PrincessColumbia

  “You sure you want to do this, boss? It isn’t tested and we can always put you in one of the people transports and remote that thing,” inquired D’hani, her voice coming over the ops consol’s speakers.

  Diane couldn’t keep the grin off her face as she tched the drop-harness in pce, “Your concern is noted and appreciated, but I’m good. All the sims both before and after the build turned up green and I trust Ben. He’s made sure his team gives us good stuff.”

  “Well, alright,” D’hani replied skeptically, “It’s your respawn if you’re wrong.”

  Diane reached up to the console above the viewport and flipped some of the pre-flight configuration switches. The board’s functions changed entirely once the building was pnted, but prior to unch it handled the usual functions of a standard heavier-than-air vehicle. “It’s sweet that you’re so concerned about the hand that writes your paycheck.”

  “Psh!” mocked the captain, “I just know I’ll have to answer to Norma and your girlfriend if I’m the one that lets anything happen to you. They know what kind of insane idiot you are.”

  “Oooh!” interjected Wildcard over the control circuit, “I think we have a squad name! The Insane Idiots!”

  “Nah,” answered Sgt. Lipsum, “Then it’d abbreviate to, ‘I.I.,’ and then we’d have to tell everyone we’re,” she shifted her voice deep and apparently cupped a hand over the mic to simute a spacious environment, “‘EEEEEEE’.”

  Wildcard and Diane both cackled. “So the squad name’s still up in the air, just like we are,” said Diane with a smile in her voice.

  “Yeah, yeah,” answered Captain D’hani, “Keep your shirt on. Gods know your cans are big enough to make all the girls jealous. And a few of the guys. Three minutes to our unch window, everyone give us the go, no-go.”

  While D’hani cked the traditional ‘straight ced discipline’ that was expected of the kind of fleet officer that the Terran Federation liked to pump out, she knew her stuff and her casually slipping in mission critical directions and orders into her banter was a big selling point for her being hired for this particur jaunt. Honestly, it was something Diane was growing to appreciate. As much as she had been expecting to establish a very ‘Starfleet’-like command structure (save, of course, for the over-the-top use of agony booths to enforce discipline, the best captains didn’t need them after all), she was noticing a pattern in her selections of captains.

  The Dragon’s Daughter was her personal yacht at this point, so other than the obviously insubordinate personality of Russe and the snarky takes-no-bullshit attitude of Norma, there had been no indicators to how anyone besides her might command. The captains of her combat ships didn’t, at first, seem to fit any particur type beyond, “No longer working for the Terrans.” Their simirities came out at the Commander’s Table on card game night, however. Powell seemed like a no-nonsense battleaxe at first blush, Torray’s boyish charm and id-back demeanor seeming the exact opposite. Even Captain Xesra of the Goldrush and Clexand of the Prospector, the two of her captains she interacted with the least owing to their ships being docked just long enough to perform inspections, refits, repairs, and upgrades between mining runs. When they did show up for the Commander’s Card Games, the wit was dryer and the repartee a bit slower, but they were the same as the others beneath the somewhat grittier exterior.

  Those games, initially started so Xesra and Clexand wouldn’t be complete strangers to the others on their same rank and pay grade, had become one of the highlights of Diane’s week. Every ship built meant a new captain joined the table, and their games became a way for Diane to learn her team's personalities and traits, as well as get a feel for their strategies and tactics.

  D’hani hadn’t been to one of the games yet, having been hired literally two days prior as the Abigail Adams had been in its finishing stages in the shipyard. With her btantly ‘gives-no-fucks’ attitude, she had been more or less booted out of the Federation’s fleet when she hit mandatory retirement age…for humans. Liari were a very long-lived race and their lifespans could stretch into the three century mark easily. While one might immediately make the connection to ‘space elves,’ they came from a desert pnet and one of the cultural pilrs for the pointy eared humanoids was the pursuit of logic above all else. This might have nded them as ‘Vulcans in all but name,’ but rather than being all about a stoic, emotionless exterior to master some extreme version of emotion roiling beneath the surface, Liari tended to express their emotions quite freely. She hadn’t met a Liari yet that didn’t enjoy a good belly ugh and D’hani was no exception.

