on a world like this. Anyway, Raven, keep them off the ship. If they start sporting anything that could be a real danger, go ahead and shoot them even outside the normal perimeter. I’m not sitting around on this rock waiting to repair anything. We need the shuttle anyway, so we’ll start heading your way.”

“Understood. Numbers on the crowd are 30 individuals, armed with a mix of melee weapons and firearms. No power armor or military-grade weapons or armor.”

I nodded slowly. “So, local color who recognized our ship, probably from the last time we were here, and decided to make a play to get off this rock, like Ehyu, but being a lot less friendly about it.”

“They are no longer attempting to enter the ship. They have started setting up what look like ambush positions. I believe they mean to kill you as you try to get to the ship.”

Cali groaned. “They can’t really be that stupid, can they? Don’t they know that if Raven just shot two of their guys, they should move out of sight from her?”

“Analysis suggests that my actions have been construed as an automated defense protocol, due to the nature of the warning I gave them and the precision shooting.”

I grinned beneath my mask. “So they probably think they set off an alarm, which will have us running back to the ship, and we can ambush them. Most ships don’t have someone like Raven on them, after all.”

Jaynie shook her head. “I keep forgetting about that, since we’re around her all the time. Raven being different from the ‘dumb’ AIs that most people have in their ships is a huge advantage.”

I nodded. “Honestly, with a normal ship, especially a normal freighter, this would probably work well for them. Most automated systems would simply register two attacks and responses, sending alerts to the owner. They’d need to come back to make sure things remained square with the local authorities…”

Sheila sighed, “And walk straight into a crossfire. Well, now that we know what they intend to do with us, what are we going to do to them?”

I reached down to check the charge on my pistol. Fully charged, as it ought to be, but it never hurt to check your gear before going into action. You only had to screw up once for things to get bad. “Well, I was thinking that we go and spring the trap, and have some fun. Don’t tell me you girls haven’t been itching for some action.”

“Well, last night—”

“That wasn’t in the bedroom, Carissa.”

“Oh, well, then yes, I suppose even I have been looking forward to our next real fight. We’ve had fun with the space battles and all, but there’s something different between that and a shootout in person.”

Cali hugged the former office lady, and said, “Aw, honey! We’ll make a proper battle junkie out of you yet!”

I laughed along with the others while Carissa attempted to swat Cali off of her, since we all knew this was simply those two playing around. After a moment, I said, “All right, Raven, bring up a map of the spaceport. Highlight any other ships that have ‘defense permits’ as well. Don’t want to go accidentally tripping any defenses while we are on our way to the fun.”

Raven brought up a schematic of the spaceport in our HUDs, and I began looking at the different options. The Raven was flashing blue, and there were about six or seven ships out of the twenty others in the spaceport marked in green, with a circle to show the radius covered by their ‘defense permit’. The ambush positions the locals had established were marked in red.

“Now, someone took the time to arrange a party for us, so it would be wrong to not arrive in style.”

(Keen-arra Spaceport, Keen-Arra City, kisArra)

Bill Turner shook his head. How the hell had Paul convinced so many people to join up in this mess? How had Paul convinced HIM to join up in this? If it wouldn’t make him look weak in front of the others, he would already have bolted, once it became clear that the Black Star guy had paid the bribes to let his ship defend itself. Marco and Vijkarn were no longer around to appreciate their mistakes, since weapons designed to be used on starships don’t exactly leave much behind when they hit softer targets, like a human or Ihm. And somehow, Paul had gotten another ten people to join in after they heard about it, since a ship like that would definitely have loot, right? They were up to forty-two now.

Now they were split up in four spots, guarding the two ways into the bay where the Daughter of Trigon (which everyone said was the Starlight Raven) was sitting, waiting for her crew to return. The Black Stars had to have gotten the automated message by now. The fact that they weren’t back yet made him nervous. But how could he get out of here without looking weak to the others? Oh, wait, there was a way.

Bill slid over next to Paul, and said, “Paul, this ain’t gonna work if we don’t got eyes on, so we can warn the boys when they are coming. We just have them waiting like this, they’re going to get antsy, make mistakes. I’ll go topside, keep an eye on the South approach. Get someone from the other group to cover the North approach. That way, the boys can relax a bit, and be sharp when we need them.”

Paul looked him over, and nodded. “Your eyes always were better than your shooting in the dark. Yeah, I’ll have Brachthar set up on the North approach. You got a comm?” When Bill nodded, Paul continued. “Well, make sure you call in the moment you see them coming in the approach. This is the big one, Billy!” Paul clapped him on the shoulder, and then got on the comm, to give instructions to Brachthar and the boys.

Bill counted his good fortune, and began moving quietly, heading up to the top of the spaceport, where he could see the roads approaching the South entrance to the fields. If he was lucky, he wouldn’t see a thing until it was all over. If he was REALLY lucky, he would still be alive when it was all over.

(Mirikon POV)

“Captain, two individuals have broken off from the ambush sites, I believe they are sending out lookouts to spot your approach.”

“Surprised it took them this long. Still, that raises them up a bit from random idiots. Someone down there must have half a brain.”

I paused, and then looked at Shearah. “Your surveillance drones up yet?”

“Up and on station, feeds coming in now. I have two lookouts up on the rooftop, one Gauz male to the north, one human male to the south. Wait one. Gauz male looks to be prepping a rifle, getting into a sniping position.”

“And the human?”

“He appears to be praying. Raven confirms, the position matches the Sunnizen prayer for absolution in the face of certain death.”

I laughed, “Oh-hoh! We have a contestant that is starting to rethink his life choices. If he’s doing the Sunnizen prayers, then it is probably an honor thing or not wanting to look weak that is keeping him here. All right, we’ll continue on as before. Cali, you take Jaynie, Carissa, and Sana to the north. I’ll take Raven, Shearah, and Sheila to the south. Try for a stealth kill on the lookout. No sense letting him warn the others.”

Cali turned to me. “And what about the south lookout?”

“That depends on him.”

With that, we got out of the little hauler we’d used to travel into town, and quickly started climbing the east wall of the spaceport.

(Bill POV)

He had never been the most faithful servant of God, he knew that. He believed, but often strayed and broke the commandments when it suited him. But there was an old saying from Earth, long before man touched the stars. ‘There are no atheists in a foxhole.’ He had never truly understood that phrase until Paul had started talking about hitting the leader of Black Star. It wasn’t facing death that caused people to ‘find religion’ in the foxhole, but the waiting, just waiting, knowing that death was coming for you, hanging over you like a specter, and that there was nothing you could do to stop it that you had not already done. The crushing inevitability is what caused even the most faithless man to call out to a higher power in that hour of desperation.

As he finished his prayer, the comm sounded in his ear. “Paul, Brachthar here. Nothing yet from the North. You sure this idiot is coming? If I’d known we were just going to be sitting around all night, I’d have stayed home with the wife. At least listening to her yell isn’t boring.”

“Oh yeah, Brach, the guy will be coming. The defense permits say you gotta respond within a couple hours to talk with the stationmaster or they can’t pretend you didn’t blast someone. Bill, you see anything?”

Bill sighed, and looked out across the sands, and then keyed his comm. “Nothing here. But it is still another thirty minutes before the stationmaster’s deadline.”

Bill didn’t hear whatever Paul said in reply, because his attention was directed to the sound of sand beneath a boot, and then a shimmer appeared in his vision, as a blade cut across his throat. Bill tried to scream as he felt a white pain stabbing into his brain, but he was silenced! He reached up to his throat, only to find that he wasn’t bleeding. Turning as more stabs of pain ran through his mind, he turned, and saw a man in Freemen-style guard, standing there with dagger in hand. Just before he passed out, he heard the man say, “Almawt yamuru ealayk hadhih allaylat ya sidiqi.”

(Paul POV)

“Almawt yamuru ealayk hadhih allaylat ya sidiqi.”

Paul stared at the comm for a moment as that message came in over the open line. Someone had just jumped Bill, and did it sneaky! Damnit! Looking around, he called into the comms, “All right boys, they’re on their way, but they are going to try and be sneaky little thieves, instead of fighting like men. Everyone get behind some cover, and get ready! You all know the score. Stun the women, kill or collar the man. Those of you who decide to stay get to split the women, and those who come with get to split the profits from the ship! This is the score you’ve been waiting on your whole lives, boys!”

“Paul, the ship’s acting funny again!”

“What do you mean ‘acting funny’, Mac?”

“That cargo bay door just opened, and there’s some robots coming out.”

Paul sighed. Mac was a good man to have in a fight, but he wasn’t known for his intelligence. “And what are the robots doing, Mac? They building anything?”

“No, they’re just looking around, and—AUGH!”

Paul swore as the sound of rifles firing came across the commlink at the same time he saw the flashes on the other side of the bay. The fucker had some drones open up on his guys! Damn him to Shaitan’s embrace!

And that’s when the sound of more blasters could be heard, coming from above! They had come in through the ship access on the roof! Damn it!

(Stationmaster POV)

“So, you have no idea who these men are, or how they got all these holes in them?”

The ship owner shook his head, trying not to smile. “No sir. I was just coming back to the ship to respond to an alert I got from the security system when we found the bodies. Looked like there were several groups, so maybe they went and killed each other, disagreeing on who would get to attack my ship?”

As the man spoke, another 500 credits landed in the stationmaster’s account.

The stationmaster smiled, and said, “Well, the poor sods should have known better than to attack a ship that had paid for the defense permit. All right, you’re free to go, Captain Mollen.”

(Zero Zero Club, Keen-arra City, kisArra)

Vizk loved fighting.

Ask anyone who knew him, and they would all agree that Vizk loved fighting, even more than was usual for an Ihm male. If he wasn’t working, drinking, sleeping, or fucking, he was usually fighting. And he was very good at fighting, able to take a hit and keep hitting back.

Vizk also enjoyed gambling. His game of choice was the roulette table. His hands weren’t shaped right for card games, and he tended to crush dice unless they were specially made. And no one let him bet on fights, since he was usually in at least a couple every night, and that just wasn’t going to happen.

Unfortunately for him, Vizk was not as skilled at gambling as he was at fighting. He tended to lose more than he won when he was at the tables, but he couldn’t get enough of it, just like he couldn’t get enough of fighting. That meant he tended to owe people money, and he kept owing until he won it back during a fight. Or at least won enough to keep people from sending leg breakers after him. He might be tough for an Ihm, but if you roughed up the leg breakers too bad, they tended to do worse than just break the leg. Last time, they’d retaliated by stunning him, and then taking a sledge hammer to him, and they broke all five limbs, even his tail!

That was why he was at the Zero Zero tonight, because he needed some money to pay the interest on his latest loan. He was a little late, but that wasn’t anything he needed to worry about, because tonight was a fight night, and he could win it all back. Plus, he had a buddy make some bets on the side for him. Buddy got 10% of the winnings, but it let him bet on the fights, so he’d be rolling in dough at the end of the night.

That was the plan, anyways. But somehow it had all gone wrong. A newcomer had entered the ring, and beat every one of the fighters that he’d bet on! And because he was a fighter, he couldn’t get to his friend to get him to change the bets. Now, he was needing to win his fight as the pit champion just to be able to pay Ehyu’s interest!

He’d be fighting the new guy, but there was something about him. He was good, yeah, but his skills weren’t THAT good. Or else he wasn’t showing everything he had. But his eyes, he was too perceptive by half. Somehow, he always seemed to know what the guy fighting him was going to do, and always had a counter or was able to dodge the nasty shots. Even when Barley tried that sneak move he liked where he looked like he was going to punch, and then rolled back to catch the guy with a kick to the jaw. He’d never seen ANYONE catch that unless they’d seen Barley fight, and this guy was definitely new to the pit. You don’t get those reactions by someone just telling you about a move.

