For The Tyrants Fear Your Might (A quest of interstellar rebellion)

[CyberFemme]

President AKuz, my people yearn for freedom [from Atlantis protest discourse].

 

[TheArcanist]

Red daylight filtered through the Atlanta skyline as the sun set on the night of May 30th. The last week... it had been a riot, sometimes literally. The fighting had been intense and fierce but the Provisional Atlanta Commune had thrown out the last dregs of Ares mercenaries and Solar Marshals attempting to hold key points of the city. There had been blood and fire and screams and pain and so much more, but when those last convoys fled with their tails between their legs to their last strongholds in Atlantic City... that's when it had really set in for Jeremy. They'd won.

But then came the news.

He really should've seen it coming. Of course the Compact and its Charters would never let them go in peace. That's what the stories said, right? The Compact was born in an ocean of blood, and it seemed it would be destined to die choking on another.

He... he should really do something. Anything. Go out and dance, go to a vigil, go to work with one of the militias and try to see if he could help with the aftermath...

But it nagged at him. Something he knew he'd regret for the rest of his life, however short, if he didn't finish it. So he loaded up the little fabricator he'd requisitioned from an art collective and loaded it up into a car, and drove off as the last rays of sunlight set on the city.

****

The park had been renamed, of course. "Rachel Taggett Memorial", after one of the dozen protesters first killed in the uprising. Jeremy's idea to restore its old art exhibits had hardly been unique - in fact, once most of the city had been secured a few days ago, it was one of the first things people had started doing. Sculptures and murals of all kinds dotted the vista, a confluence of color and light and angles.

He'd asked to have his little plinth left alone, though, and the park's committee had granted his request.

He got to work right away. He'd been making sketches of what he'd wanted to do for a few days, now... but recent events had really put things into perspective. There was only one thing left to do.

He fired up the fabricator. Piece by piece, it started spitting out parts of the sculpture, which Jeremy would take out and start carefully assembling together. Some parts needed to be welded together, but that was alright - there were still plenty of people there, even then, at the end of the world - and they were still willing to help him out, to put together this last doomed art project.

Slowly, it took shape. A woman, draped in a cloak, holding a staff in her hands, a wreath astride her feet.

Let the end come. If it does - if the whole world around them was reduced to nothing in a riot of light and fire and violence - it wouldn't change what he built here, what he was, what the people of Atlanta had built, and what they were still building.

Then, on the statue's base, the words were written : THE WORLD AGAIN.

 

[Artificial Girl]

Pacific City, May 31st

Lira felt exhausted.

The last week had been a hurried, jumbled mix of information and things happening. God did things happen so much. She wasn't much of a fighter, wasn't much of anything. Just some menial before this all happened who spent most of her time tidying hot-swap office spaces and making sure fake plants looked just so for the start-ups who would come in and spend twenty-four or thirty-six or forty-eight hours trashing the place and leaving behind take out boxes, spilled coffee and sometimes bodily fluids for her to clean up and then reset the space for the next guy with the next big idea.

Then the Broadcast had happened and her section of Pacific City north of the bay had become a warzone almost overnight. People armed with freshly printed guns and drones and rocket launchers ambushing police cars, barricading streets, fortifying every block against what was sure to be the Black Summer to end all Black Summers (she had not been an early adopter of the Anarchist theme of hope and revolution, sadly).

Lira wasn't a fighter. She had had dreams, once, of being an archivist or digital librarian but the cost of the certifications and the education had been too much for her family to even think about, plus her older brother had gotten in trouble in high school for graffiti and that had really tanked the family's chances of being able to get the loans she'd need for those classes.

She wasn't bitter. Couldn't afford to be.

Lira could still help, though. She'd run a small support group for queer kids (a side-gig she called it, even if she only collected the smallest legal fees necessary to use the title of support group) before everything had gone to shit and had offered her services to watch kids while their parents did things like shoot down aircraft, bake bread, and whatever else was needed to help out.

So here she was. A week later. Her support group (most of them. Some of them had seemingly vanished in the aftermath and she'd never heard from them or their folks again. She hoped they were okay) plus a gaggle of other neighborhood kids, deep in the bowels of the old DemFed tunnels beneath the Sonoma Mountains. She'd been corralling kids ages 3 and up for the last twelve hours as people had trickled into the shelter the evening before and then done her best to keep them entertained and distracted while time ticked down. Eventually they'd all gone to bed.

Lira couldn't sleep though. So she'd drank coffee, chainsmokers e-cigs and stared at her phone since maybe 10PM the night before. There'd been breaks where she'd tried to sleep or turned on some anime or a movie or something, anything to keep her mind off of what was happening the skies overhead. The common room of their shelter section (Two-Seven-Nine-Alpha, which she had burned into her memory) had emptied, leaving only her. Alone.

She missed her girlfriend. Alena was a fighter. Busy doing crowd control and helping with the influx of any last minute arrivals.

The door to the living area opened and she didn't look up from her phone until a small, adolescent voice broke the silence.

"Miss Xie?" Lira looked up from her phone, focused on the feline augment girl who looked very young all of a sudden. It was weird. Lira was only twenty-three and already these tweens looked like babies to her. When she'd been that age, she'd insisted that she'd been very grown up and now… now she wondered how she'd ever thought that.

"Hey. Evelyn." One of her neighborhood kids. Her parents were coordinators for the new neighborhood council and were probably either dead asleep or burning the midnight oil, from what Lira remembered.

"Can't sleep?" Lira asked. A glance at her phone told her that the expiration of the ultimatum was due in the next hour.

"No." Evelyn plopped down onto the couch next to Lira and stared at the television, which was playing through another now copyright free television show that Lira had stopped paying attention to hours ago. There was silence between them for a long moment, then Evelyn spoke again:

"I want to go home," it was said with the insistence of the young who want something they know at the moment to be impossible. The need to express that want, though, outweighs the logical part of your brain which tells you 'no, we can't do that right now.' Lira thought of her tiny flat that she shared with her girlfriend. Could remember the two of them and their other partner laughing at the tiny table, playing a stupid game. Bitching about work. In her mind's eye, though, now there was a hanging flower planter over the sink, something her landlord would never have allowed before. Man. She hoped she got to add those flowers.

"Me too, Evelyn," Lira admitted and wrapped an arm around the kid to hug her close.