  Her captains all had a hidden undercurrent of singur wit, unfaltering resolve, and an iron foundation of right and wrong that they refused to budge on. She didn’t know if GU:MC was built to somehow read her desires for officers that even she hadn’t picked up on or if it was random chance or she was somehow drawing these personalities to her, but she felt immensely better every night after the weekly card games and was able to sleep deeper than her usual knowing she was surrounding herself with good people.

  Diane flipped the final few switches, double-checked her drop harness, then scanned the indicator lights to confirm they were all green (including the ‘Ready’ status for the five vehicles in the RDCC’s bay) before saying, “RDCC is go.”

  Over the comms, the other teams reported their readiness status.

  “Build & Break squad is go,” came Wildcard’s voice.

  “Dropship Alpha-1 is go.”

  “Dropship Alpha-2 is go.”

  “Drop team Alpha is go,” reported Lipsum.

  “Dropship Beta-2 is go.”

  “Dropship Beta-1 has a red light on the board, hold.”

  “Less than two minutes to window, you good B1?” asked Captain D’hani.

  “Wrench-monkey just fixed the break, all green now. Beta-1 is go.”

  Garner seemed to almost be sighing with relief as he reported, “Drop team Beta is go.”

  “Drop teams are a go. All teams report ready for drop.”

  The Abigail’s tactical officer’s voice came over the bridge’s channel, “Drop window achieved. Dropping in ten…nine…”

  As the tac officer’s countdown ticked down, Diane could feel the now familiar rush of sensation of her Zen Berserker ability as her autonomic system was reacting to the incredible rush of anticipation flooded her system. She was about to ride an entire building from orbit to the ground. While this wouldn’t, strictly, make her an ODST, she couldn’t help but start humming the familiar ‘Halo’ theme.

  As the count hit 'zero,' she felt the entire massive vehicle she was on shudder and then shift downward. That would be the docking cmps, the 'blow' of the cmp release adding a tiny bit of momentum to propel the structure away from the ship. In moments, she saw the interior of the ship's bay for the RDCC disappear in her view port, being repced with the darkness of space.

  She was surprised when her humming was joined by first one voice, then another. By the time she saw two of the troop dropships move in front of her, someone with a deep, melefluous voice had joined in to provide the bass line to the choir sounds and all pretense at humming had vanished. Diane found herself part of a body of singers carrying one of the oldest and most epic gaming battle anthems. There were no words, just the haunting sounds of human voices (and probably at least a few non-humans) calling out against the bck.

  By the time some clever individual had joined in with some beat boxing, they were hitting the atmosphere, fmes licking up against the heat shields and around the vehicles as they plummeted into the pnet's gravity well. Diane was amused to see her board practically glowing with nearly perfect readouts, her Commander's Ability kicking in and expanding across the drop fleet. Since she hadn't put any intention into it, it was simply optimizing passively. The angle of approach nding in the 'perfect' zone on the attitude indicator, the pilot's assisted formation around the RDCC forming a nearly perfect diamond, the comms working at 100% to punch through the interference of re-entry. She simply let the ability do its thing, far too enthralled by the spontaneous communal musical interlude to care about much more.

  By the time the musical suite ended, she had no way of knowing which of the hundreds of people participating in the drop had joined in, but as the final haunting note began to fade, someone in one of the troop carriers began whooping and cheering. They were joined by others and the comms were ringing with the excitement of her crew.

  She could only smile a massive grin, and she'd swear to her st breath that no, there wasn't a tear tracking down her cheek.

  Lt. Cooker let the revelry continue for about thirty seconds before barking over the command channel, "Alright, you overpaid grunts. If you're done kissing our commander's ass, get locked down. We hit in 90 seconds as of…mark!"

  The bck of night faded to the bright blue of mid-day as the various craft hit full atmosphere. The parachutes and jets on the RDCC kicked on and rocked the structure hard, Diane's teeth cttering as she didn’t quite compensate for the jolt. She watched the countdown timer that appeared on her dispy as the airspeed indicator dropped. Another readout popped up on her dispy showing the distance in feet between the craft and the ground. It was decreasing so quickly she couldn't even read the singles digit.

  Thankfully, the burners and chutes did their job and both the air speed and range finder's rapid drop slowed to a crawl.