Walking into the ring, Vizk nodded to the newcomer. He’d earned some respect, at least, for coming this far, but he’d figure out what his secret was, and beat him. Then he’d pay Ehyu, and life would go back to how it was supposed to be. And then the newcomer did something completely unexpected. He walked over to the Challenge stand, and pulled the black cord.

The rules of the ring were simple. There were four levels of fighting, and the rules changed depending on the level you were fighting at. Challenger got to say what level he wanted to fight at, and the Challenged had to either accept, raise it to another level, or forfeit the match.

White was the lowest level. You fought for points, like that Terran sport called ‘mixed martial arts’. You could win by a knockout or submission, sure, but if you that didn’t happen, you could win by impressing the judges. That was the most common level of fight in the ring, since most people were here for fun and money.

Blue was next. You chose blue, you could only win by making the other guy give, or knocking him out. You had a lot of tough matches in this level. But the bets were doubled, so a 1:2 odds fight would be paying out 1:4 if you bet right. The pot for the fighters got 50% bigger, too. But if you lost, that 50% was coming out of your pocket.

Red was the third level. This went beyond simple brawling, to being a knife fight. First blood from the torso won the fight, but knife fights were nasty things, and accidents definitely happened. You chose red, though, and the betting would go from 1:2 to 1:6, and the fighters’ pot was up 200%. Loser either paid the difference, or was sold off as a slave to pay for it.

Black, though, that was the real deal, the kind of match all these people secretly hoped would happen. Black was a knife fight to the death, each guy getting to use their personal weapon, rather than one the ring provided. Black, the bets were going ten times higher! 1:2 became 1:20! And the pot for the fighters? Well, it was still only 200% bigger than the normal pot, same as the other one, but you got your pick of the loser’s property, and anything you didn’t want was sold by the house, with you getting 3% of the sale as a ‘commission’.

In the thirty-year history of the Zero Zero Club, there had only been four Black fights. And not one of them had been called since Vizk had become Champion. He’d had a couple Red fights, sure, but most people weren’t that stupid, or that desperate, and they picked white or blue. Come to think of it, this guy had been picking blue all night, up until now. What was going on here?

The audience was holding their breaths, waiting on him. Damnit, he didn’t have a choice. With the fights going bad like they had before, he needed to fight, and win. But between the prize and the bidding, he’d be set up nice, maybe even be able to pay off Ehyu entirely! A snarl crossed his face as he grabbed the black cord, and pulled. The doors to the ring shut, and the energy shield cut off the sound from the outside, trapping the two of them inside until one of them stopped breathing.

Drawing his favorite knife, made from the tooth of one of those big worms out in the desert, but long enough that the blade was the length of his forearm, Vizk said, “I don’t know what your game is, ‘friend’, but you made a big mistake picking Black tonight.”

The man chuckled, and said, “Aw, but Black is my lucky color.” As he spoke, he drew a knife from his bracer, and Vizk had to force himself from pulling back at the sight of the blade. That was a Blood Dagger! Those things were incredibly rare, and insanely dangerous in the hand of a skilled user. This wasn’t a simple match any more!

Vizk’s eyes narrowed as he watched the man’s movements more carefully. “Who sent you here to kill me?” That was, after all, the only reason this man, who had never been in the fights before, and was the owner of a Blood Dagger, would call a Black match.

The man shrugged, and said, “Ehyu was very disappointed that you’ve been late repaying him, so I’m afraid he is going to be closing the book on you. Not that it is going to matter to you any, once I’m done with you.”

Ehyu! That backstabbing hind end of a thabrakiz water beast! He’d been set up! The friend he had worked the deal with so he could place bets tonight, he was one of Ehyu’s men! Looking around at the crowd, he tried to find him, but he was gone… No, there he was, sitting near a group of women, a pile of credits sitting there. The traitor had been betting on this assassin, with HIS money!

Vizk roared in anger, and threw himself at the other man. The man ducked under his slashing blade, the move telegraphed as Vizk had intended it to be cover for the knee coming up, to crash into the man’s face, and disorient him enough to get a quick kill…

Vizk roared again as the pain hit. Somehow, the human had turned just in time to let his knee slide past his face, and his blade sunk into the back of his calf, wounding the leg badly. Gritting his teeth, he tested the leg as the man recovered his stance. Not as bad as he feared, and probably not as bad as the man had intended, but Vizk’s scales were hard, so much of the blade’s energy was deflected, the blow blunted. But he probably could use that leg to only about 75% of his strength, and kicking with the other leg would be out of the question. Damn it!

The man darted inwards, and the fight was on in earnest! Vizk was the veteran of hundreds of fights in the ring, and as many or more outside of it. All his experience, all his strength, all his speed, all his skill, and all it did was put him roughly equal to the assassin that had been sent to kill him. His skill was the only reason he wasn’t dead already, he could see that now. If things kept going the way they were, then his death was inevitable. He needed to turn things around.

The problem was, how? The man was good, too good. Vizk had never faced someone who was so quick, able to react to his attacks before he had even launched them. Almost as if he was reading minds! Wait. Mental Psy would account for all this man’s wins. Couldn’t be an outside party, because the shield blocked Psy from crossing it, keeping audience members from cheating. It had to be the man, then. But there were scanners, so how did he activate the power without tripping the scanners in the ring? And how did he keep from running out of PP while fighting like that?

The man darted forward, slashing with his blade. Vizk saw a shimmer form around the human’s blade, and leapt back instead of trying to block or parry that blow. He didn’t know what it was, but it had to be a power of the Blood Dagger. He could not underestimate what kind of effects it would have. Vizk had always wanted to see a Blood Dagger up close, but not like this!

Again, the man attacked, but now the shimmer was gone! Vizk snarled, and raised his own arm, to try and catch the human’s blade hand, and hopefully isolate it, and that damn dagger so he could get in close, and do some real damage to the assassin. But the man pulled back at the last second, his other hand coming across in a maneuver that let him use Vizk’s own momentum to pull him off balance, and actually throwing him to the floor!

In an instant, the man was on top of him, the blood dagger poised at his throat. In a soft whisper, loud enough so only Vizk could hear, “I activated the ability before you even stepped in the ring, as soon as I left the ring after my last fight, I was in your head. But hey, when you get to what ever afterlife or next incarnation you believe in, you can let them know that it was Captain Mollen of the Black Star Company that killed you. Not too many people get killed by me personally. You should be honored.”

Vizk was about to respond with an insult at the man for cheating like this, but the shimmering blade slashed across his throat, cutting deep enough that his head rolled free. As Vizk’s consciousness faded away, he had one last thought. “At least there wasn’t any pain…”

(BSS Starlight Raven, Keen-arra Spaceport, kisArra)

It took Ehyu three days to arrange his affairs and get the spice ready for transport. Which was good, because after the third night, we’d caused a bit of a stir through the criminal elements of Keen-arra City, as we basically helped clear up some of Ehyu’s outstanding debts and markers. As a responsible businessman, he wished to leave kisArra without having and debts or debtors behind him. I wholeheartedly approved of his responsible fiscal attitude, especially since that included paying us for the jobs he’d given us.

Suffice to say, there were more than a few groups in the local underworld that were now making advancements, as key members had quit being counted amongst the living. The local authorities didn’t care, so long as only criminals got killed, and we kept our stuff from spilling over into the civilian population. I enjoyed myself immensely, since this was something we hadn’t had a chance to do much of since we’d become big shots. Cali and Jaynie, especially were happy as could be at the chance to cut loose.

However, that kind of excitement, while it did give me enough XP to bump up to level 41, also attracted a lot of the wrong kind of attention. While we hadn’t had another attempt on the ship after the blatant example of our having paid our defense permit, the stationmaster meeting us as we were preparing to leave told me that there was going to be trouble. The fact that the man didn’t look to be concerned with things told me that the trouble was going to happen somewhere else, so it wasn’t his problem.

“Ah, Captain Mollen! Glad I found you. There is a slight issue with fitting your ship into the departure sequence.”

Looking the man over, I decided to play it cool for now. If need be, I could always just blast my way out of here, though that would lead to unfortunate questions eventually. “What kind of issue?”

“Ah, nothing that will prevent your leaving, I assure you. However, as you have now filed exit plans, I’m required by your previous information request to let you know that your departure details have been purchased by four different parties. Unfortunately, each party paid the discretion surcharge, so I can only tell you the number of people who bought your information. I hope you have an excellent flight. Come see us again soon!”

As the man left, Ehyu walked up to me. “You paid the ‘Information Request’ fee, but didn’t pay for the voiding of discretion surcharge?”

“Eh, what’s the point? The cost isn’t worth the benefit. It is worth it to know that I have four groups that know when I’m leaving. Since my official flight plans have us headed for Alpha Centauri, they know I’m going to the Gate. They aren’t going to drop a tarpit on us in-system because the Navy is here guarding the Gate. So their only hope is to get us between here and the gate, and somehow keep us from just warping there. So I’m expecting the first attack as soon as we break atmosphere.”

Ehyu narrowed his eyes, “You’re expecting to be attacked? I know your freighters are things of legend, but this does not inspire confidence, my friend. I am nowhere near as immortal as you Nomads are!”

I laughed, and patted Ehyu on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, Doctor. I have a plan.”

(‘Free Trader’ The Devil’s Slave, kisArra orbit, Aquaria System)

“Captain! The target ship is leaving kisArra!”

Looking over to the girl on sensors, Captain (oh, it was so good to be called ‘captain’ again) James ‘Kick-ass’ Lorde slapped his ‘first officer’ on her shapely rear, signaling the woman to leave his lap where she had been lounging. Of course, the woman was all too happy to do that, but he didn’t care about that. If he cared what the sluts thought, then he wouldn’t have slapped slave collars on them the first chance he had. Stupid bint had hired him as a hired gun for a run going through the Free Worlds Alliance. Lucky him, since his target had made everyone realize how awesome Nomads were. Everyone wanted one for suicide missions.

First thing he had done when he’d been able to reroll and still keep most of the point value of the skills, experience, and so on that he’d earned since that bastard had stolen everything from him and ruined his game life as set himself up as a hired gun. He figured that was a good way to get himself hired on a small ship, one that no one would miss. Of all the ironic things that could possibly happen, turned out that the Captain that hired him was flying one of the Black Star copies of HIS ship!

This one was brand new, and it didn’t have an uppity AI that always argued with him, or kept getting upset when he renamed the ship. Even better, there were women on it! The old Captain, by the name of Crowley, had his daughter and a couple of her friends on board, serving as crew. Another guy, as well. He didn’t bother with the men. Just popped them in the head, and tossed them out the airlock once he’d slapped collars on the women. ‘Hired’ another engineer and a gunner once he’d gotten the ship signed over into his name.

Now, he had a ship, and a crew that wouldn’t turn on him (because they couldn’t), and even better, he had the target he’d given up hope of finding on his own locked in his sights! Revenge was going to be so sweet! Once they caught the bastard, he’d give his ‘first officer’ Lorna and her friends a break. They’d been moping since he threw Lorna’s father and their other guy friend out the airlock, anyways. And that bastard had plenty of pussy that would be his once he took back HIS ship!

Sitting behind the helm, Captain Lorde knew he looked like a madman grinning as wide as he was, but he didn’t care. Taking the controls in hand, he set the ship on an attack vector. Time to take back what was his, and make the bastard pay!