"But this'll be over soon and then we can go home. Go back to having meetings out in the park again instead of inside, especially since we're coming up on summer," bravado. A surety in a future that Lira wasn't really certain of. She needed to project that, though, right? Reassure the kids she cared for.

"...I don't think we're gonna be able to go outside," Evelyn muttered, her face buried against the couch and Lira's shoulder. "The newsfeed said that the Navy was going to drop nukes on us."

"Well, they said they would," Lira replied. Tried to think of a way to soften it and realized that she couldn't This kid had een helping fab supplies, probably knew people who had gotten blown away by cops or PMCs and had seen friends bombed out of their habitation blocks.

"And they might, yeah. I don't know what they're going to do. That's why we're down here, I guess? And I really hope they don't but all we can do now is wait and see. Which fucking sucks, I know."

"It fucking does," Evelyn said back, taking that lapse from Lira as permission to swear herself. Lira couldn't bring herself to tell the kid to knock it off. After another moment of silence, another moment of watch seconds click by on the display, Evelyn spoke again in a very small voice.

"I'm scared." Lira tried to hold back tears because it was fucked up. It was fucked up that kids had to be sitting here, wondering if they would be alive in the morning. It was fucked up that this kid had to wonder if she'd ever be able to go out in the sunlight again.

"Yeah," Lira replied, voice thick with unshed tears. "Yeah, I'm scared too."

 

[Artificial Girl]

This is My Least Favorite Part

Aboard the CNS Velasco, 18 hours until Task Force 12.7 transits the Shei-Osliam gate

Captain Esteri Attar felt the tension begin to bore another hole between her eyes as she read over yet another readiness report. The Velasco was in some of the best shape she'd ever been since being taken into the service of the AIC. The crew was adequately drilled, the strike squadrons were in top shape, all the rough edges had been smoothed down. Rousseau was aboard, looking over the things that would concern her--coordination with the vessels formally under her command as Mobile Force's commanding officer and further coordination with McLean in overall command.

They were as ready as they might ever be for what was to come.

Still Esteri's head ached. There was so much to worry about. So many things that could go wrong. So far they had been lucky, she knew. The fact that they were in a position to even think of challenging a SolNav task force was a miracle in itself.

Maybe it was just the Ares command school training. It had been practically beat into them as cadets that you did not fuck with SolNav. Ever. So the thought of leading her young cosmonauts into battle against them felt distressingly oppressive.

She would manage. Somehow. She scrolled through the report when the door to her office chimed (as captain, she was privileged enough to have a private office, most other officers that weren't the commodore had to share one with at least one other person).

"Come in." Esteri set down the list of ammunition and rubbed at the bridge of her nose. Fuck her sinuses. Her executive officer, a solid Chinook spacer by the name of Elon Nurhayati, stepped inside and let the hatchway close behind him.

"Just got the signal from Mclean. 12.7 is coming and we're holding them at the gate. Estimates are that 12.7 will be attempting to force the gate in just under eighteen hours."

Esteri exhaled. Suddenly her headache didn't seem to be there any longer.

"Well, we'd better be ready then. We'll run another emergency decompression drill in… four hours. Section eight this time," Esteri said thoughtfully.

"Decompression drill for section eight, aye aye."

"Then stand them down and let them get as much rest as they can before things kick off. I'll address the crew then as well." The Commodore would probably say something, too, but goddammit this was Esteri's ship and she isn't going to let it slip from her fingers.

"I want the senior staff in here as soon as possible. You, the CVOG, Inanna, flight commanders, department chiefs. I want to go over the action plan one more time to make sure there's nothing we've missed, then the final briefing can go to crew sections. We have a lot to do and not much time to do it."

"Isn't that always how it goes?" Elon smiled.

"You're right. I hate that you're right, but you are," Esteri allowed. "Well, let's get to it."

At least her headache had gone.

Estimated time to contact: 12 hours.

Esteri needed to go to bed. But first she had to talk to her people. She'd thought over what she was going to say and how to say it and ultimately had clamped down on the impulse for a dramatic speech. That sort of thing was definitely more Stephanie's area, always had been considering her penchant for VR and XR bullshit back in the day.

Keep it straightforward. Keep it simple. Esteri looked around the carrier's CIC. Nurhayati smiled at her, almost smirking.

"We can ask the commodore to do this, you know," he said. "I read somewhere that she has an angelic voice and that's how she talked you all into defecting."

Esteri let out a low groan.

"That article was the worst thing I've ever read. The Commodore is a lovely woman but she's also a certified lunatic at the best of times. And I wouldn't call her voice angelic. More like she has the charisma a street preacher does by virtue of being a true believer. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Besides, I'm sure she'll address the whole task force. This is for my ship."

Nurhayati failed to keep a straight face.

"Aye, aye captain," was what he managed through barely suppressed snickering.

Esteri rolled her eyes, then nodded at the holographic projection of Inanna.

"If you would, please," she said with a smile.

"Aye aye, Captain!" Inanna said with her usual cheery attitude--though of course now she was free to be less cheery if that's what she wanted. There was a sharp whistle, some ancient custom dating back…. Who knew how long. They'd mentioned it in her cadet classes ages ago and she hadn't thought about it before. Inanna's was speaking.

"Attention all hands, attention all hands! Standby for a message from the captain." Inanna's cheerful holographic expression turned back to Esteri.

"Thank you, Inanna." Esteri cleared her throat and picked up the handset from the console in front of her.

"This is your captain speaking. I know all of you are very busy preparing for what's going to come, but I wanted to speak to you now before things get underway.

We have crew members from across congressional space. Engineers from Five Lions, technicians from Radiant, gunners from Shei, and pilots from Chinook. Some of us have adopted the AIC as our home despite being originally from beyond its borders. No matter where we come from, though, we all believe in the common dream of freedom from tyranny and freedom from want. You are the finest crew I could ask for at this time. You have surpassed my expectations in your drills and battle simulations. Now we're about to do it for real.

Inshallah, we will emerge victorious from the battle to come. I trust each and everyone of you knows your duty and your place on this vessel. We expect the enemy to attempt to force the gate in approximately twelve hours.

I rely on you and your officers at this time to do what must be done. I hope that you, too, will rely on your shipmates. All of us, from the engineering spaces to the deck crew to the strikecraft pilots have an important role to play.

Good luck and God be with us all. I know you'll make the Amaranthine Congress proud.

