1.05

Hollace awoke hours before dawn.

She had spent the previous two days researching Maren Whitlock, a Progress Party challenger to the incumbent Halden Thorpe, reading as many articles as she could find, digging into as much of Whitlock’s political history as time allowed. And since Hollace wasn’t working until Monday, she had all the time in the world. She’d immersed herself so deeply into the life and work of Whitlock that she forgot to eat the previous day. She even dreamed of Whitlock. 

After a traditionally quick shower, Hollace sat on the cool countertop beside the sink and dove back into her project, not even stopping to put on clothes. Across the room situated on her bedside counter, Martin’s TV played the news. It provided a bigger picture than her old model. She kept the volume just loud enough to be heard over the industrial trucks loading and unloading cargo twenty stories below. 

“Alright, Maren…Let’s get to know each other even better.” 

From her tablet, Hollace re-read the last article she devoured the prior day so it would stick in her mind.

Maren Whitlock grew up in an affluent corner of planet Altevis, nestled midway through the Austral Corridor. Her father owned a clothing manufacturer and her mother managed a chain of hospitals. Interested in politics as early as her teenage years, Whitlock volunteered for the presidential campaign of Traditionalist Party candidate Hudson Hastings during the first of his two terms. 

Aside from a pivot from supporting one party to campaigning within the other, Hollace could find nothing substantially concerning about Whitlock’s early history.

Even though she had only ever voted for Progress Party candidates, Hollace knew very little about the Senator from Altevis whose meteoric rise within the preceding half-decade had made her the favorite of the new election cycle. It was looking like the Federation would finally get its first female president. 

Hollace, however, did not feel like celebrating the potential achievement just yet, as much as she personally longed to see a woman become president. The more she dug into Whitlock’s record in the Senate, the more goosebumps rose on Hollace’s exposed skin, suddenly aware of the chill of the countertop against her bare thighs as a cold, hard shape of corruption began to crystallize before her. 

Whitlock won her position in the Senate on a campaign of stronger healthcare protections, drawing on her mother’s history in the field, as well as higher wages and women’s rights. Once in office, she helped kill a bill that would have lowered the cost of prescription medications for all, citing a fear of stores depleting before a proposed manufacturing complex could be constructed on Altevis, one that promised 40,000 new jobs. Four years later, the project remained in limbo, each party blaming the other for obstruction. Cord Wyndham, CEO of Clairfield Pharmaceuticals, funded Whitlock’s Senate campaign to the tune of 3 billion dollars. 

Growing uncomfortable on the hard surface, Hollace shifted her weight on the countertop. “Martin, I wish you could see this,” she said out loud, and then added with a nervous little laugh, “But I guess…I guess you already did.” 

The more she stripped bare the details of Whitlock’s campaign funding, the less she wanted to read. D’arcy Balfour, owner and CEO of major weapons manufacturer Horizon Dynamics, had given the campaign 7 billion. They had a photo-op together championing the virtues of women in leadership roles. Even the majority controlling owner of Hollace’s own employer, The Usona Times, tossed in a cool billion. 

Surely, it didn’t cost so much to run a senatorial campaign. Hollace shook her head in awe wondering how much money was going to change hands during the presidential race. 

The sun had risen above the towers surrounding her tenement, and the light of dawn filtering in through her window warmed and comforted her flesh. She hadn’t realized that almost three hours had passed since her shower until her stomach growled a demand for breakfast.

Thoughts of going for a morning coffee seeped into the back of her mind – and were instantly shut out when Hollace opened a new report on her tablet. 

“What in the…”

At first, she didn’t know what she was reading or how it had anything to do with Maren Whitlock. The article concerned a man named Chet Hightower, whom Hollace had never heard of, but had (allegedly) leapt from a tall building to his death shortly after Whitlock had become a Senator. Chet Hightower had been the head of Maren Whitlock’s security detail.

“Oh, shiiiiiiiiiit, no! No way!”

Hollace shut off her tablet and threw it onto the bed. Someone who would have known of Whitlock’s private meetings, secret dealings, professional vulnerabilities, her darkest secrets – his life snuffed out, allegedly by suicide. 

Gazing across her tiny studio apartment at Martin’s TV, Hollace caught the tail end of a campaign ad promoting Maren Whitlock for president of the United Empyreal Federation – ‘A True Winner!’ 

A small sigh of resignation escaped from Hollace as she slowly shook her head. “I’m afraid you were right, Webby…foundations of the world.”

Hollace hopped down from the countertop and got dressed. Now coffee was calling her name.

“Don’t worry, coffee. I’m coming.”  

_________________________

“Who is she?” Vae asked. “What happened to her?”

From across the conference room table, Andar raised a weak expression to the Captain and XO. “They took an arm and a leg from everyone, Vae. The cybernetic limbs were locked down once an alarm was tripped.”

