Vivid Stars Online

Linnea gently shook me awake sometime later. I wasn't entirely rested, but I still felt far better than I had after that last frantic shift.

"It's almost here," she said with a smile, shifting in for a hug and a kiss as I climbed out of bed.

"Thanks for waking me," I responded, happily returning her affection. We didn't have much time for just us during an expedition, so we both appreciated every stolen moment. "I'd better get out there."

Looking a little sad but understanding, Linnea only nodded and released me. I'd have to ensure we did something nice together once we returned. Assuming the results of this mission didn't trigger an immediate rescue mission.

That was another problem for which I still didn't have a good solution. Even if we got Elana's location, how would we pull something like that off? Linnea's condition would put her out of commission, and with my powers sealed, I'd be only a little better than an average human.

And that was assuming I didn't immediately expose myself to the corruption again upon returning to Earth. I hadn't returned since the event, but that was only delaying the inevitable.

At times, I still caught myself reaching out to use some power or another, though the habit was slowly fading. With luck, it would be gone by then; if not, I'd have to risk it.

All that was a future worry, however. I had more pressing matters to deal with.

I finished getting my armor on — a much faster task with a second person's assistance — and stepped out into the late afternoon light. It felt odd to have just woken up at such a time, but that was the risk you took when working weird hours.

The camp was quiet, particularly compared to the roaring engines just past our set of tents. The only people present were a pair of guards patrolling back and forth from the elevator.

It was a light defense, the lightest we'd risked since arriving, but I wanted everyone else at the frigate landing site. Even the base of the elevator only had four troops with strict instructions to pull out if it looked like they would be overwhelmed.

No matter how small the risk of an actual attack was, I was still insistent on every precaution we could take. The frigate was my single biggest asset but also my most significant liability.

Losing it would leave me unable to meet the crown levy I was required to provide, risking my title and even my lands. With the Duchess having specifically told me to make sure it was ready, that was more than just an idle threat.

I took a moment to check our com network to ensure nothing had been reported before moving on toward the landing site. To my relief, the plan was going smoothly.

The frigate itself hadn't arrived yet; instead, a single one of our four fighters had landed. With the significant risk of our communications network being breached, they would confirm in person that the landing site was safe before returning to the frigate.

It was a somewhat clumsy step that would have been unnecessary if I still had access to my Technokinesis, but it was still an important precaution. If the worst had happened and our camp had been taken over before they arrived, then we only risked losing a single fighter to an ambush.

That was still bad, but the lack of a returning pilot would at least alert the frigate if the worst happened.

Thankfully, none of that had turned out to be necessary, and I swiftly walked over and signaled the pilot myself. The fighter took off again a moment later, flying off to a barely visible spec in the distance.

"This is it," I called out to the surrounding troops. Everyone not critically injured or otherwise on guard was present and spread out around the pre-marked area. "Stay vigilant and ready for combat."

Following my own advice, I split my attention between my scanner and my surroundings. Minutes ticked by in quiet until the deafening sound of a landing capital ship arrived.

Despite the incredible distraction, I forced myself to focus outward in case of attack. It might have been overkill to put so much emphasis on the first few minutes, but if it was me, that was when I'd attack.

While Captain Hendricks insisted that waiting until our attention had waned made more military sense, I was thinking more from an acquisition standpoint. The only time you could be sure the ship would be here was right after it arrived.

Even if they had been listening to all our plans, they couldn't be sure we'd stick to them. The longer they waited, the greater the chance the ship would leave before they could attack. We'd even discussed doing just that if we spotted anything suspicious.

Thankfully, the landing itself turned out to be completely anticlimactic. Either the enemy didn't think like me, weren't ready, or weren't even coming. It was going to be a long twenty-four hours until the loading was complete.

Moments later, another squad of soldiers poured out of the side airlock, giving us almost twice as many people. That would allow us to keep shifts on guard, with the off-duty squad resting within the ship.

After Elana's refit, it had better facilities than the camp, and having theand our campm inside would make even the off-duty soldiers a second line of defense.