If you have any messages you wish to send to friends or family, non-essential communications will cease in four hours. If you're not on duty I suggest you get some rack time. You'll likely need it. Captain Attar signing off." Esteri clicked the handset off and leaned forward over the console with a sigh. In her head, it sounded like empty words, but on the other hand, maybe it was what her crew needed to hear.

Now she just needed to follow her own advice and get some sleep.

 

[Graf Tzarogy]

Omake: In the Morning

Its' midnight on Akasha when a shot rings out among the graves. There, among a host of stones, busts, and monuments, stands the custodian Hubert, a lamp on his hip, puncturing the twilight murk. In his hands is a shotgun, held quietly, affectionately, aimed with perfect surety between two gravestones. Between a marble pillar (Kalyeen Conor, 2210-2237 "Show's over, folks!") and a steel monolith (Luanne Ragemprand, 2105-2251 "Je ne me souviens pas.") a rabbit chewed the remnants of a rose bouquet, unaware of the fate that befell the living who unlawfully inhabit this metropolis of the dead. This "other galaxy", as the Akashans put it; must be kept in order, even as the living universe falls into chaos.

Death is simple, quiet, and discreet; the dead cause no trouble, and don't hurt anyone. It is life, that is so troublesome, noisy and aggressive. Hares, for example, have a burning passion – destructive as all passions – for the flowers laid on tombs by pious relatives (or employees funded by long-forgotten wills, or volunteers now). In the rabbits' wild frenzy, even the graves of the Akashans, are scattered with shredded petals. But Hubert is not one to make such a mess; his job is just the opposite. With the crack of a shot, and a whiff of mist, the hare joins the legions of the dead; not for their sake, but for the living, who watch and remember.

Hubert picks up the corpse and slings it into his pack. Waste not, want not – no one on this planet was ever paid enough; with the fabbers, things are easier now, but old habits are hard to break. Habit is why Hubert has kept his job, a custodian of the necropolis. He has an obligation to maintain eternity, for eternity, a duty to both the living and the dead he will not fail to fulfill. He walks a while after his hunt, in silence. He passes through a field of second-class graves, tiny epitaphs carved on flimsy plastic bolted to the ground (Ali Motiqaab, 2232-2255 "Until the Stars Fall."). He walks by blurred inscriptions, rusted ornaments, headless angles, overgrown steles. Each and every broken grave was a sacrilege, a dishonor, but one Hubert hoped to rectify. With the fabbers, with freedom, the guardians of the graveyards – the few that were left, would give dignity to each and all. Not just those who's descendants could pay the monthly funerary subscription fee, not the speculators on gravesites, not just the frozen executives in Hyperborea – but truly everyone who wanted eternity.

Yet though the dead were patient; some were more restless than others, and these were what Hubert concerned himself with as the sun peeked over the horizon. On the edge of the cemetery, on the edge of the lifeless desert that was Akhasa outside the tombs, on a patch of unmarked and nameless sand, Hubert began to build. He worked until the sun shone, and the sky was blue, and a new marker stood on the necropolis planet. For this land, just outside the land reserved for paying corpses, was still a graveyard. Here lay Biowaste Order 7688, direct from Bob, the remains of countless unfortunates left to lie forgotten under the sands. But Hubert was a custodian, and his duty was to remember - first, fourth, class be dammed. As the sun rose to its height, Hubert, left, wandering home to cook a rabbit and get some sleep. But he left a grave; for free, for duty, for love; threw grit in oblivion's eye: "Here lie friends, unforgotten. RIP".

AN: A ramble on Post-Box Akasha.

 

[Artificial Girl]

Omake time

Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin Voidcraft Base, Luna, T+63

Lieutenant Commander Elias D'Aramitz swore under his breath and checked the magazine on his sidearm. Six shots. He had six shots left. He had been the duty officer in the control tower. Or had, until just now, he guessed.

Like everyone else he had been staring through the displays at Earth, the jewel of the homeworld (where his grandfather, he had been told, had been born). Watching with mounting nerves and anticipation as the ultimatum to the Anarchists on the surface below had passed and no one had surrendered.

Then the Earth's fleets had signaled their intent to keep SolNav from carrying out its mission. The whole base had been on edge, pilots pacing the gantryways of their launch silos and everyone waiting.

Waiting.

Then everything had gone to shit. Some exchange of fire. He hadn't seen who had fired first, only been alerted when the sensor operator had spoken in horrified realization.

"VAMPIRE, VAMPIRE, VAMPIRE! The Japik Gupta is firing on the European ships--the Europeans are shooting back, they're burning into higher orbit to enter our formations--!"

He stood there in shock for a moment. Not comprehending what it was that he was seeing. He could see the battle. Not with his naked eye, but the enhanced sensors on the control dome had enlarged a patch of space, half above and half below the curvature of the Earth where he could see the burning of missile engines and the glow of lasers. Something skipped off the atmosphere.

Fuck.

Fuck.

The entire control center was looking at him expectantly. The Commodore was probably on her way up to take command. His radio buzzed insistently, cutting through the fuzzy real-time chatter coming from the battle.

"D'Aramitz, launch the wing!" It echoed in his earpiece. He stared at Earth, the precious, blue and green jewel which SolNav--his SolNav, was about to start bombarding. He looked at the command center crew. Petty officers and ables, all wanting orders.

Back at Earth.

He remembered his grandfather. Grey, with wrinkled hands that had been firm and strong, an embrace that had always comforted. He hadn't wanted immortality treatments. Said he'd go out the way he was supposed to. He had talked about Earth a lot, about the land where he'd grown up full of rolling green hills and quiet streams where he had fished. All things that seemed strange to D'Aramitz, because he had grown up among the stars. But his grandfather had loved Earth. He'd even insisted on having his remains transported there to be buried.

Elias could almost hear the gravelly old spacer's voice in his ear. Years ago, at the party his parents had thrown when he'd been commissioned.

"It's our duty, as Spacers, as SolNav men, to protect the Earth. I came out here into the black, into this hostile, horrible place because I wanted to make sure nothing would ever harm my home.

Now that you have your commission, that job is yours, Elias. I know you'll make us proud."

If he fired at Earth, he was firing at his grandfather. If he helped them fire at Earth, he was shooting at the whole reason he had joined SolNav in the first place.

"Sir?" One of the officers was looking at him, expectantly. "Sir, what are your orders? Neil Armstrong is launching." In the distance, he could see the lines of fusion burn as the strikecraft silos emptied themselves. He should do his duty. Launch his strikecraft.

And if the Earth burned because of that, would he be able to live with himself the next morning?