Vae could see he was still reeling from the effects of his most recent injection, so she didn’t want to overwhelm him with every one of the ten-thousand questions she had. 

Before she could choose which one to ask, Andar continued, “We unlocked the limbs, but it took time. Too much time. We got the prisoners below ground, away from the blast, but…”

Vae watched his shoulders rise and fall with great effort, but not from the gastrophagy treatment. She could tell this was different. 

“We never got the chance to free the prisoners at the third refinery,” he said with his head down. “I am sorry, Vae. We tried, but…”

Vae squeezed her hands together until the knuckles ached, a feeble attempt to contain the pressure she felt building in the room. “You blew three refineries, correct?”

Andar’s head bobbed in silent affirmation. 

The air got sucked out of the room so quickly, Vae pushed herself up to stand and drew the deepest breath she could manage while pacing around the room. 

An entire refinery of prisoners – a hundred or more, maybe two-hundred – instantly eradicated. The effort to minimize casualties had resulted in a war crime of a greater magnitude than Vae could comprehend. 

Ksenija, sitting beside Vae, did not visibly react to the news.

Vae staggered to a seat at the end of the table and slumped into it, her face falling into her hands. Every question she had been dying to ask – who was the girl, how did she get on the shuttle, what happened next – vacated her thoughts as if sucked into a black hole. 

The bittersweet taste of a hard-won victory soured in an instant. All that effort, wasted on a result for a couple hundred prisoners that was worse than anything the Federation had ever done to them. Limbs could be replaced, slaves could be freed, but a life taken could never be repaid. Vae’s attempt at playing liberator of the galaxy suddenly felt childish. 

More than ever, she wanted to go home.

If only to break the silence, Vae spoke with hands still covering her face. “What do we do with her?” She pulled wet palms away from wet eyes. “How do we explain this to CMC?”

“We don’t,” Ksenija said. She had not reacted to any of the news from Andar, a firm pillar since the moment she walked into the room and took her seat. “Easiest thing would be to throw her out the airlock and not have to worry about it.”

“We are not doing that,” Vae said with a firmness that was seldom challenged. 

Andar cleared his throat, breathing easier than before. “We will have to interrogate her, find out what she knows. Given the circumstances of her imprisonment, the loss of her limbs…I believe a gentle approach would serve us best.”

Without saying another word, Ksenija stood up from her chair, pushed it in, turned, and walked out of the room. 

Vae turned a silent look to Andar, who met it without words. 

Neither of them had slept since Liber, nor eaten. They wore the same sweat-stained uniforms. Physically and mentally, Vae felt depleted. She wanted to go to her quarters and rest, but her arms and legs felt weighed down, chained to the reality of what she had done, and role she had played in a catastrophic success. 

She almost crawled on top of the table and slept right then and there when Andar, with some effort, pushed himself to stand. “We should not wait too long,” he said. “They will expect a report by the time we return to PDR space. I will work on what to tell the Central Military Command while you interrog–”

“No,” Vae said. “We have to rest. We have to eat. We have to clear our heads.” She rose to her feet and exhaled deeply. “Razan will look over the prisoner, make sure she is not otherwise harmed. She’ll be cleaned up, given fresh clothes, and then I will speak with her. In the meantime, I am going to sleep.”

She waited until Andar gave a nod of agreement, and then made her way to her quarters.

After two hours of tossing and turning, Vae finally got out of bed. She chugged an entire bottle of cold sparkling water and washed her face under the kitchenette sink.

Leaning heavily on her palms, she closed her eyes. 

A mission that seemed destined for failure before it ever began – but succeeded. How could the CMC see that as anything but celebratory? Throw a captain from Vinsk and an old junker battleship into the heart of enemy territory, and they actually come back?

Medals would be given for the intentional killing of more than a hundred slave laborers. A noxious thought.  

She opened her eyes and dried her face with a towel. On her way back to bed, she found herself standing between the bed and the small desk beside it. 

Vae pulled out the chair and sat at the desk, and turned on her tablet. 

The initial plan was to save addressing the ship’s command log until after she gave her mind some rest, gathered the thoughts in order, and remembered all the facts about what went down at Liber. But the need to do so at once stuck in her like a thorn. 

Recalling as much as she could, Vae noted that for every command decision, both on the ship and for the landing team, ultimate responsibility should fall on her and her alone. 

Leaning back in her seat, her head tilted back, her eyes closed once more. A captain whose efforts culminated in an immense and avoidable tragedy had no business being where Vae Rova sat. In the captain’s quarters, on a Starlancer, leading missions. Fighting in the war.

Opening the tablet’s subspace comms application, Vae put in her officer’s passkey and began a new letter to her father:

Daddy

I want to come home

The cursor blinked non-stop at the end of the final word. All that was left to do was to press SEND.