"Anything further out?" I asked, turning toward where Elana stood nearby. She had her eyes closed, no doubt focused on controlling the two drones she was using to scout.

"Nothing," she responded without opening her eyes. "As far as I can tell, there's nothing nearby. Even the beasts were all driven off by Linnea's earlier patrol."

"That's good to hear. Thanks," I sighed in relief. While there was still a long way to go, I felt safer with the ship secure on the ground. I'd have to make sure that didn't make us complacent.

Shortly after the soldiers, a dozen maintenance robots slowly trooped out of the ship. They were squat things, about four feet tall, each with multiple manipulator arms arrayed around their circular torsos.

Many of them were not usually equipped for heavy loading, but today, they all had at least two human-sized limbs. The modular design had been Elana's solution to our limited funding, allowing a smaller set of robots to cover more roles.

With Mira controlling them, they could perform the loading process with minimal oversight. While I was still somewhat concerned about giving her so many bodies to manipulate the real world with, I was more worried about the number of troops I'd have to put on loading otherwise.

Besides, she'd done nothing to make me doubt her sincerity since I'd freed her. Though without my powers, what would I really be able to do if she went rogue?

The intrusive thought was almost insidious in its implications and was just the last in a long set, each tempting me to remove the blocker. Everything had been so much easier with them that it was hard to let go.

But I was more than used to it now and was able to shake the thought off with little effort.

After the initial setup, things progressed smoothly. Having the autonomous robots doing the heavy lifting was so much easier that I was strongly considering leaving half of them behind when the ship left.

With most of the work on it complete — at least the work that wasn't pending materials — they'd be more useful here than anywhere else. They might be unsuited for combat, but just having them to drag fresh corpses out would be a godsend.

Can Mira still run them with the frigate gone? I idly mused. I'd never pried too much into what she was capable of as an AI. Could she split into multiple copies? Or run things from hundreds of miles away over the planet's network?

Given how paranoid the Arkathians were, I'd bet she was far more limited than one might initially assume. I'd have to enquire delicately. If she couldn't, we'd only keep as many as Elana could manage.

The first load of stinking corpses was swiftly loaded onto a pallet in the cargo hold, which was my cue to leave Linnea in charge of the defenses. We needed more fuel to keep our local generator running, and I wanted to get that done earlier in case the ship needed to leave in a hurry.

Typically, managing the fabricator was Elana's job, but she was still using her drones to scout. With that giving us a lighter workload for the first shift, I wasn't about to pull her away for something I could manage.

I'd seen her use the machine before, and I'd developed my technical skills enough to be confident I could work it without breaking anything.

The small sick bay on board wasn't exactly on the way to engineering, but I still checked in on my way. Both of the severely wounded soldiers had already been loaded, and the medics were busily checking them over with the ship's superior facilities.

Everything seemed to be in order, so I moved on without disturbing them.

Firing up the main engineering computer was simple, and I soon had the automated loading mechanisms in the hangar working. It would make loading the next batch even faster, but that wasn't the main reason I was using it.

The pallet was soon shifted into the cargo elevator that lifted directly up into engineering, and less than a minute later, it was being fed straight into the fabricator. Then, I just had the more complicated task of figuring out its blueprinting system.

Thankfully I didn't have to actually design anything — a far more complicated task requiring skills I lacked — I just had to find the right one of Elana's pre-saved settings. She had five just for fuel alone, and I was once again thankful that she'd proved so competent.

I certainly didn't have time to manage all that, and it was a role I would be leery of putting a stranger in. The chief engineer had more access to the ship's systems than anyone else; it would be the perfect job for someone looking to take over.

Eventually, I realized that the different fuel blueprints were for different grades of psionic energy in the material. If the inserted biomass was low in energy, then cores would need to be added to form viable fuel.

I needed to figure out how to put it in scanning mode to get the information and then how to read the results. More than an hour passed with me fiddling with the device — with many nervous checks of the com network — before I finally leaned back with a bemused grin.

The bad news was that none of the current blueprints would be suitable after all; the good news was the reason why. Every other time we'd made fuel, the basic beast flesh we were using needed additional core supplementation before the process became viable.