"Lock down the control center," he said, robotic. He was moving through zero-gravity sludge and the look on the officer's face (a lieutenant, he remembered, but not her name) was pure shock.

"We are not firing on Earth. Under section XI of the uniform code, I am refusing to obey an illegal order. Sergeant, you and your men fortify the command room doors. You and your marines are not to let anyone through that door. If anyone objects to my order, say so and I'll log it officially."

It felt like he was in a simulation, a movie. He could hear himself speaking but couldn't quite believe he was saying it. There was silence. He knew this crew. He had worked with them for years.

"Sir, I believe that our orders are lawful and I object to this invocation of section XI--" An ensign, bright and fresh-faced, just out of the academy, as stepping forward, a hand on his sidearm.

"Corporal, relieve Ensign Xiu of his sidearm and place him under guard. Your objection is noted."

"Operations, lockdown the command center and silos. You are to ignore all incoming transmissions until I acknowledge them. I am authorizing you to cut off all other overrides that do not emanate from the proper command center--" He stared at them as they stared back.

"That's an order."

In the absence of higher authority, they obeyed. The silos stayed shut. The intercom at his command chair crackled and a voice cut through the hum of the machinery and the low murmured conversations.

"D'Aramitz, this is Commodore Pyke. Open the control center and launch your strike craft. Do it now, and maybe you won't be shot for treason."

"Sir, I can't do that," Elias said. "I believe that an order to fire upon Earth is illegal and I cannot obey it."

"You're a disgrace to that uniform! Lieutenant Hasley, place Lieutenant Commander D'Aramitz under arrest."

D'Aramitz looked at the lieutenant. Waited. If Halsey listened, then that was it. His little mutiny was over and he would be in the brig, probably shot by the next morning.

"I--I can't do that sir," Halsey said in a soft voice, then louder, she repeated it.

"I can't do that sir. I believe--I believe that Lieutenant Commander D'Aramitz is correct."

"Traitors! Both of you! You'll both be shot! You leave me no choice. We're coming in after y--"

D'Aramitz clicked off the intercom.

"We'd better get ready," he said. Smiled sadly. The next few minutes felt like years. Decades. This was real. This was the end of his career. He felt cold, sweat beading on his face and he was shaking but there was nothing else he could do. He had only once choice before him and he had taken it.

"Sir," it was the sergeant of the marine detachment. Fattahi. Good man. In for twenty years now, from what Elias remembered.

"They're getting set up to try and cut through the doors. I don't know how long it will hold. Depends on the explosives."

"...Can you hold them off?" Will you hold them off? Fattahi could shoot him right now. Any of them could.

"We'll do our best, sir. I only have eight men, though."

"Then do your best." The radio chatter of the ongoing battle was background noise now. Around him, the rest of the control dome crew were restless. One of them had pulled a submachine gun from under his desk and was checking the magazines. A few others simply huddled next to or underneath their consoles. Waiting.

The doors blew in and everything descended into chaos. Gunfire erupted, deafening in the small, climate controlled space. Elias ducked behind one of the desks as the rifles of the marine detachment rattled. He fired a few shots from his sidearm and the submachine that the other rank had been loading began to fire as well. There was a thump of a low yield grenade going off and D'Aramitz felt his ears ring. There was shouting, more gunfire.

Lieutenant Commander Elias D'Aramitz swore under his breath and checked the magazine on his sidearm. Six shots. He had six shots left. A marine corporal slide into position next to him and fired another burst from his rifle towards the entryway.

"Sergeant's dead, sir," he said in a voice that sounded far away and tiny. The petty officer with the submachine gun was sprawled across his console, blood slowly forming into odd little pools as the low gravity tugged at them. Strange, the things you noticed in situations like this.

Elias tightened his grip on his pistol. More rifle and he rose up from behind his cover to fire his pistol towards whoever was storming the room.

The controlled burst of gunfire caught him in the chest. Blood splattered onto the dark blue of his uniform jacket. His hands felt numb and he awkwardly tried to switch his pistol to his other hand. A figure in armor was looming over him now and he blinked, tried to clear his vision. In a detached way, Elias realized he was dying.

He had done his duty to Humanity and to SolNav.

He had done his duty to Earth.

Elias felt his eyes sink closed, feeling too heavy to keep open. He had to stay awake.

His eyes opened.

His grandfather was there. Standing in a green field, next to a bright, clear stream. Overhead the sky wasn't blue. It was daylight, but he could see every star. All of them, flickering as if through the atmosphere.

"Bravo, garçon," he could hear his grandfather's voice even though his grandfather didn't seem to speak.

In spite of everything, Elias smiled.

 

[Artificial Girl]

SolNav: Lower Decks, Part 1(?) - an omake

Korolev-Chandrasekar System, Chandrasekar Anchorage, Cruiser SNS Yang Hyun-Ki, June 1st

Corporal Ansatsiya Sakhno ("Ana" pretty much everyone who wasn't a superior called her) was scared. There had been a deluge of news coming out of Sol for the last couple of weeks. Stories of anarchist riots, heavy fighting between anarchists and local defense forces. Then SolNav Naval Infantry. Her siblings-in-arms, dropping on wings of fire into battle to protect lives and property.

And then, since yesterday, the news seemed to have stopped. The captain had cut them off from the extranet and now all that was left was intra-system messaging and discussions. No word coming in or out to tell them what had happened with 1st Fleet or the elements of 7th that had gone to help combat this worst of all Black Summers. She'd been hoping to get a message back home to her parents on Earth, in Kyiv. The news had been nerve-wracking. Anarchists in charge of Ukraine? Dad would be having a fit, she was sure. She badly wanted to check on them and see how they were doing--today her watch was finally supposed to get their chance at the intersystem transmitters but the new orders had put a stop to that.

Rumors were rife, despite the cut-off. 1st Fleet had fallen to internal sabotage and Anarchist mutiny. No, 1st Fleet had all been destroyed in a surprise attack by the Sol defense forces. No, everything was under control and the communications blackout was part of mop-up operations.

No one knew what the truth was, which was why she was here in the enlisted mess, sipping on something that claimed to be coffee and listening to everyone argue. There were a lot of them here from Earth, really. The people who signed up for a chance at a steady paycheck and a better future for their families. Augments who thought that the interstellar fleet would be somehow free of the prejudices that held them back at home. Fuck-ups remanded to the fleet to work off unpaid debts.