(BSS Starlight Raven, kisArra orbit, Aquaria System)

All hands were at ‘battle stations’ already, because we were expecting to get attacked. I’d been nice, and had Raven throw up a tactical readout in the lounge area, so Ehyu wasn’t just sitting around, wondering what was going to happen. That often led to people getting scared, and scared people did stupid things. That was fine on a planet, but there were too many things on a starship that reacted badly to high concentrations of stupid, so I needed to head that off, if I could, and locking him in his room like a prisoner wouldn’t win me any favors with the man.

Raven shook her head, and said, “First contestant just broke and is accelerating into an attack run. Markings indicate that it is a Raven-class freighter that we sold to an independent shipper. Except the records say it was later sold after the death of the former owner and captain, and is the property of a James ‘Kick-ass’ Lorde now.”

I blinked at that, and just shook my head. It had to be a coincidence. No one could be that stupid, right? I sighed, and said, “The other contestants?”

“No clear identifiers on who is playing and who is simply watching yet, Captain. I’m afraid it is probably just this Devil’s Slave that will get to play, once the other contestants realize what we’re doing.”

I nodded. “Well, that’s the smart play. Let someone else be stupid and take the risks. If they see we’re too tough to handle, they back off, no harm no foul. Otherwise, they jump in either in the middle and make it a three-way dance, or they wait until one side wins, and attack them. They just happened to have one person who was willing to play the idiot. I wonder if he even paid the surcharge to know if anyone else purchased the information on our exit time?”

Raven smirked at me. “The art of naming bribes in seedy spaceports aside, what are your orders, Captain?”

I sighed, and said, “Well, I’m really sorely tempted to let this play out, and see if the idiot is as good as he thinks he is, but I don’t want our passenger to start getting antsy. Is everything in place for Operation: Can’t Touch This?”

“Affirmative. Ready when you are. And remember, you are no longer allowed to name plans when you’ve been drinking.”

“Spoilsport.” I took a breath, and got a wolfish smile on my face. “Let’s show these people who they’re messing with. Activate.”

(‘Free Trader’ The Devil’s Slave, kisArra Orbit, Aquaria System)

“Captain, we are within optimum range of the particle cannons.”

Captain Lorde looked over at woman sitting at the console next to him. “Well, what are you waiting for? FIRE!”

“Yes, Captain. Firing.”

Unfortunately, the next instant he heard sounds of blasters hitting his hull! Power began fluctuating wildly, and soon the ship was completely without power!

“NO! What happened?”

The girl on the sensors (Gwen, wasn’t it?) shook her head, and said, “Unknown, Captain. It appears we were struck by Ion canno fire from astern. Without the shields online, we were quickly disabled.”

“What? Why weren’t our shields up?”

“You never ordered us to put the shields up, Captain. You expressly ordered us not to implement any ship commands without your approval, to prevent us from attempting to kill you in your sleep.”

Captain Lorde snarled at Lorna. “You stupid whore! What if those had been live weapons, not ion cannons? We would have all died!”

Lorna’s response, whatever it would have been, was cut off by the sound of a ship docking at the airlock. Lorde’s eyes went wide. If they were only doing what he told them to, then the compartments weren’t locked down, the airlock would be on automatic reserve power, and he couldn’t do anything about it from the cockpit!

Grabbing his pistol, Lorde ran out of the cockpit, heading for the airlock. He had to reset the controls, or at least set up a kill box to make sure the assholes couldn’t get on board until Myriam got the engines running. Damnit, he would have to order Myriam to get the engines running! Stupid women were going to be the death of him!

Captain James ‘Kick-ass’ Lorde never saw the stunner that hit him as he ran around the corner.

(BSN Shadowdancer, kisArra orbit, Aquaria System)

“Captain! Five other ships moving off in three groups, heading away from kisArra. I believe we frightened them all off.”

Slave-Captain Nyna Thelynn snorted at that. “They are smugglers and pirates, Ensign. They know an Assassin when they see one, by now, and they know that where there’s one Assassin, there may be others. And none of those ships are a match for Shadowdancer.”

“Valkyries reporting in, Captain. They have taken the ship, minimal resistance. The Captain was the only one to take up arms. He’s been stunned and collared. The rest of the crew were all slaves, but had not been ordered to resist us. According to Valkyrie One, that’s why they never raised their shields, or attempt to get the ship systems back online.”

Nyna nodded. She expected nothing less than the best from her Valkyries, and they’d always come through. But she’d be the first to admit that it was nice to have an enemy that was actively resisting their leader. “Give the Valkyries my regards, and have them bring the ship online as soon as possible. The Master will be joining us shortly to determine what we will do with our new friends. Send word to the Master that these slaves may be worth keeping, if they’re not too intransient.”

(BSS Starlight Raven, kisArra Orbit, Aquaria System)

I was looking at the video captures the Valkyries had taken of the brief fight in the corridor of the Devil’s Slave. I shook my head and sighed. “I can’t believe the idiot never even bothered to change his face!”

The other girls were with me in the lounge. Sona spoke up for the ‘native’ contingent, and asked, “What do you mean, Master? Does he have… specialized Psy like you do?”

I smiled as she edited her speech for the benefit of Ehyu, who was watching with us. “Ah, no. But just as Nomads project ourselves into this world (that being the reason why we cannot die), some people grow dissatisfied with the way their lives here are going, and arrange for a new projection. If this Captain Lorde is the same person I think he is, then he didn’t even bother to change his face, the arrogant bastard.”

Ehyu chuckled, and said, “It sounds like there’s a story, there.”

“Oh, there is. You see, I was on the Luna colony, on a bit of unrelated business…”

(BSS Mewtwo, formerly ‘Free Trader’ Broken Harlot, Amazon System)

Lorna Crowley and her friends waited in the ship’s lounge for their new Master to come aboard. After the idiot had been shot by the tactical team that had taken their ship. She and her friends had been informed that the ship and its crew were now the property of the Black Star Company’s owner. It was a piece of delicious irony for Lorna, since their former Master had hated Black Star’s owner with a passion for some perceived wrong in another life, and because her father had bought the Northgate Rebel from Black Star after their old ship had been damaged by pirates during a battle where Black Star forces intervened.

Then they’d had the everlasting misfortune to hire The Asshole. He’d seemed nice at first, and good with a gun, which is something they needed. But the first night they were out of port, he changed. He overpowered Myriam in the Engine Room, and flooded the ship with sleeping gas. When they woke up, they were in collars, and her father Darius and a friend of theirs, Liam Greymane, were dead. They had to watch as the bastard spaced their bodies, just to keep them from having any hope, or a chance to bury them properly. Since then, she and her two friends, Gwen Armstead and Myriam Spellwaker, had been this bastard’s playthings. Oh, he didn’t leave them alone, of course. He also ‘hired’ Loren Fence and Celestine Harvest when they reached port, so that he had a full crew.

She hated the bastard for what he’d done, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it. His commands were very specific, and they kept them from harming him, or the ship, or doing anything without his approval, really. They’d found a way to turn that against him, of course, deliberately twisting orders as much as they could. It was a small rebellion, but it was what they could do.

Walking into the room with two of the commandos from before, the man she recognized as the Black Star owner nodded to them all. “Ms. Crowley, is it? I’m sorry for your loss. Your father was a decent sort, according to what my people have told me, and I’m sorry for what that bastard’s done to you. I’m sure my Valkyries have explained a bit of the situation, but I’d like to make sure you know the score. Your former Master is a Nomad, so simply killing him, while cathartic, would not solve the issue. However, we have a solution that we hope will meet with your approval. Allow me to do a bit of theater, as we deal with your former master, and then we’ll talk about what we’ll be doing with you, and the freighter, which I’ve renamed the Mewtwo. No way am I having a Black Star ship with the name Broken Harlot.”

He motioned towards a screen, which turned on, revealing what was clearly a single-person escape pod, and a very angry James Lorde. “YOU! YOU BASTARD! I’LL KILL YOU A MILLION TIMES FOR THIS! LORNA! I ORDER YOU TO SHOOT THAT BASTARD!” The former captain was raving now, clearly incensed by the fact that he had been taken down, yet again. When she didn’t react to his command, he started getting even more irate, screaming obscenities at her.

Their new owner, however, simply smiled, and shook his head. “Oh no, James. It is James, now, yes? I remember you used to go by ‘Lord Kickass’. I would give you credit on coming up with a more original name, but that bar was so low that earthworms were tripping over it. Anyway, your absolute failing in terms of naming sense aside, I’m afraid you have not grasped the situation yet. You initiated an attack run against a Black Star ship. Black Star is a legally recognized shipping company in the Confederacy, so attacking our ships without provocation is an act of piracy. As it just so happened, the Black Star Navy’s Shadowdancer was on hand, and disabled you with pathetic ease. Because the Black Star Navy is a legaly registered and certified Mercenary company, and you were engaged in an act of piracy at the time, all your property has been transferred to Black Star. We were nice and left you your skinsuit, but the ship, the cargo, and the girls all belong to Black Star, which means they are mine, and there is nothing you can do about it.”

“JUST WATCH ME, YOU FUCKING CHEATER! I’LL REPORT YOU! YOU’RE OBVIOUSLY HACKING, AND I’LL—”

Their new master sighed. “James, James. Why must you be such a tool? The admins already know all. They’ve already looked, and found nothing. I’m just better than you, that’s all. In every way, I am better than you. So much so that no matter how many times you try, and no matter how many times you reroll, you will never be able to beat me, unless I let you. To emphasize this point, you should be aware by this point that you are trapped in an escape pod, and the controls have been physically disabled. Don’t bother trying to repair them, you’d need to go spacewalking to do that.”

There was a roaring coming from the other end of the connection. “By the sound of it, you have just entered the atmosphere. Even if you could survive the decompression, or the fires of reentry, without a suit, I’m afraid that opening the hatch would result in a quick end for you. You see, the planet you are dropping towards is called Amazonia. Ah, I see by the look of concern on your face that you understand. Don’t worry, the escape pod has a weak shield system that should prevent the nanites from eating it until you reach ground. And once you land on Amazonia, your bind point will change there, since you no longer have a bind point on a friendly ship in orbit. But don’t worry, there are a lot of very large, very ‘enthusiastic’ women who would be more than happy to add another toy to their collections. Since the nanites will eat the pod, the supplies, your cybereyes, and even your clothes, I’m afraid you’ll have very little luck avoiding them. And when you die, they will not return to you, so you will be blind and naked until someone clothes you and then you’ll just be blind. Forever. With no hope of ever escaping. Because I am, and always will be, better than you.”

Lorna blinked as horror and twisted glee warred within her. She’d heard the reports of Greenwave, everyone had. As far as she knew, Lorde’s eyes were fake, as was right arm, which he’d had made into a cybernetic monstrosity that allowed him to extend an energy blade from the wrist. He would be a cripple on a planet with Greenwave! He deserved it, of course. He deserved worse for what he’d done to them all, but at least some kind of justice was being done to the bastard!

Their new owner ignored the fresh tirade of profanity, and motioned at the screen, which turned off. He turned back to them, and said, “Now that the idiot has something to stew over for however long he stays down there, let’s talk about you five, and what happens next.” He took a seat in the largest, most comfortable chair, and motioned for the other girls to sit as well.

“As you are probably aware, a significant portion of my company is made up of slave workers, or relatives of slave workers. The overwhelming majority of them were people who, like you, came to me because life kicked them squarely in the teeth, and for one reason or another, they’d been enslaved. Some were fleeing Jagloth. Some were convicted, wrongly or not, of crimes. Some were ambushed by someone they trusted. Some attacked me, or mine.”

“Regardless of how they came to be in my service, they are now Black Star, and Black Star looks out for its own. My analyst has been going through the records, and you were doing good work before the idiot took over. There’s a suggestion that the lean times since then are mostly due to the idiot not knowing how to lead, but also because of a certain amount of resistance from you girls. I say this, because if the resistance continues, you’re only going to be hurting yourselves.”