She stared until the words became a blur as her eyes welled heavily with tears, the screen an abstract form that spiraled the text into incomprehensibility.

A failure should not receive accolades. A murderous, ignorant failure who never should have left Vinsk. It would be a farce, a slap in the face of everything she left her homeworld to accomplish. A stain on the memory of every life lost because of her inability to command.

Vae’s finger hovered above the holographic SEND key.

Her hand withdrew to wipe her eyes. She muttered a wrenching “Fuck.”

When she brought her finger back to the glowing blue keys, she held it against DELETE until the six tiny words disappeared. 

Everything was fucked, and if it was her fault, she had the responsibility to stay and fix it, to the best of her ability. To leave would be to provide the slap herself.

Vae shut down the tablet and curled back in bed, wrapping herself in a too-small blanket printed with turtles – one of the few mementos she brought with her from home – and held it close around her, bathed in the warm orange glow of subspace.  

_________________________

Sayre was on page 317 of the Federation astrogation manual for operating a Wraith Reiter when the call from the surface of Thalassar reached the Vindicator’s bridge.

“High value prisoner secured on the surface, Captain,” Rhoda Laydon relayed from the communications console.

Slowly, Sayre began to close the manual, hesitating as if she might have to pick it back up again to pass the time.

Captain Shipley marched to the comms station. “High value? Who is it?”

Rhoda listened to the voice in her earpiece carefully. “They say it’s a member of the Politburo…Sorenna Tal?”

When Vice Admiral Scothern shouldered his way past Shipley to face Rhoda, Sayre closed the manual fully and put it away, a jolt of adrenaline cutting through her boredom. She wouldn’t need to idly pass time for a while.

“What’s going on?” Scothern demanded. “We have a member of the Politburo in custody?”

“Yes, sir,” Rhoda said. “It’s confirmed.”

Scothern slapped Shipley on the shoulder harder than a friend would have. “This is our lucky day, Mase! Tell blondie to bring the ship around, put us in a better position to dispatch a shuttle and receive the prisoner.”

Sayre turned her seat around to face the controls directly, adjusting her posture, shifting her weight. Time to prove she belonged in that chair. 

She glanced toward Shipley in anticipation of the order, but his back was to her as he argued with Scothern.

“I beg your pardon, Vice Admiral, but we are not equipped to take on a high value prisoner.”

“I beg your pardon, Captain," Scothern spat. “But this woman could be the best bargaining chip we are likely to find. Move the ship around.”

Shipley launched into another volley of defense, still ignoring Sayre. She wanted to listen to the Vice Admiral and plot the coordinates, but the order had to come from the ship’s Captain. 

Instead, she prepared the sequence on the console, not initiating any movement, only seeing where optimal positioning would put them to receive a prisoner from the location of the Congressional Building. 

The data proved everyone wrong. 

Optimal positioning to receive a transport shuttle from the cosmodrome nearest the prisoner’s location would leave the Vindicator – the flagship of the 11th fleet – in a vulnerable state should PDR reinforcements arrive. 

If Shipley wasn’t too busy measuring dicks, he might have figured that out.

From between the two arguing men, Rhoda weaved a silent, knowing glance at Sayre, as if to say: this is what we signed up for.

Sayre rose to her feet, the form of Vice Admiral Roland Scothern blocking the view of Rhoda. “We can’t move the ship,” she said behind the overlapping debate.

Neither man heard her. 

Raising her voice above the din, Sayre shouted, “We can’t move the ship!”

The commotion halted as if someone had pressed PAUSE, which Sayre had not anticipated. Both of the senior officers locked in on her. Heat rose to her cheeks as she fought the urge to avert her eyes. 

With a terrifying calm, Shipley asked, “What did you say?”

Sayre’s eyes fell to the floor only for a second before she snapped her gaze back to the captain. “W–We risk compromising the integrity of the formation…our position would leave us unprotected if P–P–PDR arrives – if enemy ships arrive. Sir.”

Scothern peeled away from the comms station to approach the astrogator’s console with slow, heavy bootfalls. “Leave us unprotected?”

Sayre nodded in rapid, anxious succession. 

Scothern was standing directly before her now, his large hands leaving sweat stains atop the console. “That is why we require the prisoner.” His tone was almost mockingly placating, as if he needed a child to comprehend. “High value. Politburo. When she is on board, no enemy ships will fire on us.”

“How the fuck is the PDR going to know that?” Shipley yelled. “You want to hang her out the window? They’ll have fusion missiles bearing down on us the second they warp out of subspace – we’ll never get a comms line open before then!”

Scothern turned back to Shipley with the grace of a gas giant. “The longer we delay, the more time we give the PDR to figure out how to get their asses in gear.” He orbited back to Sayre. “Move the ship, blondie. Think you can handle that?”