Petty Officer Third Class Satjit Nahl was speaking, waving his fork with a determined energy. A well-built wolf augment (pretty cute, honestly, though Ana was too worried about possible fraternization charges to act on it), also from Earth.

"--I am telling you, Clemente, something big has to have happened. Either the Anarchists somehow pulled out a win--"

"Which they won't have, it's impossible," Said Able Crewman Ford Clemente. He was a spacer, born and bred. Augmented for life among the stars. That he was only rated able meant there were pretty consistent rumors about him, but no one knew for sure why he wasn't at least a petty officer or a warrant.

"--or," Satjit continued as if he hadn't been interrupted, "Or the Seventh Star Minister really did it and pulled the trigger on dropping canned sunshine on Earth and they just don't want us to know how bad it is."

"But the Star Minister is dead. And the last report we got was that Vice Admiral Jefferson-Smith got it too. Both accidents. Like Ayodele, officially," Ana pointed out over the rim of her coffee cup.

"Maybe that's why. They couldn't handle the stress. Fighting a war is hard," Private First Class Eis Himmelmann, opined as he picked at his own food. He was from one of the Daughters. Columbia.

"Especially when it's these savages," he added around a mouthful of something pretending to be chicken tikka masala. "Wreckers, the lot of them. They just want to break things and take from people who actually work."

An uncomfortable silence descended.

"Maybe they hit another carrier," Ana said, awkwardly.

"I wish we fuckin' knew," Satjit grumbled.

Ana groaned and leaned forward, face on the table.

"I just want to know my folks are okay. Especially with what's going on in the EU right now," she said.

"What's with the communications blackout, seriously? They have to know it's just gonna make the scuttlebutt worse," Ana continued. Scuttlebutt. What a weird word to mean 'rumor.' Where it came from, she'd no idea.

"Somehow I don't know how you made corporal," Eis said with a sardonic grin. "Watch out or I'll make sergeant before you with that kinda attitude."

"Who gives a fuck? Pay isn't much better and they make you do a lot more shit," she replied, laughed. An old volley of jokes between the pair.

"Hey assholes," Petty Officer 2nd Liz Kamel, baseline human, no augments. Another from the Daughters, Atlantis this time. She'd been wan and exhausted looking for days, ever since the news of the crackdowns had come. She hadn't yet heard from her folks and Ana wondered if the other could hold her shit together. She was carrying a stack of… something under one arm.

"Put one of these up at the end of the table, new orders." She offered out a plasticy-feeling poster which was passed down to the of the table where Ana was sitting nearest the wall. She reached up and slapped it against the wall, where it self-adhered.

It was a planet--Earth? Consumed by hungry wolves rising from the outlines of countries. The Celtic Union, the EU, Egypt… hungry jaws stretching up towards the bright, shining ships of SolNav.

The Solarian Navy fights for all of Humanity NOT petty national divisions Beware of anarcho-nationalist poison! If you suspect someone of spreading anarcho-nationalist thought in your section, report them to an officer immediately!​

"What the fuck?" she asked.

"Why are they trying to make us mad at the European Union?" She asked, looking back to Liz. Liz shrugged.

"Fuck if I know. Just orders. I gotta go hang up more. Talk to you later," and she turned to head further down the length of the narrow mess hall. Ana exchanged a glance with Satjit, whose face was dark and thoughtful.

"Why'd they gotta pick wolves? Fucked up," Ford mumbled and patted Sanjit on the shoulder, as if to offer some comfort. Sanjit locked eyes with her and she knew, in that moment, that it wasn't the wolf symbology that was bothering him.

"...Do you think the EU like, took a shot at SolNav?" Eis asked after a moment. "Like, when the order to drop the nukes came?"

"No! That's impossible," Ana said with a fervent and kneejerk denial. "The European Union would never--not at SolNav. Not at the Compact! Maybe the Anarchists got control somehow. That's--that's the only way this would happen."

Deep in the pit of her stomach, though, Ana was afraid.

"Maybe tomorrow they'll open comms back up and I can find out what happened from mom and dad," she added quietly. Suddenly her lunch didn't seem so appealing.

"I'll talk to you later--" she stood, ignoring the others as the conversation turned back to the rumor mill.

Everything was fine.

Everything had to be fine.

 

[Artificial Girl]

SolNav: Lower Decks, Part 2

Korolev-Chandrasekar System, Chandrasekar Anchorage, Cruiser SNS Yang Hyun-Ki
June 1st

Ana had gone back on her shift after lunch. Which mostly consisted of manning the arms room desk with a junior officer (some fucking butterbar Ensign-Second Lieutenant on his way to being a Captain-Colonel, no doubt). That guy was a prick. He apparently came from some H-I family and his favorite phrase was 'If you've got time to lean, you've got time to clean!' and so had them constantly doing maintenance and cleaning on the weapons that they had cleaned literally twenty-four hours earlier. That or swabbing the arms room deck until she could have done her hair in it.

Now, after 8 hours on her watch she wanted to shower, eat, and watch a show or something. Maybe she could crash out in the rec room if no one else had taken the good couch. As she headed for her rack to collect her toiletries, she caught sight of a familiar face, loaded down with a space-bag and heading for the crew quarters.

"Hey! Fang--!" She hurried her step, pushing off the corridor to glide through the low gravity so that she could catch up with the other corporal. Jefferson Fang, his shock of brightly colored augment hair peeking from under his enlisted cap, looked back at her.

"Hey, Sahkno. Just get off shift?"

"Yeah. About to hit the showers. I thought you weren't coming back aboard until the end of the week?" Since they were berthed, Jefferson had been with his family on board one of the habits in the system, staying with them in their small apartment. Husband, a kid. Second on the way already.

"Dunno. Got an emergency alert to report aboard within twenty-four hours yesterday. The transit shuttle to the anchorage was backed with other ratings. Everyone had the same story--emergency alert, stand to, get back aboard. No one knows what's going on."

"Did you guys get anything else from Sol? They cut us off the extranet yesterday."

"Nah. Habitat is the same. No extranet. It's weird. Something has to be going on."

"They'll tell us something soon, right?" She asked as she reached her rack and opened her small personals drawer to retrieve her toiletries and a fresh towel.

"We're just fuckin' Naval Infantry. We'll be the last to know."