Lorna was confused as she looked her new Master over. What was he saying? And how had he gotten an analysis of their performance so quickly? What did this mean for them?

“Lorna Crowley, I am offering you the position of Slave-Captain of the Black Star Ship Mewtwo. You will have authority over the ship funds, subject to audit, of course, which will be split in quarters. One quarter to me, as the owner, one quarter to the Company, one quarter to the Ship for repairs and supplies, and one quarter to you and your crew. At any time you may purchase your freedom for the price of one hundred thousand credits, each, to be paid for out of the crew share of the profits, at which time the ship’s pay schedule will be converted to the typical fifths arrangement, and you will be Captain of a ship owned and operated by Black Star. Is this acceptable to you and your crew, or would you prefer another position within Black Star?”

Lorna’s mouth dropped so low she was fairly certain that she was about to scrape the floor with it. From the sound the others were making, they were in similar states of shock. “Y-you’re letting us choose? But we’re slaves. You could just order us and we’d have to do it, even if you ordered us to go down on you right now!”

Their Master sighed, and said, “Yes, well, contrary to my slanderous reputation—” He glared at one of the commandos who had a sudden ‘coughing fit’ to hide her laughter. “Fine, contrary to my well-deserved reputation for having a slave harem and sleeping with any willing woman I desire, there are limits. And frankly, I’ve got too many women to deal with already, so I don’t need to go adding more lovelies to my regular rotation. If you come down with a need to have me fuck your brains out, then I will not say no, since you’re all lovely ladies, but my girls would do unpleasant things to me if I stopped paying them enough attention.”

“Anyway, I find that people tend to do better at their jobs if it is a job they like, or have chosen. So, if you want to do something else within Black Star, then once we can get a new crew for the Mewtwo, we can split you girls up and get you where you need to go to do those jobs. But if you stay aboard, you’ll be together, and you’ll be in charge of your destinies. Also, being a slave of a corporation conveys some protections to you when crossing borders, and those who attack you, attack Black Star, and that demands retaliation.”

Lorna looked at the other girls, but it was Gwen that said, “She’ll do it, and I’ll be here to make sure she keeps it straight.” Each of the girls nodded, and looked expectantly at their leader.

Lorna sighed, and said, “Fine, I’ll do it. I’ll be your Slave-Captain.”

Their new owner clapped his hands, and said, “Excellent! Now, in the future, you’ll be able to decide personnel needs as you see fit, but according to your files the only one of you with any piloting skills is Lorna, and you’re mostly checked out on short range shuttles and ground craft. Frankly, a Black Star freighter needs better than that, since you’re going to have a target on your back for being part of the hottest new company. More so than just having one of our freighters as an ‘indie’. We’ll guide your ship through the Gateway to Nuevo Edo, now that we’ve dealt with former Captain Lorde, and take you to the Black Star facilities there. There’s some simple upgrades that we keep out of the ships sold to external clients that will make you a real terror to your enemies… if you have a pilot who can take advantage of it. Fortunately, there’s a hot stick pilot who was being ill utilized by her former masters, and has been without a ship once the X’thari killed the rest of her crew. Her name is Samantha Michaels, and we’ll get her situated with you once we get to port. Any questions?”

Loren spoke up, “Is it true you paid a girl to pose the bastard with a dead body?”

Their master simply smiled, and said, “Well, the story goes something like this…”

(Yokosaki Spaceport, Nuevo Edo)

Doctor Wellington Ehyu looked around the spaceport as he stepped off the Starlight Raven, and nodded slowly to himself. “I see you went with one of the standard spaceport profiles when setting this place up. What about the walls? There any animals I should know about?”

I laughed at that, and said, “Well, only if you count the legions of sex-starved women, Doctor. Until recently, this planet was over 80% female. Men were in such small numbers that they literally had to keep them in government ‘breeding centers’ in protective custody so that certain groups wouldn’t assume control of the colony by controlling all the men. There were some legitimate concerns about being able to control traffic to the spaceport so that there wouldn’t be any… incidents. Even with the controls, there were enough women that they were wearing my poor Marines out.”

Ehyu laughed, and said, “Well, that certainly sounds like a lovely problem to have. Still, the mad rush must have slowed down a bit by now, right? I’m not old, but I’m no young marine, either!”

“Oh, don’t worry. Once the local government got trade deals going, and were opened up for immigration, the urgency of snagging one of the few men went down substantially. So you’ll still be a hot commodity, but not exactly at the level where you’ll be needing protection just to walk down the street.”

Ehyu nodded appreciatively. “Good, good. And what about work? It was part of our deal that you’d help me get set up, after all.”

“Well, as you know, I’m fairly visible here, so engaging in anything against the local laws is something I’d have to avoid. However, I have done two things for you. First, I had Raven send out a few discrete messages that you were someone with contacts elsewhere in the galaxy that may or may not have always been on the shady side of the law. So you may be contacted by the local groups to see what you can offer them.”

“Good idea, that. This way, it will allow me to reveal as much or as little as I choose, without having to compare to whatever lies or information you might have told about me.”

I laughed, and said, “A wise man once said to keep your lies as simple and consistent as possible. The more complicated the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain.”

Ehyu smiled. “Truer words were never spoken. And what is the second thing you’ve done?”

“Ah, well, your tablet will have a listing for a decent building where you could start a private practice as a doctor, with living quarters attached. If you register at the spaceport as both a male and a doctor who is experienced with treating multiple species, then you’ll find yourself with quite a bit of work in short order.”

“What, these people don’t have doctors?”

I shrugged, and said, “Oh sure, they have them, but the tech they’ve been using is about a hundred years old, which puts it at slightly better than the general level you’d have on kisArra, but still not good compared to the rest of the universe. They’ve also spent their whole lives only treating humans. While that’s fine for, say, a broken bone, when dealing with more complicated matters, that can be problematic, since they don’t know what to look for. So if you set up with tech from Known Space, and a knowledge of how to treat aliens, you’ll be in line to make a good bit of money.” Then I leaned in, and said, “Plus, you know as well as I do that there are some people that would rather have a man as their doctor than a woman, especially when talking about certain ‘sensitive’ topics.”

Ehyu grunted. “Had more than my share of those talks on kisArra, thank you very much. Why people don’t learn to take the preventative measures before sleeping with the spaceport whore, I will never know. Still, it will allow me to get established, and that will be fine enough. Thank you, Captain, and I hope to see you again, under equally pleasant circumstances.”

I shook the doctor’s offered hand. “Happy to be of service, Doc. Just remember Black Star if you ever have a wish for items from home, hmm?” It was good to have some business that ended pleasantly for everyone involved.

(BSS Mewtwo, Nuevo Edo Orbit)

I stepped onto the Mewtwo with Cali and the person I wanted my latest crew to meet, and was greeted by the slave crew waiting on me just inside the airlock. They all looked better now that they’d been fed up a bit, and were in jobs where they weren’t basically being that asshole’s sex pets.

“Captain Crowley, good. I promised you that I would provide you a pilot, and I make good on my promises. This is the Nomad, Samantha Michaels, and she was formerly the slave pilot of a freighter with the unfortunate name of Precious Harlot. The ship was attacked and damaged by the X’thari during a scouting mission, and the rest of her crew was killed. The Harlot was salvaged by Black Star, and the rest of its property sold off, along with the ship, which the new owner then paid us to repair and bring into service. However, I retained ownership of Samantha here, until I had a ship to put her on again.”

I then looked at Samantha, and said, “This is Captain Crowley and her crew. You’ll be included in their arrangement of splitting pay for jobs. Should you pay one hundred thousand credits to me, then you will be freed, and the ship will be on the fifths pay scale, with you as part of the crew.”

When she nodded, I looked back at Lorna, and said, “While I know Myriam is a solid engineer, you may consider talking with Samantha about any upgrades to your gear or seeing what tech you might be able to add in. She was trained as a pilot, but she was originally in Gauz space learning to be a technician of sorts. I don’t care what side businesses you get up to, so long as it doesn’t impact me or the company, and the pay is split same as the ‘official’ runs.”

Everyone seemed happy that they were on a ship where they could work their way free. Sam was happy that she was with a group that weren’t going to treat her like shit, and the other girls were happy that they had a good pilot. I decided that it would be a good idea to leave them some gifts, and let them get on their way. At my nod, Cali pulled out five sets of gear, and distributed them to the women.

Looking at the ladies, I said, “What you have here is the standard kit for Black Star freighter crews. Skinsuit, weapons, armor, and some other basic supplies. Anything you want above and beyond that? It is on you to buy and maintain it. Captain Crowley, the tablet in your gear has information on a couple jobs you and your crew can take on, headed into Imperial Space. And with that, I’ll leave you ladies to start getting acquainted, and figure out what you need to do. Good luck, ladies.”

(Black Star Shipyards, Nuevo Edo System)

It had now been almost four months since the Battle of Nuevo Edo, as some were calling it. The shipyards had been working with three shifts, nonstop since the battle, trying to get the surviving ships repaired and refit so that they’d be available to defend the planet if the X’thari came calling again. I hated to do it, but it was time to pull some of the project leaders away from their work so I could get an update on everything that had been going on.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, I know you’ve all been busy as hell, and I want to pass on to all your people my thanks for their hard work. The Navy may get most of the recognition, but you better believe that those who know, know that your groups are just as important to our success as they are. Now, I’m sure you all know Elduin Fatoris, head of shipyard operations on the Nightforge, and Yao Da, head of the Nuevo Edo shipyard. What is the status of the yards?”

Da spoke up first, the little Chinese woman who I’d poached from the more… restrictive environment of the Dimiya commercial shipyards. She’d been rather vocal about her thoughts on the male (specifically knelfi male) dominated leadership of the yards, and so had jumped at the chance I’d given her to do more. When we came to Nuevo Edo, she was the one I put in charge of the permanent yards, just as soon as they were under construction.

“Well, the good news is that we’ve cycled the damaged gunboats through the yards pretty quickly. Because of their size, anything that really damaged them was almost certain to destroy them, so they’ve been easy to get fixed. Because of that, and new builds, the gunboats of Third Group and the NEN are back to where they were, pre-battle.”

I nodded, “And the larger ships?”

Fatoris sighed, and said, “Well, taking First Group back to Dimiya to be worked on there was a big help, since the Assassins were able to take more damage without being destroyed. That means they need more yard time to be brought up to pre-battle conditions. The three surviving NEN Assassins have been repaired and returned to service, and we’ve been rushing to repair and refit Second Group’s ships. With the help we’ve been getting from the Navy’s engineers and crews helping out with the labor, we should be able to have Second Group back to full pre-battle strength in another two weeks.”

I looked over to Fothak Smelttoe, the Gauz who was in charge of our manufacturing site. “What about replacement fighters and gear for new recruits?”

Fothak nodded smartly. “Factories have already produced enough gear for all troops, and replacements for lost gear, guarded by standard protocol. Fighters and bombers have been produced to replace losses from the battle, including the NEN losses. We’re now starting on increasing the numbers, so there are replacement fighters ready for pilots who manage to eject, or are Nomads.”

I turned, and addressed Doctor Raphaëlle Bazalgette, who I’d poached from the Mars research labs the moment we’d managed to confirm that the X’thari carrier wasn’t going to blow up in our faces. “Doctor Bazalgette, what are the reports from the research on the X’thari carrier and fighters?”

The researcher was practically giddy to discuss the topic, “Well, the initial research from the—” she made some weird kind of chittering noise that I was sure would be the X’thari name of the carrier, and I held up a hand to stop her right there.

“We’re going to get along badly if you keep chittering at me like that, Doctor. I’m not even going to try and make sense of those sounds. Does that noise have an approximate translation in English?”