Sayre froze. She couldn’t even gag on Scothern’s sour breath, so close that she felt its heat.

“I said move the fucking ship–”

“I can’t, sir,” she choked out. “Captain Shipley is my direct superior, sir. The chain of command requires that I receive my orders from him.” She almost forgot to add another “Sir.”

With agonizing slowness, Scothern’s expression twisted into a wicked form somewhere in the dark spaces between a smile and a devilish smirk. His eyes rolled over the front of her body, caressing the long curves of her chest squeezed behind a tight uniform, falling to her hips and crawling back up again.

He finished, nodding, as he looked directly into her azure eyes. “Alright.” The single word, delivered like a forfeit to an opponent of lesser skill but greater luck. “I had a feeling you’d be…pesky. Admiral’s daughter…” He leaned even closer without lowering his voice. “If it wasn’t for your father, I’d have you court-martialed.”

Scothern returned to where Shipley stood, his steps thundering in the silence.

“Keep that one on a short leash – Captain.”

In the precious moment of stillness that followed, Sayre crumpled into her seat, every atom in her body trembling. She squeezed her hands against her knees to keep her own legs from rattling against the panels beneath her boots. 

“Apprentice Faraway…”

Her gaze shot up to Shipley, terrified of what would happen next, but equally shocked that he used the correct pronunciation of her surname – if only as a show of greater professionalism over Scothern.

Shipley did not advance. He spoke from beside the navigation console with a collected resonance for all to hear. “Move the ship.”

Sayre stared at the Captain, not realizing her jaw hung open in a frozen gape.

He nodded slowly and deliberately to confirm his order, refusing to repeat himself. 

Sayre couldn’t believe that her hands were moving over the console to initiate the command, barely able to contain her burning, swelling rage.

You fuck… You absolute fuck…

She punched in the final initiation sequence and the Head of Operations took over from there. Refusing to meet Rhoda’s look that she knew would be waiting for her, Sayre turned to Shipley sitting in the Captain’s seat. 

Judging by the smirk he leveled at Scothern, the dick measuring contest was over. 

Sayre lost.  

_________________________

Vae tugged at her clean uniform jacket and straightened the red star insignia on her chest. The wear on the elbows was of no concern, her mind elsewhere.

She’d ordered the prisoner transferred to a small meeting room nearest the brig, hoping it would feel less like an interrogation to the escaped slave from Liber, and more like a conversation.

Security demanded the girl’s robotic limbs be removed, for safety reasons, but Vae insisted otherwise, arguing that to take off her arm and leg would be a violation of her bodily autonomy. But both Andar and the head of security persisted, stating they could not allow the ship’s captain in the room alone with a stranger whose prosthetics could be used as weapons, and Vae insisted on seeing the girl alone, without a security detail looming in the shadows. 

As much as Vae despised the idea of dismembering the poor girl, the argument was persuasive. They had no idea who this prisoner was, or her intentions. A compromise was made – the girl would have to remove only her arm before meeting with the captain. Vae could see the flicker of humanity behind Andar’s pragmatic facade when she said, “It’s important that she feels like a person, not a thing.”

Vae brushed her hair aside with her fingertips, drew a steeling breath, and entered the meeting room where the prisoner waited.

The door whooshed shut behind Vae and cast the room into silence.

Sitting hunched forward with her chin on her one hand, the blonde girl, who couldn’t be any older than twenty, did not react to Vae’s entrance. Her hair was pulled up in a messy bun, one grey sleeve of her clean t-shirt hung empty. 

Vae realized just then that this was the first time she had laid eyes on the prisoner in person and not on a surveillance hologram. 

The sight of the one-armed prisoner had Vae’s gut twisting. How could anyone do this to another human being? Tear them limb from limb and force them into servitude. How many thousands more suffered the same fate? Could it be tens of thousands?

Looking at the scrawny, frail form hunched in the seat before her, Vae could find none of the goodness she sought in war. 

Quietly, Vae took a seat across from the prisoner, who still did not acknowledge her. 

After a moment of collecting her thoughts, Vae said, “My name is Vae Rova. I am the captain of the Chrysalis.” Her smoky voice was low, dry. “I would like to welcome you aboard, and promise that no harm will come to you here.”

The echo of her own words was the only reply. 

“And I apologize for the removal of your arm,” she continued. “It will be returned to you immediately after our conversation. Security would not let us meet otherwise, and I wanted to sit down with you, person to person, and hear your story.”

No reaction from the prisoner.

“Do you like tea?” Vae asked.

A long moment stretched out between them before the girl’s shoulder shrugged almost imperceptibly. 

“White?”

Another tiny shrug.

Vae spoke into her comms, “Two mugs of white tea.” To the girl, she said, “Honey, sugar…?”

The girl shook her head slightly. 

