Hello amazing people!

Welcome back to my book and its terrible update schedule! 

So...

Yeah. That kinda came out of the blue. I will admit that I hadn't planned to have multiple parts, but it just felt like it needed to happen. 

Anyways,

Nothing has changed. Not the characters, the universe, none of it. Just, the tempo is gonna pick up a lot now, so I slapped a break down.

Also I just went back to read some of my earlier chapters and holy crud there are too many typos. 

Fixing in progress!

Cool!

EDIT: WTF? 60th in Science Fiction?

Here Goes Nothing!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------   

Five Years Ago

The floor rang hollow under Kuznetsov's feet. Behind him, the shuttle vented one last burst of coolant, hissing as it vaporized instantly in the underpressurized hangar. 

A guard immediately took up position behind him. He wielded an automatic slugthrower, what many people would consider archaic technology, Kuznetsov included. The trooper's triple-visor faceplate recessed into his helmet, sealing the mechanized armor in case of any trouble as Kuznetsov glanced at the brutally simple weapon the soldier now held in both hands. 

It felt intrinsically alien to be aboard a Union warship. Really, it was more than that- it was painful. As Grand Admiral is was his job to defend the Republic, not conspire with its enemies. He was betraying everyone he knew.

Including his own daughter. 

She was a captain now, on the fast track to the Admiralty. If the Cold War with the Coalition boiled over she would be the first in line to fight- she had already dedicated her life to the Republic and its people. 

Jessica was incredibly intelligent- more so she gave herself credit for. There was hope that she would understand Kuznetsov's actions. 

It was unfortunate that hope had lost most of its meaning. 

Forcing the thought as far back as it would go, he focused on the task ahead of him. It would be worth it in the end if he could get what the El'saas needed. Destroying his daughter's trust- it was a small price to pay to ensure her survival. 

And as hard as it was for Kuznetsov to accept, if his daughter's trust truly was the sacrifice for the continued existence of most sentient life in the galaxy... well, so be it.

Carson waited patiently a few dozen feet away, flanked by two additional guards. His figure was surprisingly humanoid, although Kuznetsov knew his biology was anything but. It was almost unnerving to see one alive- the El'saas as a species were nearly wiped out during the Subjugation Wars waged before humanity had even confirmed the existence of the multiverse. They still teetered on the brink of extinction, with most having sought refuge in the Prythian Assembly. It took a very courageous or a very suicidal El'saas to have anything to do with the Caroki Star Union and the rampant xenophobia present- normally, it was a combination of both.

"Grand Admiral Joseph Kuznetsov." His voice was higher than Kuznetsov had anticipated. 

"Mr. Carson," Kuznetsov replied, reaching his hand out in greeting and releasing a little tension when Carson returned the gesture warmly. "It is nice to finally meet in person."

"Indeed." 

Carson discreetly scrutinized the Grand Admiral. He wasn't one to judge a book by its cover. Unfair judgment was something the El'saas had eradicated decades ago, something humans had never managed to accomplish. 

It didn't matter in the long run. No matter how he viewed the man in front of him, he would have to see this through. 

"If you would follow me, Mr. Kuznetsov," Carson said. 

His guards fell into place behind them as they stepped off of the hangar floor.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Present Day

Carson knew what his next step would have to be. 

He had old contacts in the Republic, and it was now his top priority to reach them. Too many people had been alerted about the nature of Carson's excursion to the Tares Cluster. The Navy would find out sooner or later- and would probably be furious that the Minister kept them in the dark.

The Minister was insane, but he wasn't suicidal. Even his thick skull should be able to comprehend the consequences of a multiversal war. He would keep the information from the Naval Board for as long as he could, but due to the political structure of the Union, the Navy held almost as much power as the civilian government did. 

For now, he had more pressing issues- namely the marine detail that, until recently, acted as his personal security when Shock Troopers couldn't.