The doctor sighed, and said, “Fine, yes, it translates as the Defiant Bringer of Glorious Death to Inferior Beings and Many Wounding Biters to Worthy Prey. That is a very approximate translation, of course, as there are concepts in X’thari that don’t translate exactly into human languages.”

I nodded. “Right. In that case, we are officially renaming the carrier to be called the Defiant, so we can discuss it without my ears bleeding, without ignoring the Doctor’s work on translating it. Anyone have a problem with that?” The only one who looked like she objected was the doctor, but she at least was mollified by my using part of the ‘true’ name in the ship’s new name, so didn’t make a big deal out of it. Seeing no objections, I said, “All right, so what are we learning from the Defiant, doctor?”

“Well, we can reproduce their weapons easily enough. Their fighter lance weapons are effective against small craft, or even frigates or a light cruiser, but the only advantage they have over the Dragon bombers is extended ammunition capacity. The torpedoes the Dragons carry are far superior in destructive potential and range. Reviewing battle footage, when they’re in a tarpit and have to advance at sublight speeds to get to their targets, they are far easier to take down than our fighters.”

“However, there are some exciting prospects that we’ve considered for our heavier ships, adapting X’thari lance technology to our systems. They represent a good ‘middle ground’ between the typical secondary weapons present on Assassin-class corvettes and Reaper-class cruisers and the primary weapons. We could modify the Gunboats to carry them in place of their primaries. They’d suffer a range decrease of 45%, but an increase in damage of 30% with a 15% increased rate of fire.”

I shook my head, and said, “No, that won’t do at all. The little ships are fragile enough that they need something to hit at range with, especially when we’re in tarpits. What if we scaled the tech up? Could a cruiser like Breath of Hades use it?”

Bazalgette shook her head. “Too much of the Reapers are given over to the primary weapons. However, one of the ship designers on my team came up with an idea for something new…”

I smiled widely at the doctor, and made ‘gimme’ motions with my hands. “Well, let me have it, Doc. What mad genius things have you and your team come up with to make our enemies wish they were never born?”

The doctor did not disappoint, and pulled a set of rough blueprints up on the main screen. “Well, we’re at a middle ground between the Assassins and the Reapers here, in terms of size. We’re tentatively calling this ship class a destroyer because of that. We are using the X’thari lance technology for short-range fire, and for stealth attacks. Because of the space needed for that and the secondary weapons, we won’t be able to have the rail guns on them. Just no room for them.”

“So, an escort ship to go along-side our Reapers when they’re in combat, leaving the heavy assaults to the assassins?”

Bazalgette shrugged. “The designer pointed out that the Assassins are really wasted in fleet action. Sure, they can fight in formation, but they’re really best at sneak attacks and wolfpack tactics, even as detached forces going behind enemy lines or hitting pirates. The Reapers are clearly the focus of our fleet’s firepower, once we get into a brawl, so if we had each Reaper with a few escorting destroyers, and the gunboats buzzing about, that would free the Assassins to do hit and run tactics for better effect, or sneak past to hit whatever our real target is.”

“All right, I’m liking this so far. But the lack of stand-off weaponry is not something I’m comfortable with. Getting in close and slugging it out with people in our weight class or higher is what hurt us last time. What options do we have for that?”

“Well, we have missile launchers amidships, and torpedo tubes fore and aft that are capable of fitting both the Dragonbreath and the Starbolt torpedoes. That will give them some extended range, as well as giving them attack options that don’t include pointing directly at the people they’re trying to kill or getting in close.”

“Very well, that will do for weapons. How are they defensively? If they’re going to be charging into fire, then I’m going to want them to be coming out the other side.”

“X’thari ships use a technorganic hull structure that has many of the benefits of our current hulls for the Assassins and Reapers. Our materials people have created an alloy of the two materials, which we would be able to produce with our fabricators. Well, technically it wouldn’t be an alloy, as the two materials aren’t metals, but the process is similar enough that the materials people are calling it one. Preliminary reports indicate that hull strength increases by 30%, and is less prone to fracturing than our typical hulls, but the stealth profile is reduced by 10% and mass increases by 10%. Costs increased by 12% on initial runs due to the materials used, but over the long term, it should be cheaper, once you’re in action.”

“Hmm. Not something we’ll worry about with the Assassins or other small craft, then, since the Assassin mission profile emphasizes stealth. And the gunboats… thirty percent won’t do anything for them. What would it cost to convert the Reapers to this new hull material?”

“A week and a half in the yard, starting with stripping the old paint, infusing the existing hull with the mix that will cause it to ‘fuse’ the two materials, and then repainting. It would give both the Reapers and the destroyers a significant boost to their survivability.”

I clapped my hands, and smiled at them. “You guys have done excellent work on this. Transmit your findings to Raven, and the team at the Dimiya yards. If they agree with your assessments, then add the destroyers to the build lists. The new destroyer class will be called the Knight class, since these will be jousting with enemy vessels, it seems. Raven, do you have an updated target fleet group manifest?”

“Yes, Commodore.”

The view on the screen shifted from the schematics of the proposed Destroyer and an ‘order of battle’ emerged.

Standard Black Star Navy Fleet Group:

2 Reaper-Class Cruisers

6 Knight-Class Destroyers

8 Assassin-Class Corvettes

16 Gunboats

1 Smerti-Class Carrier

1 Large Freighter (Logistics)

I looked over to Raven, and said, “This is the standard plan we want to build up to for First Group, and the new Fourth and Fifth groups, right?” When she nodded, I turned back to the screen, and said, “All right, I’m generally happy with this, as we can break it down into lighter groups if we need to, sending a group of Assassins with a Raven as support if needed. Most of the logistics for the small ships is in food stores and repair materials, since the ammunition for an Assassin’s main gun can be manufactured easily wherever there’s an asteroid with enough metal in it. But the fighters and bigger ships have munitions that need to be refilled when they’re used. We haven’t had a problem about missing a fleet train until now, because we haven’t had extended fighter operations of fleet battles, but it is better to plan for it now.”

Raven nodded. “The Pocket carriers like the Vicious Return will be phased out of standard fleet formations as they are replaced by standard carriers. However, I have had a request from Major Kahn for a pocket carrier to be assigned to each of his Marine Assault ships, along with a trio of Crow-Class assault ships. As you know, the Crow-Class is a modified version of the Raven-class freighter, with the freighter cargo compartment replaced with mission-variable setups, and increased armor and weapons abilities, making them effective trans-atmospheric gunboats with the Dragonbreath torpedoes to give them enough hitting power to make them a threat. That would allow his Marines to conduct independent operations without relying on the Navy for constant support.”

Hmm. A single pocket carrier could only field one squadron of fighters. So which of the three designs would the Marines want? “What kind of fighters was the Major looking to have on those carriers?”

“Thunderbolts, for the most part, with Marine pilots. We’ve been discussing it, and the Thunderbolts are as close to a general-purpose fighter as we have right now, capable of performing multiple roles. Anything too large for the capability of a squadron of Thunderbolts, the Assault ship, and the Crows, and they ought to have Navy assistance to begin with.”

That suited the Marines fine then. Still, something was still bothering me, though. That outline of the projected group manifest just didn’t look right. “The Reapers are going to need some serious revision if they’re going to become fleet command ships. They just aren’t designed for that kind of detail. Oh sure, they’ll work in a pinch, but they’ll need upgrades if we’re going to have that be a standard part of their mission. Do we have any plans for a command ship?”

That the doctor was happy was no surprise. But when the others started grinning like loons, I knew something was up. “Let me guess, someone decided that they wanted to design a command ship while we were designing my new destroyer?”

Raven politely cleared her throat, and said, “Well, I just so happen to have lifted the schematics on all current Imperial ship designs back during the war, so we had something to go off of already. And since we were going to be expanding the fleet, it was put forward by several groups that we needed a true command ship for the different groups. Plus, the Nuedo Evo Navy will be wanting something more than a corvette or cruiser to hang their hat on.”

I shook my head. It was good to have good people, who knew what they were doing, but sometimes I wished they hadn’t picked up my sense of showmanship. “Well, all right then, hit me with it. What have you guys cooked up?”

A new schematic appeared on the screen, and my first thought was this was one big sucker. It was clearly no mere cruiser, even a Heavy Cruiser, but an actual BATTLESHIP! I turned, and looked at the smiling group, and said, “Really? I know we’re expanding an all, but do you really think we’re at the point of needing fucking battleships? Sure, it isn’t a superdreadnought, but that thing is a helluvalot bigger than any ‘mercenary’ company other than those Kul’tiras guys have.”

Raven simply shook her head. “Well, ‘Admiral’—” I glared at her, and she smiled, “Oh yes, you’ll find that the upgrade kit has been delivered to your room already, waiting for you to use it so next time we go into a fleet action, we get more bonuses from it.” I shook my head. My people were really too good for words sometimes.

Raven continued, ignoring my mental musings, “We actually started the design process for it, since the Nuevo Edoans were going to need an actual flagship at some point, once we’d built them up to the point where they can stand on their own. But we wanted something leaner and meaner than the superdreadnoughts you normally see.”

I sighed, giving up on the argument for the time being. “Fine, fine. So tell me about this beast. I can see the ‘leaner’ part, since it doesn’t have nearly the bulk of a superdreadnought. But how about the ‘meaner’ part?”

“Well, the shields and engines are all superdreadnought strength, and the armor is actually 10% stronger than the typical Imperial superdreadnought. Of course, it has less point defense because of it, and it has a flight deck equivalent to the Reapers, instead of the larger deck on an Imperial ship.”

“Crew complement is smaller as well, due to the smaller size, and the primary weapons taking up a significant area of the ship. The primaries, by the way, are four forward-facing railguns equivalent to the Reaper-class guns. In addition, we have more than a few missile launchers and X’thari lances, scaled up to battleship strength, for close fighting, and eight torpedo tubes on each side of the ship set up in a ‘broadsides’ configuration. It may be small, compared to a superdreadnought, but it can definitely bring the pain.”

I nodded slowly. A ship like this would solve a lot of the problems we’d faced at Nuevo Edo, but it would require much more of a crew to keep running. Still, if they were going to go with his plan to push into the gates and start seriously exploring, then they would need something like this.

“Then the Wrath-class Battleship is officially part of the Black Star Navy. Add it to the build lists.”

(CNS Luvon Gilrie, Nuevo Edo Gateway)

Captain Faylen Zylna leaned forward in her seat as they passed through the Gateway. She was young to be the Captain of a navy ship, she knew, but the Assassin ships were entirely new, from the Navy’s perspective, and they required a certain kind of thinking that older, more experienced captains didn’t always have. In short, they needed someone who was willing to do insane things, like the Black Stars did.

Of course, her being young and having fresh ideas wasn’t the only reason she’d gained this posting. She had been told as much by the Admiral when she’d met with him and a Zumrora from Intelligence. The leader of Black Star was a notorious womanizer, and she was attractive and single. At the very least she wouldn’t get sent away as easily as an older man. And the Navy needed this exercise, to know how to use the ships they’d bought from Black Star.

Thankfully, she hadn’t been ordered to do anything so stupid as to try and seduce the owner. The Admiral had wanted to put an intelligence asset on her crew who WOULD have had that mission, but Zumrora had apparently shot that down, saying that the owner would see through it, and who knows what would happen. But she had been pointedly told that while there was no order for her to seduce him, there was also very much no order for her to avoid his advances, if he made any. She felt like bait in a trap.

“Captain, Nuedo Evo Navy ship Santiago is challenging us.”

“Send the response we were given, with the orders we were given to rendezvous with the Black Star forces here. And get send the greeting package to the Black Star ships.”

