September 17, 2342
Concern is building over loss of contact with terraforming colony Eve’s Blessing.
Four days ago, colony administrators Stoic and Serene West, who had travelled to Bradbury Station for a conference with CommAd officials were due to make a check in with their security chief, but sources report there has been nothing but radio silence from the colony. The Wests were unavailable for comment.
“It is not abnormal for colonies that far out on the edge of Commonwealth space to lose contact occasionally,” said Admiral LeBeau of CommSec command when approached for comment, “Equipment malfunctions, ion storms, 99.9% of the time, there is absolutely nothing to worry about. We have a ship heading in that direction to investigate and report back. I’m sure it’s something minor.”
Despite the Admiral’s claims to the contrary, Commonwealth News has heard disturbing rumors of an Enigma Osiris special operations flotilla also going missing in that region of space. Combined with the removal of Benson Fisch as their CRO, as well as a Commonwealth Wide arrest warrant issued in his name, we here at C.N.C. feel there is more to be told about the situation on Eve’s Blessing.
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It was a week after we’d watched the Keeper Station annihilate the ktonshi vessel in the process of space folding to some unknown location.
Once we had watched the second ktonshi ship consume the wreckage before disappearing into a hyperspace tunnel, and the graviton emissions from the spatial anomaly caused by the station’s transit fade into nothingness, we took our own leave from H48948.
Stacy had announced that we had actually had an extremely polite request from Admiral LeBeau of CommSec Intelligence routed to us through Major Kintzel. It turned out that the data Stacy had provided the Major had made it to her desk, and she was very much concerned about not just the ktonshi threat, but Benson Fisch’s interest in the way the contagion worked. She requested we divert whatever course we had planned in order to pick up an operative to join our endeavours.
“I understand that your relations with the Commonwealth have been a bit of a mixed bag so far Commander Throhx,” the admiral’s voice said, “and you have my heartfelt apologies for that. Rest assured there has been a hornet’s nest kicked over within the Commonwealth Parliament over that. We do not take kindly to any of our member systems conspiring with pirates. If you allow this operative to join your efforts, along with keeping lieutenant commander Kintzel onboard with you, I’ll do everything I can to see that CommSec Intelligence resources are at your disposal to help with this.”
I’d been having one of my evening meetings with Jo when Stacy had informed her of the communique. Once the recording was finished, she looked at me with a quizzical expression. “What do you know about Admiral LeBeau and CommSec Intelligence?” she asked me.
“Apart from the fact she’s the Commonwealth’s head spy? I know that our Ms Kintzel down in the racks was working for her.” I explained, “Seems CommSec Intelligence has been rather suspicious about Enigma Osiris’ operations for a long time now, and have inserted quite a few undercover agents into the company. Giselle was one of them. Ended up having to destroy her whole relationship with her sister in order to set the stage for her cover.”
“Should we trust her enough to allow this operative on board?”
“I mean, as much as you’d trust any spy. Keep important stuff locked down, have Stacy keeping tabs on her at all times, just like she does with Giselle.” I shrugged, “If the operative gives us any problems, between you and Boudya, I’m sure you could kick their asses. I have seen you both in a fight after all. Action movies don’t have anything on you two.”
She grinned, and was about to say something but Stacy cut in, “I don’t believe there’s likely to be any issues with the operative causing any problems Commander.” She said with a quiet chuckle, “We’ve actually had dealings with her before, and they aren’t career intelligence. In fact, she acted with nothing but the utmost honour in the situation. Major Kintzel should give us no problems at all.”
I felt my eyebrows disappear into my hairline, and saw Jo mirror my expression. She recovered first though, and cleared her throat. “If that’s the case, then I think we can certainly acquiesce to the admiral’s request. Stacy, please make sure she’s aware we’ll be on our way to the coordinates she provided.”
“Sure thing boss!”
“Oh, and before I forget, Thomas,” she said, taking a sip of her graptak, an odd quiver vibrating the tips of her ears, though the rest of her body language was the picture of casual indifference. She must have been trying to keep a straight face about something. “There’s a package on the side table for you.”
“Oh?” I asked, quirking an eyebrow at her. “I wasn’t aware of doing anything to warrant any award or punishment…”
She returned my raised eyebrow, and inclined her head to the package, “just open the damned thing.”
Turning around, I reached over and grabbed what turned out to be a plain black duraplast tool case. “Did you get me new tools? You really shouldn’t have a Commander! I already have all the tools I need at the moment! Though that may change if I want to try building anything from that database the Keeper gave me…”
A narrowing of her eyes and a small, strong finger pointing at the case was all the response she gave me. “Wow, this is serious. If this were anyone else, I’d be afraid that when I open this, I’d get whacked in the face by a pie or something.” Her ear tips quivered more violently for a second, and there was a twinkle in her violet eyes. Stacy, she didn’t, did she?