A fist slammed against the command room door. "Mr. Carson!" one of the marines shouted. "Is everything alright?" 

"Is there another entrance to the command room?" Carson asked, eyeing the bulkhead which served as the only thing between him and the bullets of his former guards.

"Unfortunately not," June said, her hands flying over the central control console.

"You're wiping the data?"

June briefly glanced at Carson, mildly surprised at his intuition. "Yeah. If we're going to die, they're sure as shit not getting their hands on this."

"Wait." 

"No."

Carson froze the console's screen and grabbed June's arm. "That data holds more importance than you understand." 

"I don't-"

"I don't care that you don't care," the El'saas said firmly. "Don't wipe the data." 

"I thought you were trying to help us?" June replied angrily, wrenching her hand out of the alien's grasp. 

"I am. But not in this way." 

Sparks exploded from the bulkhead's console. A string of profanity drifted through the door. "Fuck this! Get the pyr!"

Carson cursed.

"Pyr?!" June exclaimed incredulously. "When were you going to tell us your guards had pyr?"

"Never. I didn't remember myself."

"It's going to slag that door unless we do something about it," Mark cautioned, his head buried in the door of a supply locker.

Carson glanced at the bulkhead. It was study- solid titanium- but pyr burned at close to 2,000 degrees Celcius. He'd hoped his guards were intelligent enough not to use anti-structural weapons in a space station, but apparently, his hopes were misguided. 

Then again, if the pyr melted through the floor the corridor would explosively decompress, and without the bulkhead, the control room would as well. He didn't need air to live, and his marines were in hermetically-sealed suits. June and Mark had neither of those. They would die and everyone else would survive. 

Maybe it wasn't such a bad plan after all.

"Agreed." the El'saas said quickly. "Computer, override code 1y99n5m27s." 

The computer's automated response system crackled online. "Identify- Baron Carson. Input date- 10/10/10 TCET. Override code accepted." 

"Hardseal command center bulkhead."

"Acknowledged."

A blinding light suddenly consumed the entire far wall. Shouting bled into the command center as the bulkhead melted itself into the doorframe, sealing it permanently.

"What-"

"I bought us time."

Before June could respond, Carson had pushed past her and activated the override console, swiping through hundreds of secondary and tertiary functions. "This room has an escape hatch."

"Yeah? How the fuck would you know?"

"I don't. But regulations mandate that every module has an escape hatch."

"Since when did the Union care about interstellar regulations?"

"Since I forced them to."

That was unexpected. June's eyes narrowed suspiciously as she took a step back, briefly catching Mark's gaze as he glanced up from the supply locker. "You forced them to?" she challenged.

Carson sighed, glancing over his shoulder at the bulkhead before resuming his search. This woman was obviously perpetually paranoid- who could blame her, really. Living in the Union demanded a certain level of paranoia. 

It was still starting to get on his nerves. 

"Yes," Carson replied, finally freezing the override console and selecting a tab. "I forced them to." 

"Why would you do that?"

Carson snapped. 

He whirled around on June violently with glowing eyes. "Because I'm not an asshole! Is that too hard for you to understand?"

June returned the glare but remained silent. 

"If we're going to get out of this," Carson growled, "you're going to have to trust me."

The El'saas turned back to face the console, blocking June from his mind. For now, he had more pressing issues.

To use the escape hatch they would need space suits. Most stations had emergency EV suits built into sealed wall compartments, the covers of which would blow off in the event of an emergency. Convincing the computer that an emergency had indeed happened was tricky- the blow-out panels relied almost exclusively on automated triggers. For redundancy reasons, however, it was possible to bypass the safeties. Each panel had a pull tab that would allow someone with enough courage to activate the explosives manually- with good positioning and a healthy dose of luck, the panel wouldn't take their head off in the process.  

It wasn't hard to find the pull tab. Carson looped the small metal ring around his pointer finger and took a deep breath, hugging part of the wall that he desperately hoped wasn't the blow-out panel.