Time to get this ‘exercise’ started, she thought.

(BSN Dykhaniye Smerti, Nuevo Edo Orbit)

Captain Zylna stepped off her shuttle with Lieutenant Daelen, the head of her Marine detachment. The Black Stars apparently used what they called ‘tactical teams’ for their ship-board security and ship-to-ship or ship-to-ground actions, but the Confederate Navy used their Marines, probably because they had a lot of them, and needed to put them to good use somewhere. Taking a moment, she looked around to get her bearings. It was still amazing that a group like the Black Stars had been able to capture a fully-functioning Imperial carrier during the civil war. Of course, it probably had more to do with pride than anything, with a captain not wanting to surrender to his ‘brothers’ and face the shame of admitting they’d chosen the wrong side, or some crap like that.

It was still an impressive sight to see, however, with the Imperial flight deck filled with the fighters of the Black Star ships, especially those new Dragon bombers that had made such an impact on the Fleet chat nets when their existence was disclosed. Poor pilots were bemoaning the thought of being stuck in a bomber, while commanders were quietly freaking out about the destructive capability of the Dragons with those torpedoes of theirs. There were people saying that this may mean a change in fleet tactics overall over the next couple decades, as carriers became more important than dreadnoughts for fleet operations.

Taking a breath, she turned her eyes front, and stepped up to the officer in the black uniform of the Black Star Navy, and offered a salute. “Captain Faylen Zylna of the Luvon Gilrie, and my Marine commander, Lieutenant Kuskyn Daelen, requesting permission to come aboard?”

The officer returned the salute, in a style that was not quite Imperial or Confederate, but was its own style. Her background reading identified it as the same style used by an old blue-water navy on Earth long before the humans ever reached space. This ‘US Navy’ was apparently a major power in the world’s oceans before the wars that eventually lead to the planet’s unification and the birth of the Terran Empire.

“Captain Zylna, I am Slave-Captain Scott Cook, and both you and Lieutenant Daelen are welcome on the Dykhaniye Smerti. If you will follow me, the Master wishes to meet you both, to go over the details of these exercises.”

As they fell in line behind the captain, Daelen asked, “Were you stationed on the Smerti when it was captured during the war?”

Slave-Captain Cook winced at that, and said, “First, that is a… sensitive topic with many of the crew, and those of us who are still on board don’t like talking about the war. We were following the orders of our commanding officers, who we trusted. Unfortunately, it became clear that there were many of the upper echelons who were deeply complicit in crimes against the Empire. I was the second officer aboard the Radiant Dawn at Edena. With our fighters either on mission or destroyed, we were helpless against the enemy fire. Carriers of our type simply are not designed to do more than hold off aggressors until other fleet elements or their fighters take care of the threat.”

“The Slave-Captain of the Artemis stripped our shields with a shot from their primary weapon, and once they were hitting us with ion cannons, the systems that hadn’t been knocked offline by impact were quickly disabled. The Captain and First Officer both elected suicide rather than surrender to ‘privateers’. I was given the choice of either joining them, or surrendering to Black Star, once it became clear that the fleet would not be able to rescue us.”

Captain Zylna gave Daelen a look to discourage more questions on that specific line, and said, “As someone who has seen Black Star tactics ‘up close’ from both sides, what is your opinion of their effectiveness? I heard that the casualties in the battle against the X’thari were quite high.”

“That they were, Ma’am. But that is what happens when a force designed for intercepting light craft and organizing quick attacks from stealth are forced into a position where they cannot simply fade away and strike when and where they please. They managed to nail us to a point where we had to defend, which made us go against most of our ‘doctrine’, but we gave better than we got. Since then, the word is that the big brains have been designing some new ships that would allow us to anchor a defensive line if we need to.”

Zylna blinked at that. “Already planning for another war?”

Cook simply laughed, and said, “The X’thari will be back, they always come back. So we’ll be ready for them next time. And the X’thari aren’t the only threats out there, so if Black Star gets called in to help ‘negotiate’ between two sides in a conflict between, say, two Alliance worlds, then we need to be able to do the job properly.”

By then, they stepped through the doors that led them to the flag deck. The man in charge was immediately apparent, even with everyone wearing black uniforms, due to the way he was standing at a console with others coming up to speak to him, before returning to their duties. Slave-Captain Cook snapped to attention and saluted. “Master, the Captain and Marine commander of the Luvon Gilrie.”

The man looked at them, and Zylna could see how this man could get the ladies, even without wealth and power, which he definitely had. For a second, she wished she HAD been given orders to try and seduce him, but quickly put that thought out of her head. The intelligence report also suggested that he had some kind of Mental Psy training, and skill at using it subtly, without the targets knowing.

“Thank you, Captain, you are dismissed.” Cook nodded, and headed out the door, while the man looked them over, “I am Admiral Mirikon Mollen, at least while on one of my warships. Yes, they ambushed me and made me get the upgrades that would make me an Admiral. If I’m out of uniform, I am either Captain Mollen of the Starlight Raven, or Mr. Mollen, owner of the Black Star Company. With that said, the purpose of your ship joining Black Star for these exercises is to learn to properly use the ship we’ve made for you, using tactics that your Navy acknowledges are of questionable sanity but unquestionable effectiveness. So I will be treating you as one of my crews until the exercises are concluded, understood?”

Zylna let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding. Looks like the ‘notorious womanizer’ wasn’t going to immediately start flirting with her, which was a good sign. And he was taking these exercises seriously, which was also good. “Understood, Admiral. What is the format of the exercises going to be?”

“We’ll start you off with the training simulations we gave to the Nuevo Edo Navy. Some of these things will be refreshers for you and your crew, but the tactical advice will constitute a core part of why you are here. Additionally, I’ve taken the liberty of sending you some reading for your free time. Black Star uses a lot of tactics from blue-water navies of the past, especially submarine warfare tactics.”

Zylna nodded, and said, “Why submarine tactics, sir?”

The Admiral chuckled, and said, “Because an Assassin is the closest thing to a submarine as you’re likely to find in the blackness of space. Quick, quiet, and able to strike without warning. Devastating against fixed defenses from ranges that are insane, even when talking about space, since all it takes is time and math to hit the target on a ballistic trajectory. And when you’re closer in, it offers a devastating first strike, to the point where a group of Assassins working together can take down a superdreadnought with ease.”

Daelen cleared his throat, and said, “Anything special for the Marines, sir?”

Admiral Mollen shook his head. “Fortunately, a Marine’s work on an Assassin is the same as anywhere. We typically use a tactical team based on the ship for boarding actions, and any ship-to-ground actions. The big change for you, compared to a more traditional Navy ship, as I’m sure you’ve already noticed, would be in EVA operations. Non-metallic hulls mean that magnetic boots do nothing for you, so climbing around the outside of the ship is done with grav-boots or grav-belts. I trust you’re already trained on those?” When the Lieutenant nodded, he continued, “Excellent. In that case, you’re already caught up. The Navy are the ones who need the tactical primer. However, I know that there are sims with various Marines running small-unit tactics competing against each other. For bragging rights only, of course. And as the owner, that is all I’m allowed to ‘know’ about that.”

Daelen nodded. “Understood, sir. My men will look forward to having someone new to test themselves against.”

“Well, let them know that their window is a short one. Now that you’ve arrived, the Luvon Gilrie will be shipping out with us as we provide a primer on anti-piracy tactics that we’ve found to be useful, after a quick tour of the Amazon system, to make sure no one has been naughty and found a way to set up areas on the planet that would be immune from Greenwave, and warn off any tourists that might be trying to do something stupid.”

Zylna nodded. “Who will we be grouped with, sir?”

“Starlight Raven will be the ‘bait ship’ for this mission, with Shadowdancer being the primary. You’ll be shadowing her, and learning from their crews. Once we’ve done a basic skills evaluation in the Amazon system, we’ll return to Confederation space via Desolace. And before you ask, the reason we’re going through Desolace is because the gate is within reasonable distance of several populated worlds, but there isn’t anyone there, and Assassins are still very visible when they come through the Gateway, just like any other ship.”

Zylna nodded her head again, and said, “I understand. When will we be leaving, Admiral?”

“We are scheduled to ship out in two weeks, so you may consider rotating your crew through the Spaceport for shore leave. That is at your discretion, of course. And Lieutenant, I’ve sent you a comm code for Major Khan. He will be extremely happy to have some ‘fresh meat’ to throw his people at in the ‘friendly’ sims.” The Admiral looked at both of them, and said, “Any further questions? Then you are both dismissed.”

As soon as they left the room, Lieutenant Daelen shook his head. Once he’d made sure that they were alone, he said, “I don’t know what I was expecting, but that man is nothing like what I thought he would be.”

Zylna chuckled at her Marine commander, and said, “Oh, what were you expecting? The roguish outlaw, the relentless womanizer, or the mad genius that gets victory from certain defeat? I’ll admit that I had not expected him to be acting like a professional mercenary commander, or even an actual navy man.”

Daelen frowned, “Well, he’s a Nomad, and they have lives they lead outside of our world, and there’s been scuttlebutt through the Marines that his Black Star Marines were all Marines in their world, before they retired or left the service for various reasons. So it may be that being put in command brought out some training from his other world.”

Zylna considered that for a moment. “That would fit with the information the intelligence people worked up on him. They say there’s a high likelihood that he is former military of some kind, even before enhancing his skills with his experiences in this world. His knowledge of naval tactics is more than just someone picking it up as he goes. He has to have actually studied ancient blue-water navy tactics, and worked to convert them to space. The design of the Assassins was clearly intended to play just the role he put them in.”

Daelen considered that. “Do the intel guys know anything about the person who created the Assassins?”

“Lost on Jagloth, to the Legion Plague. Still, they’ve heard some reports that the designer was a Nomad, so there may be a way to find him.”

Zylna’s comm beeped, and she checked it to find out that she had a new message. She read it through once, and shook her head. “Well, it looks like the reports weren’t all wrong. ‘Captain’ Mollen invited me to dinner at a restaurant in the capitol of Yokosaki tomorrow night. And tonight I have a request to meet the Confederate Ambassador for dinner at the Embassy.”

“Captain Mollen, hmm? So civilian clothes. Well, I’ll have the squad standing by in case of trouble. Just don’t do anything the politicians want you to.”

Zylna laughed at that as they walked back to their shuttle. “If I did what the politicians wanted, I’d be all but stripping for him in the middle of the flag deck. Thank goodness the Intel side was more sensible and put a stop to that.”

(CNS Luvon Gilrie, Amazon System)

Captain Zylna looked up from her desk in the small quarters afforded her as Captain of the Gilrie as the door chimed. It was more space than the average crewman had, certainly, but no one would mistake it for luxury. She sent the signal to open the door, revealing Lieutenant Daelen and her XO, Lieutenant Tanyl Leoven. She nodded to both of them, and motioned to the two folding chairs in the small space. It was ‘cozy’, but this was the Captain’s space, which meant they could talk plainly here, without the burden of rank. Both men took the offered seats, and the bottles that bore the mark of a local brewer.

“Gentlemen. I trust the crew has recovered from their bout of shore leave? I was worried when I didn’t see any calls for us to pick up sailors or marines from the local authorities.”

Leoven laughed. “I was wondering that myself. There’s always at least one sailor that gets a little too drunk and ‘overzealous’, and ends up in the care of Shore Patrol. I had half a mind to call down to the infirmary, and see if there was an epidemic running through the crew that I didn’t know about.”