"Fucking right? I gotta stow this and then report, so… talk to you at chow?"
"Yeah, see ya--" They went their separate ways and Ana headed to the showers. It was a short thing. Spray for thirty seconds. Soap. Rinse for sixty seconds, stand under the vacuum to make sure every single drop of water that could be saved was siphoned back into the system for recycling. God, she missed being at home where she could turn on the hot water and stand there as long as she fucking wanted. After that, it was off to chow to meet the usual suspects. Satjit and Ford had beat her to their usual table where they were still (seemingly) having the same argument when Ana arrived. Eis got there afterwards, with Jefferson at his side.

"Hey, you found Jeff."

"The fuck, man?" Ford said. "You weren't supposed to be back until like the 7th."

"It's like I told Sahkno. Alert orders, all personnel report back aboard their ships within twenty-four hours. I barely had time to wait to say goodbye to Tamir and Alima before I had to get my ass on the shuttle back here," Jefferson said with a touch of bitterness. "It was packed full of other guys, same shit."

"And no one knows what's going on--?" As Ford asked his question, Liz appeared with a tray of food and slid into the last empty seat at the table, looking even paler and more worn down than she had at lunch.

"Jesus, Liz. You look like shit," Ford said.

"I feel like shit," she mumbled and took a bit of artificial protein disguised as stir-fried beef.

"...I heard some shit from someone over in the NHO section," she added a moment later in a quiet voice.

"What, like real news?" Satjit sounded probably too eager and Ana was glad he'd asked instead of her.

"...Yeah," Liz said, glanced around, then leaned forward to speak beneath the murmur of other conversations and clatter of eating utensils.

"Shit went down in Sol. Real shit. The PM ordered the 7th Star Minister to nuke the fucking anarchists, federalized all the Earth national forces. Then fucking, every single national space force invoked Section 33. EU, India, Russia, Egypt, East Africa, fucking China. All of 'em."

"Fuck," Eis muttered, a fork full of food halfway to his mouth. Ana felt her heart leap into her throat. That couldn't have happened. The EU would never do that. They'd never turn against the PM and the Compact. No. No, this had to be a lie. She listened though, enraptured.

"There was a big fucking furball in Earth orbit. No one is sure who shot first. A bunch of shit went down. Fucking--Jean Planche nose-dived into the atmosphere. Got hit by some anarchist STO or something? Atya Solar fucking mutinied and got wasted by the whole 1st Fleet. Rumor mill says there were other mutinies too but fucking--" Liz had to pause. Gulped down some of the coffee she'd brought with her before she could continue.

"We fucking lost. We lost to the Anarchists and the fucking Earth defence forces. 1st and 7th retreated to cis-lunar space and abandoned orbit."

"What about the nukes?" Ana asked before she could stop herself.

"None really got fired? There was too much else going on, but I guess they never managed to smash the anarchists before the traitors got in the way."

Oh thank God, was the only thing that Ana could think. Nukes, even aimed at the Sahara… what would that have done to Europe? She remembered her trip as a school girl to the ancient site of Chernobyl and the discussion of the follies of the old world and the Communists that had lead to the contamination of that site. A nuke was different. Really different.

"No way," Ford said. "No way! That's fucking impossible. First off, the Anarchists would never down a fucking cruiser with an STO and second the earth defence fleets would fucking--they'd never turn against us. That's bullshit. It has to be. Some kind of propaganda from the Anarchists. It's all a fucking lie," he was hissing the words in a low half-whisper, as if worried that some chief or warrant was going to appear to ask what they were talking about if they were too loud.

"I'm just telling you what I heard from Fontana! I don't know if it's fucking true! But if it was that bad, it'd explain why they locked down communications. I mean… if it's true that crews… you now…" No one wanted utter the dread word of 'mutiny' again. SolNav didn't mutiny. It obeyed orders and protected Humanity. Ana looked towards Satjit, then the poster still hanging on the wall. There was something like relief on his face and Ana knew that like her, he believed it in spite of the impossibility. In spite of the fact that it went against everything they knew.

Because if it was true, then home was safe.

"Ford is right," Eis said. "You shouldn't spread that around. It's fucking anarchist propaganda, like all that shit about the Frontier in the stupid broadcast."

"If an officer catches us talking about this shit, we're in deep shit," Jefferson agreed in a quiet voice. He sounded serious, distant. Lost in thought, maybe.

"Let's… talk about something else," he continued, looked at Ana. "Uh. Who… uh. Who you thinking for the interfleet sporting competition this year?"

Ana felt numb.

"Dunno. Uh. I feel like… I feel like 5th Fleet has a good shot…" Someone else who sounded like her, but wasn't her, was talking.

"1st Fleet always has time to train so they usually put on a good showing," Jefferson continued robotically, as if they had been talking sports the whole time. Ana stared down at her food as the conversation faded into the background.

It couldn't be true.

Could it?

 

[Artificial Girl]

Omake: Maybe it's another drill

CNS Velasco, June 12th

Remote Operations Officer Lieutenant Eva Huang-Velasquez clambered up the ladder to settle into her seat on the flight deck of the strikecraft preparing for take-off, touching the stylized red wolf's head beneath the cockpit as she went. The normal tradition for good luck. Behind and above her, her pilot, Lieutenant-Commander Issak Saparov was settling into his seat. While Issak would manage the actual flight of the strike-craft, it was Eva's responsibility to monitor and control the swarm of smaller drones that they would launch once they were in position. Hooking her suit into the strike-craft's oxygen system, she began running through her system's checks and gave a thumbs up to the deck crew. The cockpit began to close over them and the intercom clicked.

"Nervous?" Issak asked. He didn't usually ask that, but with the days slowly counting down towards the arrival of SolNav, it had to be weighing on everyone's mind. Eva didn't think about it herself.

"Not really." Eva said, tapped the side of her helmet where a red death's head stared out at the world. She'd grown up on Shei--the specter of sudden and imminent death didn't bother her the way it seemed to bother a lot of off-worlders, even void pilots from Chinook like Issak who had to know how dangerous what they did was.

"We're gonna fly, and whatever happens, happens." She'd already said her goodbyes in a message home. As far as her family were concerned, she might as well be dead already--if she made it back to them alive, that would be a blessing, but she was ready to die her second death in defense of Shei and the Congress.

"Checklist is green on my end. All sensors operating, all systems nominal. Radio green. RADAR green. LiDAR green. ECM drones, green. ECCM drones, green. Attack drones, green." she continued as rote as ever. Another simulation, another drill, another day to hone themselves into a blade that would carve the guts out of the Compact.