After the call was complete, Vae studied the silent figure, wondering what could have been going through her mind, wondering how to reach through the trauma and mistrust, and find the human part of her that was lost behind the Federation’s cruelty.

“What should I call you?” Vae asked. 

The girl shrugged again. Vae leaned forward as if anticipating – or trying to coax – a reply. 

Without removing her chin from her hand, the girl said softly, “I don’t care.” There was a slight rasp to her words, like vocal chords stressed from always having to yell over factory machinery. 

“Well, I do,” Vae said. 

For the first time, the girl lifted her gaze to look Vae in the eyes. “Why?” The single word came laced with cynicism.

Vae sat in quiet contemplation for a moment before responding. “People have the tendency to look at the war only in terms of loss. I prefer to see what is being saved. The reason we’re fighting–”

“What did you lose?” The girl dropped her arm to the table, punctuating the statement. Before Vae could gather her thoughts, the girl continued, “You didn’t go to Liber to save anyone.”

Vae readied the argument that, in the long run…but she knew it wasn’t the right response. Rationality looked good in the abstract, less so when sitting before at a victim of mutilation and enslavement, and telling her she was wrong.

“I got myself out of there because you weren’t going to help me,” the girl said. “That’s not why you were there.”

With a nod of timid reluctance, Vae said, “You’re right. We were there to destroy the processing facilities to hamper the Federation’s war effort.” 

“What did you think would happen then? A thousand slaves with no work to do, what do you think happens next? They’re going to keep us alive, keep feeding us, for what?” The blonde girl scoffed. “You killed every slave on Liber.”

The door opened and a security officer set two mugs of white tea on the table, and then left. 

Vae stared at her hands, folded atop the table. She hadn’t even noticed the tea arrived as she wrestled with the knowledge that their mission, in spite of every precaution to reduce casualties, had condemned every prisoner left behind, freed or not, to an early death.

The girl was right – they killed every slave laborer on Liber. Blowing the third refinery only killed some quicker. 

War was a rigged game. 

Vae, at a loss for argument, could only mutter a weak “You’re right.”

Neither touched their steaming mug of white tea as they faced what appeared to be a stalemate. 

If for no reason other than to lift the heavy weight of the unspoken words pressing down on her chest, Vae said, without any preparation, “I don’t know what I’m doing here, in this war. I just…I want to…end this. The whole thing. I don’t want – I don’t even know if it’s possible to do that without creating more harm than what’s already being done. It’s just so fucked up, and I…I have no idea how to fix it. Like…I can’t…I can’t believe just keeping things the way they are is the best for everyone, if that means so many people have to suffer, that so many more people will be hurt if we try to change anything. I…I want people to…be able to go home.”

Vae ran her hands from her forehead over the top of her violet hair. All she wanted was to cocoon herself in the blankets of her bed and torment the girl no longer – a girl who was technically still a prisoner, only under a different ward. 

She began to stand when the girl said, “Wait.”

Halfway between sitting and standing, Vae held her gaze on the girl, whose expression appeared to have softened, if only as subtly as the shrugs of her shoulders. 

“You wanted to hear my story?”

Vae lowered herself down into her chair. “I would like that very much.”

“It’s not a long story.” The girl reached her arm for the tea, pulled the mug close, and sipped. She set it aside. “I grew up on Egeria. It’s a wealthy planet with a lot of poor people. My family didn’t share in the wealth, so I had to sometimes steal what we needed. I started to make money after school working as a fabricator for Praetorian class warships. By then, my parents, my brother, and my sister had all died in the war.”  

Vae only blinked, not moving otherwise. Even her breathing was shallow so as not to disturb the moment.

The girl went on, “They outsourced the job to Sarius Major and the plant was shut down. This happened on Egeria, Usona, Mennarone, all the rich planets. I tried getting work in manufacturing or engineering – I was always good with machines. But there was none, and I had no money to relocate. I lost my apartment, they picked me up for being homeless, and shipped me off to Liber. Apparently, there was plenty of work to be done, they just wouldn't pay anyone for it. On Liber, they take an arm so you can’t fight back, and a leg so you can’t run away. When you’re there, you don’t leave. Ever.”

Chancing a gentle interjection, Vae said, “So, you’re the first.”

“I suppose so.” She seemed unaffected by the significance of her escape. “You work 18-hours, every day. No breaks. One meal a day. I didn’t like that, so I started tinkering with my arm – the robotic one. I said I was good with machines. They locked us down when we slept. I had to work one-handed in the dark, so it took a long time, but I eventually overrode the inhibitors. I had to pretend they still had control over it. But at night, I could use both hands to work on my leg. That didn’t take as long.”

“How long?”

The girl paused. “What year is it?”