Which was no help at all, from my AI best friend. Usually she’d have given me some kind of hint, but this means she knows what’s going on, and is either waiting with childish delight for the prank to go off, or has something else up her virtual sleeve.
I glanced from the latch on the case up into Jo’s glinting eyes again, and found myself mentally shrugging. This was Jophixa! She was my friend as well as my commanding officer. She’d shown on any number of occasions she had my back, if she was planning a prank, it’d be good fun. So I gave her a half smile, maintained eye contact, popped the latch on the case and flipped it open.
To my surprise, nothing sprung out and smacked me in the face. Jo’s eyes sparkled even more as a tiny hint of a smirk played at the corner of her lips. Grudgingly, I glanced down to see what was in the case…
The sound coming through my implant startled me so much I let out a squawk and fell out of my chair and onto the floor, the room going dark all of a sudden.
Laughter filled the room as I struggled to figure out why I couldn’t see, eventually pulling sturdy dark cloth from over my face and looking up to see Jophixa actually having climbed onto her desk to look over this side of it and down at me. She was laughing so hard her ears were bobbing all over the place.
“Very funny,” I grumbled, pulling myself off the deck with the aid of Jophixas desk. “I will get you back for that Stacy. Just you wait.”
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“Aww, don't be like that Tommy berry pie! It was just a harmless bit of fun.” she retorted, “you've been way too tense. Lighten up.”
Before I could do much more than open my mouth, Jo cut in, “She's not wrong Thomas. Since the station you've been head first into the engines and as broody as a Nekwynd hen!” she shook her head and pointed at the cloth I was still holding in one hand. “What happened back there wasn't your fault, and I bloody wish we had a councilor on board to help you see that, but in the meantime, that right there is me saying I'm satisfied with your work so far.”
Confused by her words, I looked down at the clump of deceptively lightweight fabric in my hand. Casting Jo a quizzical look, I shook it out to discover it was a jumpsuit matching the colours the giobhioni uniforms sported, black with red accents around the arm and leg cuffs, and a patterned cording around the collar and shoulders. It looked to be a very similar style jumpsuit to the kind ships engineers preferred, though with the fabric being lightweight, it didn’t look like it would fit quite so loose on me.
“Congratulations Mr. Aacen,” Jo said formally, but when I glanced up at her, there was a smile tugging at her lips, “I’m giving you a field commission with the rank of Vin’toosog, chief engineer. I’ve logged it for the records, and asked Tzaki Tratsa to deliver spare uniforms to your quarters. When our guest arrives, I expect you to be in uniform!”
“Yes Ma’am!” I snapped out, and did my best giobhioni salute, a curious gesture of bringing one’s left hand to one’s chin, making a fist and pulling it sharply down over the sternum, followed by a toothy grin.
Jophixa mirrored the salute, “Our salute looks so odd on a human.” she said, shaking her head, “You just don’t have the teeth for it.”
“Can’t really help my dentition, Commander.” I told her, shrugging. “They’ve been up to any task I’ve needed them for.”
She shook her head and glanced at the chronometer on her desk, “I should let you get going. Tratsa informed me you have a dinner planned with her and the Mend’nasas. Just make sure you’re ready for when we rendezvous with our guest.”
“Don’t worry Boss.” I replied with a smile, “Stacy just loves to pester me awake if I try to sleep in. I’ll be awake and ready.”
Which is how I came to be standing in the shuttle bay, dressed in my spiffy new uniform, watching as a rather unique ship swung into view.
Well, when I say unique, I really mean compared to most ships in the Commonwealth fleet. Military and political minds tend to have a severe case of ‘pucker factor’ when it comes to spending on ships for its fleet. They wanted maximum efficiency for the cost, and when you consider there’s no need for aerodynamics in space, this means military ships, and a large number of civilian ones, tend towards the boxy design.
But this ship was anything but that. It made me wonder if Jo’s former commanding officer, the giobhioni who had designed the Elegance had somehow had a hand in its design. It had a roughly elliptical layout, with a cutout in the aft section that made it look a bit like a backwards claw. The forward arch swelled to an elongated egg, narrowing to a blunt point to the center of the aft cut out.
At the front of this was the cockpit canopy, giving me a view of our guest as the ship swung into alignment with the shuttle bay. “Elegance of Light, this is CFX-946 requesting landing permission.” came the familiar voice over the PA system.
“CFX-946, permission granted. Looks like it’s gonna be a tight fit, we’ll be guiding you in with bumper fields.” I heard Jesse reply back from her station on the bridge.
“Roger Elegance, I can actually help with that, though.” and with that, the fighter ship began to narrow, its outer ellipse shifting inwards and back until it almost looked small enough to land without anti-collision measures. With that, the ship eased in through the ACB and settled down onto the deck on landing struts that slid out of its belly with a clunk-hiss as they locked in place.