Daelen snorted in response to that, and took a swig from his bottle before saying, “Well, the way I heard it from my boys, the fact that the whole place was mostly women looking for… companionship and eager to actually buy Marines drinks instead of the other way around meant that any male on the crew was promptly whisked away from the bar the moment they were inebriated enough to pick a partner, and they was enough choice that no one went home disappointed. Free beer and easy women make for very happy Marines. Happy Marines don’t cause trouble, because then someone will come to make them very unhappy. Same for your sailors, I expect.”

Leoven nodded. “True enough. The few women in the crew, though, apparently were not pleased with their lack of prospects while on leave.”

Zylna smiled, remembering some of her adventures on shore leave, back before she was a Captain. “Even if the girl has no intention of going home with someone, it feels nice to be fawned over, you know? Makes her feel wanted and special, when most of the time we have to be tough to get the respect of our crews.”

Her XO nodded. “Yes, I heard the same as I came across Ensign Hunt as she was leaving one of the bars. She was drunk enough that she didn’t recognize who she was talking to until I’d gotten her back to the shuttle. She just saw the Navy uniform, and that I was a man.”

Zylna raised an eyebrow. “Anything I should be concerned about?”

“No, just the same things any sailor who has been drinking and striking out all night might say if a female shipmate was helping them back to the shuttle. I asked Doctor Ivesly to impress on her the dangers of overindulging. Officially, I am not aware of any incident that happened.”

Daelen leaned forward, and said, “And what about you, Captain? Did you enjoy your tour of the Black Star facilities before we left?”

“Not much to enjoy, to be honest. The things they’ve done with the Nightforge are incredible, but in the end it is still a mobile shipyard. The tour of the X’thari carrier was very informative, or it would have been if I was fluent in scientific minutiae. The most interesting thing was watching the yardies begin construction on a new ship. The person I asked said it was going to be the new flagship for the Nuevo Edo Navy once it was finished. They were calling it the Wrath of Susanoo. Apparently, it was named after an old Earth god of the sea and storms.”

Leoven shrugged. “A cruiser like the Reapers the Black Stars have would definitely be an improvement over an assassin, but calling it the ‘Wrath’ of anything, much less a storm god, seems presumptuous.”

“Oh, it won’t be a cruiser. Black Star has apparently decided to start trying their hand at building battleships.”

Daelen winced. “The Senate is just going to LOVE that news.”

Zylna shook her head. “I doubt Admiral Mollen actually cares that much about what the Senate thinks. The intel department agrees with my assessment that he’s attempting to make himself a figure that one cannot ignore, but actually attempting to take him on forcefully will leave you so bloody that even if you win, you’ll be open to fresh assaults. And since it is impossible to permanently kill a Nomad without doing things that calls down Exterminatus orders, he’s banking on the fact that, soon, he will be too dangerous for people to simply try and push him around.”

“So if that’s the case, why are we on this mission, basically being welcomed spies in his organization?”

Zylna looked over to her XO, and answered, “Because he wants to prove that he can be a good neighbor to those who work with him, but a terror to those who move against him. Intel says he did the same thing with Dimiya’s underworld, except he was less diplomatic about it. The pirate hub in the Badlands was destroyed, along with several other installations, just because those groups had not told the pirates that attacking Black Star was a bad idea.”

Leoven nodded. “So, he makes himself stronger, and discourages those who might be against him from taking direct action. Not bad, not bad at all.”

Zylna grinned. “Any way, now that we’re through the gate, we’ve got ‘skills testing’ with the Shadowdancer. They want to test us and see how good we are with the new ship.”

Daelen nodded. “My team has already been doing sim battles against Black Star teams for squad-level combat. It has been an interesting experience. Their Black Star Marines are every bit an experienced military unit, and those fights have been some good ones. But against the tactical teams from the Assassins? It is like pitting marines against commandos. We can win if we pin them down, but they are slippery as hell, and ruthless. We’ve won as many as we’ve lost, but it was always a blowout either way. Not the even fights we had with the Marines.”

Zylna smiled at her fellow officers. “Well, our job is a bit more challenging. We are going to hunt and ‘kill’ Shadowdancer without getting killed ourselves.”

Leoven frowned at that. “How are we supposed to hunt a stealth ship? They’re damn near invisible to passive sensors unless we happen to get lucky and they block a star’s light from us, and going active would reveal our position, long before we found Shadowdancer.”

Zylna leaned forward. “Well, I had a thought about that. But we’ll need the help of the shuttle pilots to make it work.” Now that she had their attention, she said, “Here’s what we’re going to do…”

(BSS Starlight Raven, Amazon System)

Space combat involved a lot of waiting. That wasn’t so different from when I was in the Navy, but it got a lot harder to wait when you weren’t even an official part of the exercises going on. Since I wasn’t going to just sit back and do NOTHING while I was waiting for the exercise to begin, and I couldn’t just haul one of the girls into my cabin for a quickie, since the exercise was coming up and I was ostensibly in charge of it all as a referee, I decided to amuse myself with ideas for how we could make better use of the Amazon world, now that the technological base of the planet had been consumed.

Naturally, if they wanted any of the resources on the planet, they would have to find a way to cleanse them of nanites before they got to any tech we wanted to keep. Oh sure, the shields of our ships could be modulated to the frequency of the ‘fence’ used to block Greenwave, but that only kept nanites away as long as the shield was up. If you opened a hole in the shield to pull in resources, or brought nanite-infected resources inside the shield, then you killed yourself.

Killing the nanites was easy, if you didn’t care whether the thing the nanites was on was dead and glowing from the radiation. But anything you nuked so badly would be useless for most tasks until it wasn’t so radioactive. So even ores and gems wouldn’t be worth the hassle to pull out of the Amazon planet. Otherwise, it was a case of ‘wait until the nanites run out of power’. That’d probably be sometime in a few decades. And that just wasn’t going to work. Unfortunately, the anti-tech weapon had been designed to resist tech-based measures…

Wait, what if it wasn’t pure tech, but part organic? If we could make it so that something made technorganically could resist, maybe even eat Greenwave, we could set up collectors, and then… Yeah, that would work, if we could figure it out, but the mass wouldn’t just disappear. Could we turn it into something? And that still didn’t solve the problem of collecting resources outside the barrier, unless we went with some kind of organic collector? Yeah, sending those thoughts to the tech heads and scientists, let them play around with those questions.

“Captain, I believe the exercise is beginning.”

Raven’s voice brought me out of my thoughts on how to properly exploit the riches of a world filled with tech-killing nanites with mad science, and into the present. Both Shadowdancer and the Luvon Gilrie had disappeared from our normal sensors over almost two hours ago, as they maneuvered to starting positions. The Gilrie was on their first test against a stealth ship that knew how to evade detection. So how would the Confederates try and even the odds?

“Tachyon pulse detected, coordinates marked. Identifying… source is shuttle Gilrie 1. Momentary contacts on screen, lost now.”

A tachyon pulse was the space version of sending out a sonar ping to look for submarines. And like a sonar pulse, it did not care one way or the other about who was a friend or foe. Worse, it would show literally everything in the system, which made quick analysis difficult in battle, unless you happened to be in a nearly empty section of space like we were here…

I smiled to myself. It would appear that the Confederates chose a captain who thought she could duel Shadowdancer and win. The shuttle was exposed, but the letter of the exercise had nothing against it. A moment’s exposure wasn’t enough to give Shadowdancer firing solutions, but the same was true of the Gilrie. They would need to have multiple pulses, so that they could track targets in real time, or they’d need to get a lot closer, so that they could launch weapons fast and the enemy couldn’t evade. So why tip their hand now?

“Another tachyon pulse, new location. Designate shuttle Gilrie 2.”

Ahh, now it was making a little more sense. Two pulses, offset of each other in position, could triangulate the position and course of Shadowdancer. It was a good tactic, but how did it get past the fact that the enemy could triangulate their position as well when the next pulses came?

I double-checked the numbers on the brief fix we’d gotten on the two ships. About a light-minute apart? But wait a minute, what was this? “Raven, analysis on highlighted section of tachyon sensors.”

“Analyzing. It appears that several small objects have been jettisoned into space in the area of the shuttles. Tentative identification is a missile, currently inactive.”

“Oh, you clever girl. She plans to use the pulses to guide a missile spread activating in areas of ‘dead’ space. It will definitely cause a few pants to turn brown on Shadowdancer. Raven, have you confirmed that the missiles are training rounds?”

“Affirmative. The Gilrie sent us a tightburst message once the first pulse went off. The missiles are set to standard training packages.”

That was fine, then. Training rounds wouldn’t do any actual damage to the ships, and if they weren’t destroyed, they could be recovered and refueled. No sense wasting money out here.

And that’s when things went crazy.

(BSN Shadowdancer, Amazon System)

The exercise was just starting, and already Slave-Captain Theylnn was leaning forward in her seat in anticipation. This Confederate ship was almost identical to her Shadowdancer, except for a few minor differences that they’d left out when making versions to sell to the Confederate Navy. But Shadowdancer was the first of the Assassins, and her crew was the first to ever man the ships. The Shinokage might be the flagship until the new ships come in, but Shadowdancer’s crew took pride in being the First. The Black Star Navy began with this ship, and that meant they had a reputation to uphold. Nyna wasn’t about to fail, even in an exercise.

She looked to her sensor operator. “Anything on the EM or Grav scanners?”

Both were passive, lightspeed sensor systems. While it was faint, an Assassin under power had a distinct EM signature that someone who knew what they were looking for could find and track. If you were close enough. The same was true of the Gravity sensors. Despite the reduced mass from the nonmetallic hull, an Assassin still had mass, and bent the fabric of space around it, if only slightly, even when coasting with no acceleration. Reading those sensors and coming up with a track for an Assassin in stealth was as much an art as it was science. For reasons no one understood, a human or knelfi trained on the sensors with computer assistance had a 21% better detection threshold than the computer alone. One operator said it was like seeing something out of the corner of your eye, and just knowing that there was someone there.

“Three possibles, Ma’am, designating Echo 1 through 3. Two small ones, but the EM is high enough that the computer is tracking it. The other one… might be the Gilrie, but I can’t nail a fix. Tracks on screen.”

Nyna looked at the plot showing the probable tracks of possible targets. She knew that these Confederates had a lot to prove to themselves. They surely felt the pressure of being told that Shadowdancer, a mercenary ship, was going to test their skills, with them being official navy and all. Their Captain wasn’t an idiot, either, so how was she going to try and play this?

“Tachyon pulse from Echo 1! Sensor ping, we’ve been lit up!”

“Match to the tracks on Echoes 1 through 3! Do we have enough for a fix on the target?”

“Negative, captain. But three target confirmed, and in the right area for our readings. Echo 3 is now designated Tango 1. That’s the Assassin, has to be. Echo 1 and 2 look like shuttles, ma’am.”

No way that they would just give away their position like that with a locator ping. There had to be a plan in place. “Adjust course, take us towards Tango 1. Minimal thrust, vector our emissions directly away from the target. I want to be leaning the right way when whatever they’re planning hap—”

“New tachyon pulse! Echo 2 pulsing this time! Captain, I think I’m seeing something in the ‘shadow’ of Echo 1. Unknown objects.”

Slave-Captain Nyna Theylnn’s eyes widened. Triangulation! Of course! That meant that the next pulse would be…

(CSN Luvon Gilrie, Amazon System)

Captain Zylna took a deep breath, and said, “Are the missiles ready?”

“Yes ma’am! Missiles are in space and ready to launch as soon as the tachyon pulse lights up the target. Estimated course and speed likely heading towards us due to the last track.”

“All right. Both shuttles, tachyon pulse on my mark. One, two, three, MARK!”

Both shuttles fired tachyon pulses, and in that instant, twelve shipkiller missiles fired off their drives, seeking to target that had just been painted for them.