Vae sat back, pulling the uniform jacket away from her chest, suddenly feeling like she was breathing the heat and dust of Liber. Shattered by the knowledge that this poor girl was likely building warships as a teenager, Vae had no words. 

At what age did they imprison her? Vae, at 36, had lived nearly twice the life, but had experienced not even a measurable fraction of the suffering.  

“I’m so sorry they did this to you.” Vae’s words came out barely above a whisper. 

“Emry,” the girl said. “My name is Emry.”  

_________________________

The universe blinked white, and for a moment, the pain went away.

But when it returned, Sorenna could feel the throbbing ache on the inside of her skull, and her vision returned only partially, clouded by a lingering haze.

Another gloved fist struck her eye, then her temple, nearly sending her toppling to the floor.

When she could shake the cobwebs away, she brushed her hair aside to clear the one eye she could see from, and said to the man who had not yet identified himself, “What is it that you want?” 

The next slug caught her cheek flush – a sharp, stabbing pain confirmed her orbital bone had shattered.

With a gasp, Sorenna fell forward on the table, both hands covering her face. Her body suddenly felt hot. 

“Visser, stop.”

“What?”

“You keep hitting her like that and she’ll tell you she built the ziggurats on Gordonia.”

Lost in a world of darkness and agony, the voices of her captors seemed distant, almost hollow. 

Another wrenching pain struck her ribs, and then she met the floor with equal force. 

“I said stop – ”

“What for? She is our prisoner.”

“You can’t torture information out of her!”

Sorenna coughed blood into her palms, her face electric with excruciating pangs. She could feel the fragments of bone moving with every jolting cough.

What troubled her the most was that Visser, apparently the name of the man who was striking her, had not even asked her any questions.

“The purpose of torture is not to extract information,” Visser said in a tone that reminded Sorenna of a university professor mid lecture. “It’s so they know what will happen if they don’t comply. Examples work better than threats.”

Sorenna felt herself flying through space, colliding with what she guessed was the table, falling into the cold metal chair she had been thrown from.

“You really want to give her to the Vice Admiral looking like this?” the second, unnamed accomplice asked. 

Visser snorted. “Fuck the admiral.”

In blinking her good eye to regain some sense of orientation, it clicked why they had dragged her from the Assembly Hall where all those found in the building had been taken – so they wouldn’t bear witness to the brutality, only the aftermath.

She had expected as much.

Thus far, aside from getting her face broken, everything had been going according to Sorenna’s plan.

The only variable left was the countdown she had instructed the sole remaining maintenance tech to start before she gave herself up to the Fed. Soon, Visser and his partner would drag her back into the Assembly Hall to re-join the maintenance tech and the others left behind in the blizzard of Thalassar. 

The snow continued to fall, along with the temperature. She knew what they were in for, but Visser and his crew had no idea.

All in due time. Until then, she could take a few more hits.

_________________________

Ksenija Levik did not make much use of the fitness center on the Chrysalis. Her role as XO kept her active enough that her off-hours were filled with much needed mental and physical rest.

But on this day, she needed to hit something.

Hard.

The thought of keeping a fucking Fed prisoner on board – probably a spy – instead of feeding her to deep space made Ksenija want to puke. Being unable to do anything to purge the wretched filth from their Starlancer had her shoulders shivering with a rage that demanded release. Violent release.

She stepped into the fitness center where only two others were working out – a mechanic lifting weights and someone who worked in the mess hall riding a recumbent bike while reading a tablet.

Wearing a grey athletic tanktop and red sweats, Ksenija stood before a hanging heavy bag. She did not worry about putting on gloves or even taping her fists; she simply balled her hands tightly, reeled one arm back, and –

THWAK!

The intensity of the sharp sound drew the attention of the two others, but they quickly thought better than to stare upon realizing it was the Executive Officer from Kennisyve who had delivered the hard strike.

A volley of blows hit the bag with jackhammer force, one after another, bare knuckles slapping leather. Ksenija’s shoulders jolted from each impact, and then she threw more. Over and over and over again, punishing blows coming with unrelenting fury. 

One for the filthy spy that Vae wouldn’t let her dispose of. 

One for each of the Strix pilots lost in Liber space. 

One for every year that passed since she lost her own homeworld – ten crushing slugs in a row. 

One for every family member she had and all the friends she’d ever known, all taken from her.  

For her neighbors on Kennisyve who were eradicated in cold blood.

For the continent that no longer existed.

For the smoldering crater that marred a once beautiful but now toxic world. 

One for every tear that she refused to cry.

The flurry of attack only stopped when Ksenija’s arms grew so tired that she had to hold onto the bag for support, perspiration saturating her hair. The two others had disappeared at some point during the outburst of rage, leaving her alone, a feral form sucking ragged gulps of dry air, gripping the heavy bag, sweat dripping from her face and aching arms pat-pat-pattering against the floor, bare knuckles blistered open and throbbing. 