He only hesitated for a moment.

"Charge set!"

"Fuck," Carson swore, yanking the tab out of the wall. 

The wall above his head hissed and bulged outwards, showering the floor with sparks from the seams of a now-visible panel. Carson scrambled backward and shielded his eyes as a burst of light blew the panel in two, sending the top half flying while the other skidded across the length of the control module. 

"Down!" Carson shouted, watching June fall flat as the upper half soared over her head, slamming into the far wall and quivering for a few seconds before falling out and clattering to the ground.

Six EV suits slumped out of a small compartment in the wall.

Carson stood and threw a suit to June. "Suit up," he ordered. She glanced at him skeptically but, to his relief, didn't say anything. "Quickly." 

Time was of the essence. Pyr did its job extremely well.

Carson sidestepped out of the way as Mark grabbed his own suit, tossing a helmet to June. The El'saas quietly drew his own security pistol- substantially more powerful than the nearly unusable ones June and Mark held, but nowhere near the quality of military sidearms.

The bulkhead started to glow. On the other side, the pyr charge could be heard melting through the titanium door, accompanied by the modulated shouts of his marine detail and the distinctive drone of pulse weapons powering up. 

They were out of time.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A rocket screamed through the bridge door, leaving a lingering trail of thick smoke as the projectile missed Jarik by a meter and detonated on the helm controls.

"They have rockets!" Jarik shouted, scrambling around the tactical console as a second missile obliterated the underslung defense turret that had deployed itself out of a hatch in the roof. 

"No shit!" Carol responded, squeezing behind the now-activated emergency transponder as bullets sparked off. 

A marine stepped into the bridge as the defense turret's flaming wreck crashed into the floor. "Surrender, and be taken into custody!" 

If only soldiers were as incompetent as they were in movies. 

Gunfights were not an alien concept to Jarik- thirty years as a detective on Isilon Station ensured that. A week ago, he could have proclaimed with a reasonable degree of confidence that he could hold his own against any petty criminal or gang member. Never once did he consider he would be shooting at marines.

And yet here he was. 

He rose from behind the tactical console and sighted his rifle, releasing an avalanche of pulse blasts. The marine reacted with astonishing speed, whirling around and sidestepping the first volley, replying with a burst from his own slugthrower. 

The second volley plowed into the marine's breastplate.

Jarik cursed and sunk back behind the tactical console. If his rifle couldn't go through their armor, what options did he have? 

He was starting to miss the electricity cannon.

"This is your last chance!" the marine shouted.

Jarik had to give the marines credit where it was due. They were following orders as far as any sane person could take them. He would have dropped an antimatter charge and walked out five minutes ago.

A cylinder bounced off of the marine's helmet and stuck to the floor. 

The marine had barely registered the impact when two tendrils of electricity burst from the shock grenade's caps, overloading the discharge banks of his power armor. He fell to his knees, unable to support the weight of the armor without mechanical support. 

"Great!" Jarik shouted, pumping pulse blasts into the marine's helmet. "We still can't kill him!"

"Hold on!" was Carol's response. 

A second marine was on one knee, firing his rifle while a third dragged their disabled comrade out of the bridge.

"Hold on? For what?" 

A cylinder burst from the disabled marine's power pack, bouncing off of the bridge roof and rolling to a stop at Jarik's feet. 

"What the fuck-"

"Throw it, dimwit!" Carol shouted. 

Jarik glanced at the power core and quickly decided there was no better option. He seized the core in his right hand, ignoring the pain as the heat seared his palm.  

Gritting his teeth, he hurled the power core at the bridge portal and dropped flat. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Regrettable, but necessary." 

Buren hadn't expected Captain Dark to be so accommodating. Considering everything the Prythian Federal Navy had been through, it would have been perfectly understandable if he demanded that the Alexandra pull her own weight. Not that she hadn't been, of course. But none of the battlecruiser's systems had been pushed- she had suffered damage, yes, but nothing that was of any true significance.