Each of them only differed in the quantity of cores that had to be added. This time, the spider corpses had so much energy that trying to convert them as-is would make the fuel so strong we risked overloading the reactor.

If I were interpreting the readings right, the spider corpses didn't even have flesh as we usually understood it. Instead, they were formed of a soft crystalline material that only mimicked living flesh.

Whatever process allowed that to work seemed to require monumental amounts of energy, enough that we'd have to remove the cores before we could use the bodies. It was a good problem to have, even if I'd likely need to wait for Elana to finish her shift.

Hopefully, convincing the machine to separate just the cores wouldn't be too difficult, but it was beyond my meager programming abilities. With my previous ability to essentially order programs to do what I wanted, I'd never had to develop those skills.

With a snort, I shook my head ruefully. So much for getting a head start on the fuel.

Still, it was interesting to see how it all worked. Perhaps I should add learning how to configure designs to my long list of…

A blaring alarm from the ship around me cut that thought off instantly. A glance down at my watch showed messages flashing up so fast it was difficult to read what any of them said.

Rather than trying to parse through all that, I asked my communications officer. "Mira status report! What's going on? Are we under attack?"

Her voice responded instantly, now rich and indistinguishable from a human woman's. "Negative Captain. I have received no alerts from our local troops; the alarm originates from fleet command and was routed to all space assets."

While initially analytical, Mira's tone swiftly shifted to concerned as she continued speaking. "It seems there has been an incident on one of the fleet's orbital assets. The messages are garbled, almost distorted, but unmistakably from a ship currently in orbit."

So it's just a coincidence? I wondered, almost unable to believe it. The alarm had triggered a massive adrenaline surge after being on edge since I'd woken up, and without a target, I was left feeling twitchy and unfocused.

But I was part of the planet's military — as insane as that was to consider — so it wasn't that unusual. I got plenty of messages through those channels, even if most of them had nothing to do with me.

"What kind of incident?" I asked wearily while simultaneously sending a high-alert message to Linnea. She both needed to know an attack wasn't immediately happening and that she should pay even closer attention.

"Unknown," Mira sounded annoyed as she responded. "It seems clear that something's interfering with both verbal and text communications. Wait… I just got a crystal clear message through."

"It's tagged as being from the Arkathian command frigate you located along with this one."

"Chances it's a fake message sent by whoever hacked the network?" I asked, unsure if we could trust anything at this point.

Mira paused momentarily, though I was unsure if she needed time to think or if it was a way to seem more human. "I believe it is genuine with an above 90% certainty."

"The message includes underlying Arkathian code that would be extremely difficult to fake. The only way I could see it being enemy action is…"

"If they've already taken that frigate," I finished, my mind whirling. What the hell was going on? "I think we have to assume it's real then; I can't imagine the navy letting that be taken easily."

"Very well," Mira responded. "The message states that a partial mutiny has occurred on one of the fleet's three assault frigates. Sections of the ship are under enemy control, and the drop pods are arming."

My mind flashed back to an earlier mission, where I'd been told that troops would be dropped on my location if things went south. That had never occurred due to enemy jamming; now, it seemed the same strategy would be used against me.

In all my planning, I'd been trying to determine if the enemy could get enough assets to this remote location to stage an attack. I'd never once considered they might drop them from orbit.

Just who were these people? How could they have penetrated the navy so far that they could pull something like this off?

It was almost overwhelming, but I forced myself to put those thoughts aside. "Please sound the alarm, Mira," I asked instead of sending my message. "Tell all units to prepare for orbital assault and have the pilot prepare for take off."

"Message sent, Captain. Unfortunately, the pilot reports that the engines, shielding, and main power are all shutting down. Given the lack of error outputs, the coincidental timing, and the significant defenses the Arkathians placed against remote hacking, we both believe this to be evidence of psionic activity."

Everything else had been deeply concerning, but this last blow had me seeing red.

I only knew of one psionic power that could interface with technology so easily, one that the Duchess — a far more knowledgeable individual — had said made it unique.

Someone was using the very power I'd discovered against me.

And there was nothing I could do to counteract it.