  By the time the massive building settled to the ground, it hit just hard enough to feel like a minor quake had rocked it once before the console’s main monitor dispyed the same message the computer announced, “Drop complete.”

  "RDCC drop complete," Diane announced, “Checking targeting, how'd we do?"

  The holographic topographical map sprung up in front of her, stretching from the end of her console to the forward viewport. The drop zone was highlighted in blue and the RDCC's locator, as indicated by a red dot, showed it nded nearly perfectly dead center.

  "You know, a girl could get jealous of a Commander's Ability," griped D'hani over the comms.

  Diane giggled, "Don't be jealous," she crowed, "Just bask in the marvel that is the perfect assisted drop." She then toggled one of the panels on the touch screen on her console, "Activating sounder," as she tapped one of the command buttons, the red dot gained a series of radiating circles pulsing out from it. Almost immediately, readouts appeared in a callout above the marker. "Sounding is good, all readings match what we got on the ship's sensors, digging in."

  She reached to her right and flipped open an actual acrylic cover for a physical switch. Was it rather pretentious in the 27th century? Yes. Was it a silly affectation in a VR game? Yes. Did Diane absolutely love the neo-military aesthetics? Also, yes.

  A flick of the big red pstic switch and the LED bels for all the switches and buttons on her console changed, the big pstic switch receded and a decorative panel showing the Matron's Aerie logo slid into pce, and the little LCD panels that were the instruments she'd used to monitor her 'flight' all bnked and then reloaded with various other instrumentation, most of which were faded to grey with a bold bck, ‘Building not constructed,’ bel over them.

  The entire structure rumbled, and a new dialog popped up on her holographic HUD. She pinched the air in front of her and pulling, as though tugging two strings in opposite directions, which the computer read as a gesture to zoomed the view in. She saw a tiny wirfeframe representation of the RDCC, the bottom yer of the structure animating to show the massive treads being disengaged and shoved out and away from the structure, revealing the axels of the caterpilr mechanism. Sabot-like sleeves popped off, ejected by tiny bsts of gun powder, no more than a shotgun-shell's worth, to reveal three-lobed bdes that began spinning up. An orchestra of mechanical precision and destructive power then ensued as the bdes turned downward and worked in harmony to dig a foundation for the building as it lowered itself in.

  She whistled quietly with her tongue against front teeth, I wonder if this is in-game handwavium tech or if this is actually in development and just hasn't had a reason to be tried yet? Out loud, she announced, "Dig in process, how are we doing out there?"

  "Landing sites Beta and Gamma are a wash," announced Cooker, "Alpha 1 is nding in Alpha now, redirecting Alpha 2 to Delta."

  "Build and break can take Epsilon…" began Wildcard.

  "Negative," Diane interrupted, expanding her view of the ndscape on the HUD with a gesture, "Stick with Betas 1 and 2 so they can cover your team. All three of you nd at the fallback site at Zeta, Eta, and Theta and move in as fast as you can. Tell the B-Team to build a road. You know that'll get 'em moving."

  Wildcard's cackling ugh could be heard before they said, "You got it, boss!"

  "Drop team Beta relocating to fallback locations," said Sgt. Garner with the sigh of the damned. The two m…the man and the enby (what even was that word?!) got along well enough, but for Garner it was clearly like a trip to the dentist; you had to, but you'd rather be doing just about anything else.

  The rumbling of the building stopped and the callout showing the progress of the dig showed 100%. "Building foundation ready for wet, all systems online. Deploying H-G3," chirped the computer in that voice that was almost, but not quite, Katrina's. A screen to Diane's right lit up with five units already poputed on it, the harvester/combine vehicle and the four construction mechs. The line with the little picture of the 'Huggy' lit up and the vehicle's various most important stats flickered to life. Diane was pleased to note that the two engineers in the cockpit of the unit were right at the front of the readout, being the most important component to the machine.

  "DN-Alpha deployed, prepping for foundation mix," came the voice of the engineer in the driver's seat of the 'Huggy'.