"Sometimes I envy you weirdos," Issak muttered as the flight elevator began to lift them up to the launch deck. "Life support operational, check. All flight systems, check, all engines, check, all maneuvering thrusters, check. Weapons green," he continued.

"We're ready to fly," his voice was settling. Evening out into a professional coolness. It was normal to get nerves before something like this, Eva thought. At least for people who weren't already dead. She just hoped that when the real thing came, he wouldn't let his nerves override the need to complete the mission.

"Let's get to it, then," Eva said as the armored cover to the cockpit slid firmly into place, temporarily blocking out the view of the launch deck through the canopy before the holographic displays flickered into life and synched with helmet HUDs to show an expansive view that simple windows couldn't hope to match.

"Flight Control, Red Wolf One-Seven. All systems green and prepared for launch," Issak spoke into the radio.

"Red Wolf One-Seven, Flight Control. Affirmative. You are in the pattern for launch. Stand by for launch in Thirty seconds." A pause that felt almost two long, then: "Ten, nine, eight--" The countdown ticked by and as the calm woman's voice finished, the pair of them were pushed back into their seats by a sudden lurch of acceleration as the launch catapult flung them out into the void. Thrusters fired briefly to give additional delta-v and then the craft turned to burn away from the ship. On Eva's display, blue dots sprung up, identifying friendly capital ships, strike craft, and drone swarms. As neatly as anyone could hope to, Issak slotted them into formation.

Formation, they called it, even though there were tens or hundreds of kilometers between them and the nearest manned strike craft, the intervening distance filled with the drone swarms. Eva focused on her work and as they settled into position her display indicated successful deployment of her drones into formation. Good. The forward swarm was moving sluggishly, maybe three percent below the rest of them. She'd talk to the maintenance folks, see if they could straighten that out when they finished up the simulation.

Eva looked up through her display and out at the void of space stretching before them and the distant lights of the gate and its defenses. Beautiful. Radio chatter hummed in her helmet, the wing commander counting down the minutes until the simulated attack would begin.

Her eyes closed for a moment and she could see the blue skies of Shei stretching out in front of her, bright and cloudless as she made her aerial strikecraft dance through the beams of sunlight. A place where you could reach out and touch God, if only for a moment. A place where the line between the living and the dead thinned.

A place where you knew your soul could transit to infinity.

Eva was here to make sure that those skies would never again hold fear and death for her young siblings. For her nieces and nephews born and unborn.

For every child born since the liberation who would never grow up knowing the sky was a thing to fear.

If that meant dying, then she was already dead. What was a single life against a future for millions?

Yes.

This would be a good place to die a second death.

 

[ScottishMongol]

Rats From a Sinking Ship

Jakarta​

"Ahmad, did you call the fucking bank?" Indah yelled down the hall. Ahmad sighed and hauled his suitcase with him as he left the bedroom for the last time.

"I couldn't get through," he said back wearily. "I don't even know if there are banks anymore."

Indah glared at him as he joined her in the living room. More bags were sitting around her, just what they could carry. Ahmad still wasn't sure this was necessary, and if they really wanted to leave, he felt confident they could take everything, but his formidable wife insisted.

"I cannot believe this!" Indah spat, "Fifty years of my career gone! We had a nice home, we had benefits and status! Now those animals are coming for us!"

"I still don't think they'll kill us," Ahmad said. He and his wife glanced out at the megacity of Jakarta, its glittering towers filling the horizon, but even from their penthouse apartment they could see the hordes of rioters celebrating in the streets.

"Animals," Indah said, "Of course they will, they hate us for our success because they know they could never achieve it, they can only tear down the successful! FADHLAN!"

Ahmad winced as his wife called for their son. The gangling teenager arrived a moment later, long dark hair hanging over his eyes and his arms tucked into the sleeves of his hoodie. Ahmad felt a pang of disappointment that he'd raised such an effeminate son. Perhaps that was what came of having an overbearing mother.

"Mom, do we really have to leave Jakarta?" the boy asked, "All of my friends-"

"Yes, we'll be safe on Columbia or Atlantis," Indah said. She fussed with him for a moment, trying to make him a bit more presentable, then gave up. "I just hope the motherfucks let us leave," she continued, "But as long as we don't flash our IDs at them then they won't even know. We'll be one more family among many displaced by their…their anarchy."

Fadhlan sighed and put up his hood, then followed his mother in shutting off the lights and grabbing their things.

"Lots of people are leaving Earth these days," the boy said.

"Really? Who else?" asked Ahmad curiously as he picked up his bags.

Atlantic City​

"Do you think the Prime Minister is on this shuttle?"

MP Jean-Jacque Ilungu (Democratic Republic of the Congo) shot his neighbor a quelling look. The man sank back in his chair on the shuttle as Jean-Jacque looked back at his tablet. The call went through, and he saw his wife Gloria looking at him.

"Oh, Jean-Jacque, you're okay!"

"Yes, Gloria, I'm fine," he said, "I'm going to-"

"I thought those anarchists would kill you, they say they have parliament, they say Roderick is fleeing the planet!"

"Yes, we're just relocating to Lemuria."

"We?"

Shit. Not how I wanted to say that.

"We are relocating to Lemuria so that we can be safe and so that the normal functions of government can continue," he parroted.

"No, Jean-Jacques, who is we?" she asked. She did not seem frightened. That was good, she was still thinking this through. It was why he married her, mostly, because having a wife looked good to the voters and having someone who knew that was. Still, they had been close.

"Myself and the other members of the parliament will be following Roderick into, into space," he said lamely, Except for a few brave idiots. Or traitors.

Well, they would be called traitors for defecting to the anarchists, but Jean-Jacques had never faulted a man for trying to survive, he just didn't think the anarchists would let him, or any of them, have a career in politics. They'd get a trial, maybe.

"Oh, Jean-Jacques what if they come for us? For me and the children?"

Yes, his two children. Where were they? What were they doing? Were they being good sons and staying safe? He could only hope, for Gloria's sake.

"No, no, you will be fine!"

He felt sweat beading on his forehead. They wouldn't, would they? Take my family hostage to get to me?

Well, if he stayed here the anarchists would get him, that wouldn't help them any. No, probably best to put some distance between them.

"I will call you; I will send you money," he said soothingly. Fuck me, is money even worth anything? He was starting to spiral again, he wondered if he had enough blow left to get him to Lemuria.

There was a pause. He could see Gloria looking at something. Or just looking away from him.