(BSN Shadowdancer, Amazon Space)

Nyna leaned forward in her chair, waiting for the moment to come. The pride of Black Star’s first ship rested on the next few moments, and she refused to let her ship, or her Master, down. This would work. It had to.

“Tachyon pulse!”

“EXECUTE!”

(CSN Luvon Gilrie, Amazon System)

Zylna leaned forward in her chair, waiting for confirmation. She was the youngest captain in the fleet, and she needed to prove herself, both to the Black Stars, and to the admiralty back home. The time was now. The Shadowdancer would never see it coming in time to save herself.

“Missiles away! We have good launch on all twelve missiles. Tracking to target…”

There was a flash of light, as suddenly the Shadowdancer appeared on their scopes, visible due to their active shields, but they were in TWO PLACES AT ONCE? How?

Before she could yell out an order, the lights flickered, and died, going to emergency lighting. The controls locked, and on the main display an image of a red X replaced the tactical readout, signifying that their ship was ‘dead’. “S-sensors? Do you have anything on what happened before we died?”

The sensor tech shook his head. “It happened too fast. The light from the event was difficult to interpret. Best guess? The Shadowdancer decided to jump right on top of us, and hit us while the shields were down for running in max stealth.”

Her XO looked deathly pale at that thought. “A jump that short? Without knowing what was ahead? My gods, what madness would prompt them to do something like that?”

Zylna sighed, and said to Leoven, “They’re Black Stars. This is the kind of people they are. They like to take insane risks and make it work for them.” She shook her head. There wasn’t any shame in losing against someone better than you, so long as you learned from it. And she would learn from this. But for now, there were responsibilities she had to take care of.

“All stations secure from exercise. Send recall codes to the missiles, and have the shuttles pick them up. Open up a line to the Shadowdancer, and offer Slave-Captain Theylnn my congratulations on her win.”

“Incoming transmission from Starlight Raven. Captains’ conference in ten minutes for a debrief on the exercise, and analysis of our performance. Vid conference only.”

“Acknowledge it. I’ll be in my ready room when it is time.”

(BSS Starlight Raven, Amazon Space)

When I conferenced in Nyna and Captain Theylnn, I noticed that each of them had their first officers with them. Well, I had Raven with me, so that was fair. “Well, Ladies, Gentlemen, I would like to start by saying that this was a very informative exercise. Nyna, pass my congratulations to Shadowdancer’s crew for never failing to surpass my expectations. Captain Theylnn, it is my pleasure to say that your ship performed far better than expected, which is a testament to the training you’ve given your crew. Now, we’re going to do a simple debrief, so we can figure out what went right, what went wrong, and what can be fixed. Any questions?”

Nyna shook her head. “No, Master.”

Captain Theylnn chuckled darkly, and said, “If that was better than you expected of us, then I am slightly afraid of what you were thinking would happen.”

I looked over my shoulder to the android body standing there, and grinned. “Raven?”

Raven looked at the screen, and said, “Captain Theylnn, your ship engaged stealth protocols well enough that automated sensors were unable to detect your ship until the tachyon pulses, and even then they were not of a sufficient strength or duration to get a weapons lock. You were traveling without shields to minimize your EM profile, as well. These are points in your favor. Given records available to Black Star as a registered mercenary company, and experiences during the war, we concluded that there was a 18.54% chance that you would act in some manner similar to how you did, actually taking into account the information that had been provided to you and acting accordingly. Another 43.89% suggested that you would fail in some aspect of the stealth approach, including items like excessive maneuvering or raising shields. There was a probability of 12.63% that you would fail to find a way to attempt to detect Shadowdancer until she had found you. The remaining 24.94% was that you would allow pride as a naval commander of a national military vessel to blind you and cause you to make mistakes out of arrogance.”

Captain Theylnn slumped in her chair, and said, “Well, I’m glad we beat those odds, but it is a little frustrating that our getting slaughtered was the most likely outcome if I didn’t get stupid or prideful.”

I shook my head. “You are an untried crew going against the most experienced crew on your ship type in the galaxy. I literally threw you up against the absolutely best I had to offer. There was always a chance you could have pulled out a win, if you got lucky or outfoxed Nyna, but it was an uphill battle for you.”

I held up my hand to cut off any further talk along that line. “Now, on to the debrief. The use of the shuttles to provide triangulation while keeping your emissions low was a good idea. However, you and the shuttles were maneuvering too much, and showed up on the Shadowdancer’s sensor screens as indeterminate energy spikes.”

“WHAT? We were sure they would be under the detection thresholds!”

“Ah, Master, if I may?” I nodded, and Nyna continued, “The readings were indeed under the normal detection thresholds for the computers. Well, the shuttles strayed into the ‘marginal’ range as they were setting up for the pulses. But the Luvon Gilrie was under the threshold for the ranges we were at. However, our sensor technicians have had years of practice reading the emissions track of an Assassin or Reaper under stealth. Our computer classified you as background noise from a pulsar, but our tech tagged you as a possible and was working a general track before the first pulses went off.”

I cut back in. “These are the kind of things this exercise was meant to find, Captain. Find the areas where you’re strong and weak, and work on them. Frankly, your idea to use missiles remote launched from halfway points by the shuttles to reduce response time was inspired. I assume you were doing that to keep from risking the mass of the Gilrie tipping their scanners at closer range?”

“Yes, we didn’t know about the computer not being able to read the sensors as well as a person, so we figured a tachyon pulse was the only way to show up a stealth ship that we wanted found. But to ensure a kill, we needed to fire more missiles in a shorter amount of time than we were able to do, so this was the solution we came up with.”

“Well, tell your crew that Raven and I have gone over the numbers, and your plan would have worked under normal circumstances. You executed perfectly, and with exact timing. Against a less experienced enemy, that would have worked.” I paused, and then went on. “But as I said, you weren’t against an inexperienced crew, but the longest-serving crew in the Black Star Navy. They know the Assassin better than any other crew in the Galaxy.”

I looked to the screen Nyna was on, and said, “That said, Nyna, where in the infinite abyss did you get the idea for doing a microjump in the middle of combat, going from one engagement zone to another like that?”

Nyna looked sheepish, and said, “Well, while we were in the Empire during the Civil War, the Valkyries ‘liberated’ copies of some old Earth science fiction shows. We’ve been doing viewing parties ever since. The other night we were watching one of the shows, and there was something like this called the Picard Maneuver…”

I smiled wryly, and said, “Well, until anyone says different, we’ll be calling it the Theylnn Maneuver, a variant on the Picard Maneuver for stealth encounters. And you are ordered to ensure that copies of those shows are distributed to the fleet, and the company net, so people can see if they can’t get any ideas from ancient TV shows that are so crazy they just might work.”

(Virtual Room in NERV HQ)

Morgan looked over to Isaac, frowning. “Can we really use copies of the TV shows in the game?”

Isaac nodded. “Cleared it with legal. As long as they are ‘historical archives’ that require work to obtain, and we pay a corporate-level subscription to a streaming service carrying the titles, then we’re golden. Our corporate Amazon Prime account was enough for the old stuff. That new one, though, is only on the network’s proprietary stream, so no joy on that.”

“Fine. I never watched that one, anyway. No way I’m buying a streaming service for one show. So, how’s the fallout from his adventures messing with the Senate?”

Isaac shrugged. “Tough to say right now. Black Star will likely be in as good a position or better. Probably better, since he’s building new ships, actively recruiting, and even has new designs coming down the pipe. They’re going to start work on an actual battleship! First player-owned battleship in the game. It’ll be nasty as all hell.”

Morgan frowned at that. “But so far he’s done fine with the ships he’s had. What’s changed?”

“Apparently, he didn’t like getting smacked around by the X’thari. And he’s got a whole address book of addresses that can be checked out, but the X’thari are probably on the other side of at least a couple. So he wants to have more ‘boom’ before doing serious exploring.”

“All right, that’s fine. But with him being the first mercenary company to have battleships, and even be able to throw down at the same level as actual militaries in a fleet action, that’s going to cause some people to start complaining more and more.”

Isaac shrugged. “Tell them to get off their butts and build themselves a battleship, then. Nobody handed our boy his toys. He went out and took them, or made them himself. “

“Oh, and I’ve gotten another set of complaints from one of the players that has crossed his path before. You know a player that goes by ‘Lord Kickass’?”

Leaning forward in his seat, Isaac smiled. “Really? Oh, this should be good. What did the idiot do?” At Morgan’s questioning look, Isaac shrugged. “The guy was a complete moron. Remember, he’s the one that Mollen framed for the Major’s murder way back when? And since then they’ve run into eachother once, and Kickass got sent down some rough roads because he kept making bad choices, until he finally reset his character. So, what happened?”

“Apparently, his notion of a good idea was to get work as soon as he had reset, and then enslave the people he worked for, spacing the men and keeping the women as sex slaves. When he saw that Mollen was on the same planet as he was, he freaked, and tried to attack him. Mollen’s people took him down, and then kept him drugged until he woke up in an escape pod already entering the Amazon planet’s atmosphere. He’s trapped on the Amazon world, same as all the others, and he’s trying to say Mollen cheated.”

“Well, I guess idiots are the same all over. Did Mollen actually cheat?”

Morgan shook her head. “No. He simply didn’t fight fair. Instead of a freighter to freighter smuggler battle like Kickass wanted, he had Shadowdancer watching in stealth for anyone to be stupid, and they took down his ship without blinking.”

Isaac nodded sagely. “Proper planning is not cheating. Sucks for Kickass, but the idiot should have known better. Anyways, tell him that he will be eligible for a reset in three months, real world time. Until then, there are Amazon women available for snu snu.”

Morgan snorted. “Ok, maybe I won’t say that last bit, but yeah, his complaint is getting denied. So anyways, on to better things. What is the situation with the dungeons?”

Isaac leaned back in his chair, and propped his feet up on the table. “People couldn’t be happier. There has been too many people with traditional MMO expectations and nothing to vent them on until now. The Ihm dungeon is already popular enough that the outpost is growing into more of a small town. Which is hilarious since it is on top of a mountain, and Ihm are generally cold-blooded.”

“And other than that one?”

“A second dungeon has been discovered in the Ihm Imperium, three in the Empire, two in the Free Worlds Alliance, and two in the Confederacy. That’s for inhabited systems. There’s 2-6 dungeons per polity that haven’t been discovered, either because they’re in interstellar space, or in uninhabited systems. We’re also seeing divergence from the Deus and human clones routine in the newer dungeons, which are being blamed on ‘corruption’ in the code caused by whatever reason, allowing there to be different enemy types in some dungeons.”

“That’s great! I can make sure that people know that there are dungeons which are variants, which will get people out there, exploring more, and bringing in new stuff.”

“Yes, I can’t wait until someone goes and finds the Chimera homeworld. That will be an eye opener, and make no mistake!”

“Chimera homeworld? They’re all artificially created! How can they have a homeworld?”

“Well, it seems that after the last war were chimeras were used (and were declared to be off limits by pretty much everyone) some managed to escape quarantines and containment zones, and they banded together in order to survive, moving out away from established colonies so that they could live without being hunted. The more unstable ones all got themselves killed, while the smart ones stayed hidden on their homeworld.”

“But they can’t breed! Wouldn’t they have all died off by now?”

“Well… it turns out that Chimeras with functioning anatomy are capable of breeding, but the rate is something like two percent of normal human fertility rates when breeding with other chimeras. When doing cross-species pairings, that jumps to 30% of normal human rates. They’re the only species in the galaxy that has more trouble procreating with their own species than with an alien species.”

“Oh my. I can only imagine the problems if they get discovered. When do you think that will happen?”

“Considering that there’s a dungeon on their planet’s moon? Probably sooner than we’d expect.”