  The H-G3, which stood for 'Hunter-Gatherer Rank 3', was a veritable tank without a weapons ptform. Designed to rapidly gather whatever resources were needed and keep them secure until they could be offloaded either in the garage of the RDCC or the eventual refinement building (once it was built), the storage bay was nearly as airtight as a gas mining starship. This made it the perfect storage unit for the non-potable water needed for the RDCC's foundation. At four times the size of US tanker rail car, it could dump its payload of 140,000 gallons in about ten minutes if needed, though for the foundation quick-krete mixing stage it would take about half an hour.

  Which was the perfect amount of time for the construction mechs to get things started. "DN-1 through 4, let's get the party started by clearing this plot here," Diane sketched a section of the nd near the RDCC, "And don't forget, these trees here give us all the goodies for our construction and builds." She 'grabbed' one of the rendered models of the pnts, more resembling extremely thick trunked palm trees than the more modest organism suggested by the term 'pnt,' from the holographic HUD and tossed it up into the 'card' that visualized her comms.

  "We were awake for the briefing," one of the engineers snarked, "We didn't even have to sing a little song to understand everything."

  Diane's silence was only because she was allowing herself a slow, toothy grin as she thought of a perfect response. The engineer picked up on the silence and said, "…uh-oh…" right as the sound of an old-fashioned manual saw tore through the comms. The sound repeated as Diane flexed her Commander's ability and the sound of an air hammer joined in, forming a percussion line to back the sound of a slightly crunchy guitar pying a slightly syncopated chord. Diane tugged on her shirt cuffs dramatically as she started percussively singing on the downbeat, "Nothin' ever (ever) happens in this town, Feelin' low down (down), not a lot to do around here…"

  The sound of the song was undercut by the groaning and jeering of the other five engineers on her small team as the Ability began making their vehicles move in time with the music no matter how their controls were maniputed.

  "Damnit, man, don't push that button with the commander! Now my mech is dancing!"

  "Shit! Sorry, sorry!"

  Diane heard them, but chose to inflict the 'punishment' anyway, "I thought that I would go right out of my mind, until a friend told me the news…"

  The groans of her engineers were only drown out by the ughter of the GroPos as they joined the comms circuit.

  “So,” chirped Diane, “What have we learned today?”

  “We learned the con-mechs are surprisingly flexible and are able to pull of some sick dance moves?” offered one of the GroPos, the little green dot indicating active comms lighting up on the bar for his unit status on her screen.

  “We learned the grunts can do a pretty good kick line, even in combat armor,” fired back one of the engineers.

  Sgt. Lipsum snickered, “I think the armor added a nice touch, and some of them got some really good vertical on those kicks!”

  “They’re your people, of course you like ‘em best,” snarked Diane, “I, personally, thought you joining in on the chorus was particurly inspired.”

  “We also learned that Davidson is a dumbass who needs to keep his damn mouth shut!” snapped one of the engineers who’d been part of the impromptu dance number.

  “Always an important lesson,” said Diane, “Though I’m noting that the lot for the refinery was cleared with remarkable efficiency.” Tapping on the indicators for two of the construction mechs, she tasked them with the build, “Let’s get going. Lipsum, keep your team dispersed around the site, until we get the defense towers in pce and the rest of the GroPos catch up, you’re it for keeping us from getting sgged.”

  “Yes ma’am!” chirped the sergeant. Her comms indicator flipped from green to blue, which indicated she was on a private circuit. Moments ter the grunt’s comms lights all turned blue and individuals started moving into whatever position they’d been assigned to.

  “AD-Beta, get those treads disassembled, we’re going to need the mats. AD-Gamma, I want you clearing the plot for the power pnt. We’re building a lot very quickly and we’re going to need the power.”

  AD-Alpha’s comms channel, the maligned Engineer Davidson, lit up as he made a grunting noise, “More POWER!!! Aroo-roo-roo!”

  A round of ughter echoed on the comms and Diane shook her head, “I cannot believe that show is still popur. Remind me to build a fence so we can properly greet our neighbors with just my eyes visible over it.”

  “And what were you doing at the Devil’s Sacrament?” ughed Lipsum.

  Thanks to Diane’s Morvuck speech mechanisms in her throat, she was able to issue a very deep and gravelly, “Uuuwuuh?!” with an inquisitive inflection at the end of the nearly all vowel-sounds noise.