"Jean-Jacques…" his wife said slowly, "Perhaps we should…"

Jean-Jacques licked his lips.

"You should disavow me if they come talking to you," he suggested, "Just as a way to distance yourself from me. Then they will not think you pose any threat."

Gloria nodded.

"Yes, that is a good idea Jean-Jacques."

"Stay safe, Gloria," he said. The shuttle jostled him as it accelerated.

"You too."

As the screen went dark, he slumped back in his chair.

Texas​

Goldfinger Intelligence was an example the triumph of capitalist innovation. A private intelligence agency, doing all the work a national intelligence agency would do, but for the little guys. And by "little" guys they meant other Charter subsidiaries and the occasional politician. And if "all the work" meant blackbagging a couple union heads or arranging accidents for promising young activists, well, what the general public didn't know couldn't kill them.

Now Goldfinger resembled a henhouse inhabited by nothing but decapitated chickens, a fox covered in cooking oil, and an unstable lantern.

Johnny kicked open the front door and hauled another box of documents across the pristine lawn in this little piece of Texas countryside. He dropped the box by the big firepit and started tossing documents into it. It was a nice night, and the fire would have almost been pleasant if it wasn't currently burning the records of an operation to blackmail an Indian augment rights politician. Classic honeypot, one of Johnny's first with the firm.

Other members were standing around, occasionally tossing in documents as well. Bret was looking twitchy, his pupils dilated so wide they almost consumed the whites of his eyes, and he kept rubbing his nose, where white powder still clung to his unshaven, sweaty upper lip.

Paul arrived last. The head of the firm ostentatiously lit a cigar with a burning folder and tossed the folder into the firepit.

"Well boys, the charges are set. Soon as I hit this little detonator the whole server banks gets reduced to slag. They'll need a miracle to get anything useful out of it."

"Way things are going, they might have God on their side after all," Bret said.

"Heh, maybe the big guy liked them making a fucking computer a bishop after all," Stephen said sneeringly.

"That's ridiculous is what it is," Johnny said as he emptied the box, "Making a fucking toy a priest. May as well have picked a dog." He wasn't a Catholic, he thought the whole thing was stupid really, but at some point, you gotta realize real Humans are the only intelligent thing in the galaxy, right?

"Well, they do have dogs now," Paul said, "And cats and orcs and-"

The group broke out into chuckles.

"Ah, you're a real son of a bitch, Paul," someone said affectionately.

"As of today, Paul is dead. Say hello to Miguel Sanchez!"

Everyone laughed, even if they didn't get the reference.

"Yeah, that reminds me," Stephen said. He produced a fat binder and started handing out folders. "Here they are, boys, our new identities."

Once they'd been handed out, some men looked at them quietly, others just tucked them away. Johnny looked at the folder but couldn't bring himself to open it. Stephen fished out a couple papers from on his person, including some cards from his wallet. With a little twitch of his lip, he tossed them into the fire.

"Good luck finding me, you fucking animals," he muttered. Johnny decided to follow, he'd brought all his real identification papers for this and he figured there was no better time. As he watched his old name burn, he felt…nothing. He'd felt a lot of nothing in his time here.

"Gonna miss my fucking car," Paul said, "And my yacht."

"And your escort," Stephen said.

"Nah, not really."

"I'm gonna miss cocaine," Bret said, sniffing. Johnny hid a look of disgust, and hoped the strung-out little freak wouldn't make them regret not leaving him here along with the rest of their stuff.

Johnny looked around the fire, remembering every face and name and times spent in some serious danger. Each and every one of them had saved his ass out there, from Paul gunning down an anarchist rioter in that mess in Peru, to Stephen pulling out some blackmail on a Charter exec to let him walk.

They were all pieces of shit, though.

Paul finished his cigar and tossed it into the fire.

"Alright, fuck this sentimental shit. I'm gonna blow the servers."

Everyone turned to look at the ugly, low-slung cinder block building where they'd worked for the last two decades.

Stephen sighed. "Finally. After this I'm gonna head off-world and I hope to fucking God I never see any of your faces again."

Johnny smiled. "Absolutely. See you guys in Hell."

"Likewise."

Paul produced the detonator and primed it.

"This is it, boys. And a one, and a two, and a-!"

Spain​

The anarkiddies had decided to give them a breather while they celebrated their victory, so the White Sleeve Volunteers were allowed to dig into their positions a bit more. In this case "a breather" meant they still took the occasional potshot with one of their rpgs, but ever since the White Sleeves had cracked the fabbers they had their own suite of toys to fire back with.

It was a credit to their fervor and motivation that the international volunteers had stayed in the field despite the defeat of the Sol Navy – through anarchist treachery and infiltration, sure, but it was a defeat, and a bad one. Everyone knew it.

Joao looked up as Corporal Jacques Moulier stepped into the dugout.

"Men, I've made a decision."

From his combat boots to his aviators to his beret, Jacques looked every bit the image of a dashing adventurer. Rumor was he'd been fighting anarchists since the Long Hot Decades, maybe before that. He'd put together a group of loyal men from across Europe to do whatever needed to be done to roll back the anarchist menace, and while the White Sleeve Brigade had fought valiantly...

Joao felt sick as he remembered that night, watching reports coming in of ship after ship, country after country, falling to anarchism. When the EUDF had flipped, it felt like a betrayal. Civilization itself had fallen, a second fall of Rome.

"The situation here on Earth is bad for us," Jacques said plainly, "We can't stand here while all of Europe is against us, while half the world is lost and the anarkiddies have orbital control."

There were curses, a strangled sob. Joao felt as if he was going to cry.

"We're not surrendering?" he asked. Jacques laughed.

"No, mon ami, we're never going to surrender. Never going to live in a world of anarchy, not while real European civilization is still alive."

"Where are we going?" Joao asked. The Corporal looked at him, noted the clover patch on his harness.

"How old are you, son?"

"Twenty-nine last week, sir."

"You are young, mon ami." Jacques clapped him on the shoulder. "Earth is lost, but there are other worlds, still run by real men, and they'll need the White Sleeves more than ever if they're to keep a light burning against the darkness."

"What do you mean, sir?"

Joao saw himself reflected in the Corporal's mirrorshades as the commander looked down at him, flashing him a stunning white smile.

"A new life awaits you in the offworld colonies!"

"S-sir?"

"Ah, classical reference," the Corporal said, smoothing his moustache.