We waited as the ship settled into place, its hull emitting the usual hissing and clinking as its temperature equalized in the atmosphere of the shuttle bay. With smaller vessels like this, commonwealth safety protocols demanded that the crew wait until the hull achieved a certain level of thermal equilibrium with its surroundings before anyone disembarked. It wasn't really a problem when landing on a planet with an atmosphere, but when entering a landing bay directly from the vacuum of space, there could be issues.
Eventually the various noises coming from the fighter tapered off, and were replaced by the whirring of a gang plank being lowered from the rear of the center section. Once it was completely lowered, it wasn't long before our visitor walked calmly out and into our presence.
She was wearing one of the new compression shipsuits I’d heard the military had been developing, which encase one’s body in a second skin of durable, vacuum proof material that used physical compression over the entire body much like the gloves in all eva suits do. It had the effect here of displaying Major Kintzel almost as if she were arriving at a BDSM party, instead of stepping off a long range fighter onto an alien ship.
She certainly had the figure for it. She hadn’t let taking a command position with SysSec allow a sedentary lifestyle settle in, that’s for sure. She was strong and muscular in a way that somehow kept a startling hourglass figure. Just like with her sister, she was at least equal to my own height, making the entire image come together in such a way it would have short circuited my brain if not for Tindron elbowing me in the ribs.
“If the media ever hears about our crew compliment,” he said to me in a hushed chuckle, “you know there’ll be rumors and fanfic all over the StellarNet, right?”
I coughed to cover the laugh that almost erupted from my throat. He wasn’t wrong, and when you consider the fact I was sleeping with Boudya and Tratsa, He was bonded to Boudya, and there seemed to be something going on between Jesse and Toftri - they wouldn’t even be all that wrong.
A movement caught my eye and I glanced over to see both Jophixa and Tratsa giving us a look; Jo’s was disapproving, but I could see Tratsa was hiding a smile and her ears were quivering. I threw Jo an apologetic look, and snapped back to my best imitation of military decorum that I could manage.
Once she was standing directly in front of us, Major Kintzel pulled her flight helmet off her head, ran a quick hand through her short blonde hair then snapped a salute off to Jophixa. “Major Gertrude Kintzel, formerly of Yintari System Security, requesting permission to come aboard Commander.”
Jo took a moment to look her up and down for a moment, before giving her a sharp giobhioni salute and said “Permission granted Major. I was surprised when we were given these coordinates for our rendezvous by your admiral. I wouldn’t have thought you’d have been able to make it this far from Yintari in such a short time.”
“Void’s Cutlass is a special ship.” Gertrude said smiling, “State of the Art, with the Commonwealth’s fastest tunnel drive for a vessel of her size.”
“Intriguing,” Jo responded, “I’m sure our Chief Engineer will wish to talk to you about it, perhaps have a peek at it? Won’t you Mr. Aacen?”
“Oh, most definitely, as long as they aren’t classified.” I replied, causing Gertrude to turn her storm gray eyes in my direction.
“Mr. Aacen? Not the infamous Thomas Aacen surely?” she asked, eyes crinkling at the corners, “I was informed by your ambassador that you were the Commander’s cabin boy, not the Chief Engineer. Indentured to perform for her every whim and desire.”
I did my best not to react to her words, but I could feel my face heating up. Thankfully I was saved by Jo explaining, “A necessary fiction in the face of Enigma Osiris’ and Mr. Barstol’s machinations to have Vin’toosog Aacen and his Sister eliminated. One I hope your Admiral will excuse considering the data we andMiss Aacen procured when she departed E.O.”
“He already assumed such was the case.” Gertrude explained with a chuckle, “Enigma Osiris, and Benson Fisch in particular, have been on his watch list for a long time. But they just always seem to cover their tracks enough to prevent public action against them. Anyway, I just couldn’t resist giving Mr. Aacen there a hard time, considering the tales of your spectacular escape from the resort back on Yintari.
“But if you wouldn’t mind, there’s a bit of old business I have to settle.”
Jo glanced from Gertrude to where Giselle was standing a couple meters away and nodded. “Of course. Don’t let me delay a family reunion.”
“Thanks.”
She turned and stepped deliberately over to her sister. There was no denying they were twins seeing them face to face as they were; even the hairstyles were the same. “Hey sis!” Giselle exclaimed in greeting, trying to cover what I already knew were some major nerves with bravado. “Looking good! Good to see you didn’t let yourself get caught by the secretary spread in that desk job, or that suit wouldn’t look anywhere near as…oof!”
Gertrude had stood there and listened to her friendly chatter for mere moments before cutting her off with a hard fast jab straight to the gut, seeming to knock all the wind out of her sister. Giselle bent over and collapsed to the deck, wheezing in an effort to get her breath back, while Gertrude simply looked down on her and gave a satisfied smile.
“That’s for the borderline ulcer your fucking undercover bullshit gave me.”
The Salvager’s Plague
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