  As the sound of cackling ughter came in through the comms, Diane smiled and felt probably as free and happy as she had in a very, very long time. The st time she’d enjoyed just pying a game, as opposed to just entering a gaming environment in pursuit of her job, had predated her time with the agency. She felt like there were days she forgot that games were supposed to be fun. I don’t know how I’ll be able to thank an NPC for helping me get back to my gaming roots, but Ben did me such a solid!

  About two hours ter and the refinery was being built, the foundation for the RDCC had been mixed and was drying, and her wayward troops and engineers had paved their way (literally, there was an actual road from the fallback LZ to the RDCC now) through the resource-rich forest. As her troops were actually competent at their jobs, she’d taken down her guitar and had been noodling around with various riffs and songs, sometimes just pying for half an hour as her crews did their jobs. They wouldn’t be able to fully link up with Benjamin’s family until the high-power comms tower was built, and in the meantime they were being given updates on the situation from the Abigail Adams whenever there was a significant departure from S.O.P.

  She had wound up pying a guitar solo version of Roundabout, which had started out somewhat mediocre (one really needed a base guitar for the full effect…maybe she should look into getting a 12-string guitar made), had turned out to be fun and special in its own way when someone on the B-team decided to improv some percussion on the inside of their mech's cockpit and a one of the GroPos happened to know a good chunk of the lyrics and there was more than a couple of others who chimed in as appropriate during repetitions and the chorus. By the time the song (which was long at nearly 9 minutes) was finished, there was an undeniable sense that they'd grown tighter knit as a team. No Commander's Ability, no cheats, no hacks, just a bunch of people working together to common cause and enjoying each other's company.

  She was rounding out a passable version of the bridge when she got a call from the ship, "D'hani to Diane, there's a situation."

  Diane smiled fondly at the collected groans and disappointed sighing of the people under her direct command as she took her booted feet off her console, sat up straight in her chair, and put the guitar back in its secure harness, "What sort of situation?"

  "The kind above my paygrade. It looks like the GeneMods are actively sabotaging the Feds from getting off-pnet."

  Diane frowned, "Any inbound ships from the Terrans?"

  "Negative," came D'hani's reply as a supplemental holographic screen popped up above Diane's topographical map of the terrain. It showed the two beleaguered fleet ships as dots in orbit over the pnet, remaining retively geo-stationary as they held in position to retrieve their people.

  Diane's frown deepened as she zoomed her topo map out to get a visual on the seven members of the family. As she'd come to expect, she could see very pack-like behavior as they herded dots on the map that she was presuming were Terrans heading in the direction of a shuttle field. There were two members of the family already about two clicks from the shuttle field clearly waiting in ambush as the other five kept a much slower pace than she'd observed before. If they followed any sort of hunting procedure, they'd have compromised comms as soon as possible and that meant the ships in orbit and the Terrans fleeing the pnet would have no means of communication, and it would also mean that the ships above were watching helplessly as they were watching a rather nasty trap about to be sprung. "Cap, are the scanners good enough to detect if that group has any weapons?"

  "They do," said D'hani in answer to both questions at once, "And they're personal defense weapons. Handguns, hunting shotguns, that sort of thing."

  Diane grimaced, "So nothing that would represent any threat to a super-soldier."

  "Nnnope," replied D'hani as she took a sip of her seemingly omnipresent beverage. Diane had asked what the woman was drinking at one point, and the Liari had given a cssic non-answer that Diane interpreted to mean it was some sort of medicinal drink that D'hani was somewhat embarrassed to talk about.

  Diane sighed, "Okay, do we have Terran hostiles, as in, non-civilians, anywhere else on the field?"

  "Why yes," answered the captain, "There's an entire military encampment about three miles north of the GeneMod's position. It's absolutely buzzing with activity, but they don't have aerospace vehicles."

  Diane growled briefly, "So they're going after the targets that might escape even though they're low- to zero-threat while leaving the actual threats un-bothered."

  "That's what it looks like, boss."

  Diane zoomed in on the map so she could see all the GeneMods, "Do we have a way of contacting the leader of that little squad?"

  "We can try," D'hani's voice was den with an implied shrug, "I've just put my comms officer on it, but just 'cause we're sending a signal doesn't mean they'll answer…oh, make a liar out of me, I guess. Patching them through now."