But the pain felt good. 

Any sensation that could replace the searing contempt she felt for the Fed, any feeling that could overpower the wrath she craved to unleash on those who took everything from her – for her own sake, for her own sanity, Ksenija welcomed. 

Pushing herself off the bag with a deep and satisfying lungful of air, Ksenija shrugged some life back into her exhausted shoulders, raised her swelling fists, and struck the bag again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

And again and again and again, every strike like a scream echoing in the silence of the empty gym, as droplets of red fell into the puddles of perspiration.

To defeat those who had stripped her life of everything she had, she would give her blood, she would give her sweat – but she would not give the Federation her tears. 

If Ksenija Levik had any say, they would be the ones who mourned.

_________________________

Every minute that passed beyond the meeting’s scheduled starting time had Esmeray’s pulse quickening.

Spinning the wedding ring on her finger absently, she tore her eyes away from the clock, finding her reflection in the glossy grey marble in the countertop before her, tumbling blonde waves pouring all around her. 

Where are you, Valeric?

She’d heard a rumor that the Starlancer sent through the core had actually – miraculously – returned. If that was the case, the entire battlespace of the war had been expanded beyond measure, opening Federation space to attack from anywhere at any time.

She could almost taste victory. 

But her appetite dwindled the longer the General Secretary delayed. Something wasn’t right. They should be celebrating, not wondering what news could be holding up the start of the Politburo meeting. 

Esmeray caught herself spinning the wedding ring and stopped, setting her hands on the desk calmly. Her foot was tapping against the floor, and she stopped that, too. 

Through a clutch of bodies standing in wait, Esmeray found Evzen Savek, gathered with his supporters – a cohort that appeared to have grown since their last session. 

What they were discussing, she could only guess. The war hawks would certainly use a successful trans-core mission to bolster support for their faction. It was only a matter of time before more attacks would be launched.

She tried not to think of that. Her thoughts went to Sorenna, but any delay in the meeting that involved her status would surely not be positive. Was she dead?

Esmeray clutched her heart. She couldn’t take the uncertainty, the mounting fear.

She pushed herself up on weak legs – she was getting too old for war – and found Casimir Lovren, representative from Tveren. 

“Esmeray…you look unwell.”

“I am,” she said with her eyes cast down to her blonde waves falling nearly to her grey shoes. “Have you heard anything?”

He shrugged under his grey uniform jacket. “All I know is that Lendrov is held up. Do you need anything?”

She pulled him aside so they were far enough out of earshot from the few dozen others, both present and in hologram form, but not far enough into the corner of the Politburo chambers that it appeared suspicious. 

“Casimir, you have been a quiet but strong proponent of Lendrov Thought for as long as we have known each other.”

His eyes narrowed, his posture stiffening. 

Placing her hands on his shoulders with a motherly touch, she said, “I know, Tveren does not always appreciate being a vocal presence in the chambers, but, Casimir, I am asking for your help this one time. Without Sorenna here…” She paused, exhaling heavily. “I can’t take on Savek’s faction alone.”

It was Casimir’s turn to exhale heavily, his head turning to look away out of nervous reflex. “Esmeray –”

“We need to raise reasonable voices.” Her grip tightened ever so slightly, hoping to drive home the importance of her words. 

“You know I can promise a vote for –”

“By then, it’s too late,” Esmeray said. “They elected you, Casimir, not your vote. Everything you’ve done, with Valeric, forging the path of Lendrov Thought, helping to relocate Kennisyvans, the terraforming of Enmessara…no one questions your dedication to protecting the PDR.”

Casimir lowered his gaze to the floor. Esmeray placed a warm hand over the red star insignia pinned to his chest, and he met her pleading expression. 

“If you speak, they will listen.” She held her soft look until she saw the glimmer of recognition in his eyes. “Help me ensure we meet the next phase in the war with the necessary caution it requires. We have a real shot at winning – perhaps our only real shot. And, Casimir…my goodness, I want it to be real.”

Casimir straightened, breathing with a newfound dedication. “I will push as hard as I can without disturbing the waters too much. If this can get as bad as you say, then I will do that for you, Esmeray.”

Pressing her hand gently against his insignia, she said, “For the people.”

He nodded. “For the people.”

Esmeray’s smile could have lit up deep space. She took his hand and squeezed it in her thin fingers. “Thank y–”

The chamber doors opening cut her off. She spun, heart aflutter as Valeric Lendr…

No, it was one of his aides, a young man whose name she should have known, his face unreadably stolid. 

“There will be no meeting today.”

That was all he said before leaving the chamber in silence.  

_________________________

Hollace lifted the empty takeout coffee cup, her sixth of the day, and set it back down with a hollow thunk after sucking the last droplet of liquid from inside. She hoped the sound did not disturb the other guests silently engulfed in their own private projects.