"I'm glad you understand, Captain," Buren replied, in a tone that she hoped expressed her gratitude. 

"You will leave much of your command here, I hope?" Dark questioned.

"Of course. Alexandra is going alone. Captain Michel Arren and Halifax will be given temporary command of the fleet. They will stay with you until we return." 

"We are in your debt, Captain Buren."

With that, the transmission was cut.

"All the relays are transferred, captain," Allan reported over the dulled battlestations klaxon. 

The Halifax pulled its docking umbilical from the Alexandra's dorsal airlock, drifting to a safe distance before her maneuvering jets flared and turned the lumbering cruiser around. She was now responsible for the relay deployment. 

"If I'm not mistaken," Buren said to no one in particular, "the Asine has an axial railgun."

Megan glanced up. "Correct, captain." 

Axial railguns were always dangerous. Regardless of whether or not the Alexandra could take a hit from one, the damage could still be catastrophic. Beyond what Buren deemed acceptable concerning the safety of her crew. 

"All hands, stand by to flickerjump," Buren began, scanning the Alexandra's weapon readouts displayed on the tactical map. Flickerjumping was a term coined in the navy- natural visual illusions always accompanied a ship during a drop-out of warp. Any weapon discharge would amplify these effects for a few seconds, causing the vessel to flicker; like a dysfunctional hologram, although most crews were drilled in ignoring this phenomenon. 

Buren knew the Asine didn't have the firepower to take on the Alexandra at long range. It would try to get as close as it could and fire everything in random directions, splitting the point-defense grid and confusing the targeting computers with background noise so that its nuclear weapons could slip through. 

At least, that's what she would do.

One of the many golden rules preached in the Naval Academy was to avoid close engagements at all costs. The chance for a single miscalculation to wreak havoc upon a battlegroup was too high.

It was a risk she would have to take. A point-blank battle was bad, but not being prepared for one when it happened was infinitely worse.

Buren took a deep breath and nodded at her helmsman.

"Jump." 

The Alexandra flashed into a warp tunnel and vanished instantaneously, leaving the Halifax in command.

The jump lasted a grand total of two seconds.

Buren stood as the battlecruiser slammed back into realspace at a slight angle, discharging warp particles and glowing a dull blue as the Alexandra's plasma shielding was brought to full strength. A proximity klaxon immediately tripped, just as rapidly deactivated as the Alexandra brought her main weapons to bear.

"Ground the Asine, Megan," Buren ordered.

"Aye, ma'am."

A single electromagnetic torpedo lanced off the Alexandra's port bow.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The power core flashed violently and detonated, erupting in a massive fireball and blasting a shockwave throughout the entire bridge superstructure. Jarik felt something break as he slammed into the helm console and blacked out- he hoped it wasn't his spine. 

Carol slid to the floor and rolled Jarik's limp body over, breathing a sigh of relief when she confirmed he was still alive. 

Unfortunately, the marines weren't dead either. Now, they were just confused and probably pissed off. 

Power cores were designed to focus as much energy as possible in one direction. Lucky that Jarik had a good throwing arm- that or he was incredibly lucky. The core had blasted a cone of energy through the bridge floor.

The proximity klaxon tripped. Carol glanced sidelong in surprise at the utterly destroyed tactical console. How any klaxon still functioned was beyond her- it was a miracle that the sensors to trip them still existed, let alone were still operational.

An explosion rocked the Axion. 

The pilot stabbed a Corbiyal syringe into Jarik's leg and picked up her rifle, cautiously stepping out of the bridge onto the mangled gangway. The marines were gone, and there were no bodies. 

Through a hull breach, another ship was visible. It was a design Carol had never seen before- whatever it was, though, it was beautiful. Nothing like any Pythian or Caroki warship.

Specks of light burst from the underbelly of the new ship. 

Carol sprinted back into the bridge.