  After a moment's pause, Diane could see one of the dots involved in the fnking maneuver pull back slightly before a man's voice came on the line, "Commander, what's the interruption about?"

  "Who'm I talking to?" snapped Diane in as authoritative a voice as she could use while keeping her temper in check.

  "Jorgenson, ma'am," he said with a hint of deference in his voice.

  Good, sounds like they're still remembering me putting one of their number on the ground with extreme prejudice when it counts, "Okay, George," she intentionally used the incorrect anglicization of his name. She'd use his actual name when he proved he wasn't a bloodthirsty idiot, "Can you tell me why you're about to grind through a crowd of fleeing civilians?"

  There was a noticeable pause, "I deemed them to be a significant tactical threat, ma'am. Allowing them access to air vehicles would give the Terrans a battlefield advantage."

  "Do you have anyone on overwatch, George?" she growled, letting some of her anger through.

  "…no, ma'am. We decided before nding we needed all hands on deck."

  "Uh-huh," she let the sarcasm drip from her voice, "And were you aware that there was a decent count of actual soldiers a little over three clicks north of your position?"

  She watched the dots as they moved, hoping she wasn't giving this short-sighted murder factory enough rope to hang himself and a bunch of civilians. Two of the nearest dots to the one she'd identified as Jorgenson paused when it was clear he wasn't keeping up. Good, this might not be a shit-show.

  "Negative," said the man after a few moments, "We were aware some military assets had escaped the initial conflict. Our estimates pced them with this group that we're tracking now."

  Diane breathed a silent sigh of relief, "Alright, well this is your new overwatch speaking. You're hunting civilians, and we are not terrorists hunting people who just happen to look like our targets. We verify and confirm our strikes. And your overwatch is telling you to back your people off before this becomes an asymmetrical sughter."

  She heard the comms click, and at first she thought he'd disconnected. "D'hani, is the line still patched through?"

  It was the comms officer who answered, "Yes, ma'am. He put us on hold. I'm thinking he's radioing his people and didn't want them all on a command circuit."

  She watched as the dots on the map stopped moving to herd the fleeing civilians and the two ready to ambush backed off a bit. A few moments ter, Jorgenson's connection clicked back on, "Alright, ma'am. We've pulled back. What are your orders?"

  She allowed herself to smile in satisfaction, "Very good, Jorgenson. You're going to get a comms unit to the civilians. You'll only need one family member to do that, and they don't have to stay with that group. As whichever one of your people can be trusted to not go feral on the popuce is doing that, the rest of you are going to follow my comms officer's directions to get you to the actual military threat. Both those civilians and the soldiers you should have been hunting this entire time are trying to get to the ships you and your team did a solid job of making sure they wouldn't be a threat. We're going to let the civilians go and you're going to give the soldiers a chance to surrender. As I'm absolutely not interested in building a POW camp, we're going to let anyone who will y down their arms go to those ships so they can become someone else's problem. Do you understand?"

  There was a noticeable pause, "…ma'am, I don't think you understand…"

  "George I swear to whatever divinity you worship in your most secret of hearts if there is even ONE avoidable casualty I will personally rip off your arm and beat you with it in front of your entire family!" Diane snarled. "I am a war orphan and have taken my share of lives in pursuit of protecting me and mine! I was tossed aside by the Terran Federation as soon as they could get rid of me! Do not mistake me being a better woman than the average Terran bureaucrat with weakness or I will make sure you never make that mistake again! Are we clear?"

  There was, to Jorgenson's credit, only a brief pause before he said, "…crystal, ma'am."

  "Good. Now," she settled back into her chair, "Get that comms unit to the civvies and we can get started for real this time." She muted her connection to the GeneMods and asked, "So, comms…what's your name?"

  "Ensign Klinda, ma'am," came the speedy reply.

  "Thank you, ensign. Can you patch me through to the Terran's ships? Let's make sure this show remains un-shit-ified. Last thing we want is for some officer on a Fed boat blowing their own people out of the sky because they're justly paranoid of the GeneMods."

  "Yes, ma'am," replied the ensign.

  She heard a quiet whistle over the comms and realized she'd left the channel to the ground teams wide open during the entire exchange. The sound came from Wildcard's connection, "Damn!" he expectorated, "I'm gd you're on our side!"

  PrincessColumbia