There was something about the stillness of the library intermingled with the subdued sounds of the street, magnifying with each coming and going whenever the doors opened, that made time feel sped-up. 

The sun had already begun to lower behind the peaks of downtown Usona City’s skyscrapers, the egg and bacon sandwich on bagel bread from the cafe across the street a long forgotten memory now that her stomach grumbled again.

It couldn’t possibly be dinner time already. It was only – Hollace winced when she saw the hour on the screen of her cell comms. 

Simultaneously, it had felt as if she made tremendous progress digging into the secrets of Maren Whitlock’s unpublished life while also feeling like she needed twenty more hours in the day to even begin to start piecing everything together: 

An attorney for Whitlock who died in a one-vehicle accident.

The Chair of the National Oncological Healthcare Advisory Committee who died when his shuttle burned up in the atmosphere – a doctor who had treated Whitlock’s father. 

A woman named Roberta Waverly, whoever the fuck that was, who died from a beamshot to the back of the head, ruled a suicide. She was pregnant at the time.

Somehow, an accountant and subcontractor for GDI was involved…

“Shit…”

The word escaped before she had the chance to hold it back. Other library guests turned their disapproval toward her.

To herself, she said with quiet embarrassment, “Shit.”

Every time Hollace thought she was getting close to assembling the fragments into something resembling a cohesive whole, she would uncover a new plot thread that recontextualized the entire story. It began to feel like pouring coffee into a cup with no bottom.

If Whitlock was so deep into corruption and hellbent on becoming the next president, Hollace contemplated, and there was truth to any of what she had devoured in the past three days, there was almost no way that Whitlock wouldn’t win.  

What would she not do to claim the post? If murder was not out of the question, and if covering up those murders had become commonplace, surely overriding the will of voters was a bridge she would certainly cross, making a mockery of their democracy.

A demockery.

Hollace snorted a stifled little laugh at the absurdity of the word. 

But for what?

Hollace couldn’t say. Power? Too simple. And apparently, she already had power, if she could get away with the crimes Hollace was accusing her of.

Maybe she wanted to turn the Federation into a dictatorship, like the PDR, where one person held ultimate authority over the nation, who could command the people like automatons, to give their lives for some mythical cause greater than their own individual lives. If she couldn’t decide how to live, what was there to live for?

A shudder wracked Hollace’s shoulders and shivered down her back at the notion of losing her freedom. 

She was certain she couldn’t deal with being conscripted to join the war. She’d never been offworld, let alone in combat. The Fed wouldn’t want her fighting their battles; the PDR would win, for sure. 

Her train of thought was derailed by the sound of conversation spoken near the entrance aloud.

She glanced about, sure she was still in the library, where audible conversation was frowned upon. But what she saw was the others sitting nearby stand up and go to join the small gathering near the doors. 

Motivated by sheer curiosity and an intrusive dread, Hollace was on her feet and approaching the doors where everyone else was held captivated by a sight beyond the glass…

Her cell comms buzzed with an alert, but she ignored it.

When she got near the glass, dozens outside ran by, some yelling, and the fear in her chest deepened.

Hollace nearly jumped out of her skin when a young man on the other side of the glass slammed his palms into it, stared directly at her with the widest eyes she’d ever seen, and cried, “He’d dead! The fucker dropped dead!”

And the stranger was gone, leaving Hollace submerged in uncertainty with a heart racing so fast that she couldn’t stop her hands from shaking.

One by one, the cell comms of everyone around her buzzed with the same alert she’d ignored on her own. Slowly, she forced trembling fingers to lift her cell comms to her face to read the emergency alert:

DICTATOR DOWN – VALERIC LENDROV DEAD

_________________________

Evzen Savek had just finished touching base with his aide, Pyr Vodin, when he found out the rumors were true.

Walking out of the Politburo at sunset, the alert came through a private channel first, reserved for the Politburo, Council of Ministers, Central Military Command, Admiral of the Armada, and a select few others.

The Planetary Democratic Republic’s General Secretary of 30 years was gone, done in not through a grand battle nor a noble defense of the motherland, but at the cold and impersonal hands of a hemorrhagic stroke.

Killed from within, not from without. 

Oh, how that must have angered the Federation.

Pyr came sprinting outside, and Savek turned at the sound of his hasty footfalls. 

“I heard,” Savek said. 

Pyr stopped beside Savek, pausing to catch his breath. “Do you know what this means?”

Savek patted him on the shoulder. “It means we have work to do, if we are to save the PDR.”

“I’ll get started right away.” Pyr nodded eagerly and departed as quickly as he had arrived. 

Savek, turning toward the horizon, felt a renewed vigor. The end of one day portended the dawning of one anew, a fresh start, an erasure of all that came before.

The end of the war had just begun.