TNP Writer's Club

The soft tone of the wake-up timer sounded through the small apartment. The wake-up device activated, several small lights on the display coming on. Thirty seconds later, they went out, and Xam stirred as the electronics in the device completed their task of suppressing the melatonin coursing through his bloodstream.
He rolled onto his back and looked blearily at the ceiling for a few seconds before his arm implant sounded. Groaning, he looked at its small screen, informing him for the hundredth time of his meeting that morning. Hah. As if he could forget it.
He rolled out of bed. Today was going to be a long day. Better bring along some caffeine and norepinephrine pills, just in case it ran even longer. He brushed his teeth, showered, and put on his uniform--- the special one, for meetings and briefings like this.
Twenty minutes later, Xam exited his apartment. He always walked to work, even on the days when the pollution was so bad that sulfur crystallized around the edges of the sewer manholes. The corporate alliance that held sway on environmental and economic issues hated anything that interfered with their profits.
As he passed a side street, he heard the distinctive buzz-snap of a railgun. He dove back behind a building and peered out cautiously. A gunman was engaged in a furious battle with police. As he watched, a taser dart caught the gunman’s shoulder, and he slumped over. The policemen hauled the man into a hovercar, which drove away. Xam continued on his way. Third time this month, he thought, shaking his head.
He entered the Plaza, where a small crowd had gathered. Although the government disdained large gathering spaces, it had approved the building of this one for a certain purpose: public execution. They had another prisoner, he could see, and as he watched, the screen above the platform lit up with a rainbow emblem. Xam looked away in shame. He had never really understood why the Church insisted on the persecution of those who were not “normal”. Criminals and rebels, he could understand, but why kill innocent people just because they peacefully sought basic rights?
The jeers of the crowd told him that the execution had been carried out. Xam shuddered and continued his walk.

“Identification,” the gray-clad guard at the front door said in a bored tone. Xam pushed his cuff up to reveal his arm implant, which glowed with his name, rank, and clearance level.
“Xam Houston, agent lieutenant, clearance Stonewall?” the guard asked, glancing at it. “You’ll need to be code-checked.”
“Of course,” Xam said, who knew the routine. He stroked the screen of the implant, which brought up a barcode. Another guard with a scanner checked the code.
“You’re good, Lieutenant,” the guard drawled. “Go on in.”
Xam nodded at the guards and walked through the door.

The government meeting complex had been built in the style of an old mansion. The design was thousands of years old, and had been traced all the way back to a certain region on the third planet of the Sol system. Sol-3, although Ren-controlled at this point, was still the site of almost all early civilization, and most people accepted that it was the origin of life.
Xam walked down the main hallway that ran through the building. He checked his implant for the fifth time. Still ten minutes before the meeting started. He had already memorized the room number. There was the room on his left. In a snap decision, he decided to relieve himself before the meeting. After a quick bathroom trip, he returned to the room. Still seven minutes until the meeting began. The room door was open now. It hadn’t been before. Two guards were now flanking the doorway. He checked the room number again. It was the right room. He stepped forward to the guards, implant ready. “Xam Houston, Agent Lieutenant, clearance Stonewall,” he said confidently, not betraying a hint of his inner nervousness.
The guard scanned the barcode. “You’re cleared, Agent Lieutenant.”
He walked into the room. The seats had been marked for their intended occupants this meeting. Xam found his quickly and sat down. Three people were already seated already. He recognized one as Max Talhar, a fellow agent from Intelligence Services. Another he knew to be John Roan, Head of Intelligence Services. Xam exchanged curt nods with the two before turning to look at the third person. The identification marker proclaimed him to be George Ewell, Cyberintelligence Division.
Xam knew tangentially about cyberintelligence. He had gone through a few missions to glean ciphers for their systems. Supposedly they could use this information to crack into the codes used by foes, both inside and out. He had never really seen the point of it; infiltration could almost always grant more information than a cracked server or computer.
Ewell was a short man. Nothing about his appearance was unnecessary. He was dressed in his uniform, which was a bit too large for him. He held Xam’s gaze, not blinking until Xam turned away.
More people began to trickle into the room. Xam recognized General Iwar Groves, one of the top-level military commanders, and Robert Le, one of the propaganda ministers. Finally, the Lord Governor entered the room. A guard closed the door behind him. “This meeting,” the Lord Governor said, seating himself, “concerning the military wellbeing of the Xenophari Fief of Alam, has begun. Our first order of business is the rebellion on Tezas-3. We have word that the rebels have taken several major cities. General Groves, I believe you have information to give on this?”
Iwar Groves rose to his feet. “Yes, Lord Governor. I have brought with me a holomap with the current situation.”
“Display it,” the Lord Governor ordered.
“Yes, Lord Governor.” Groves ran a finger along his implant. The lights dimmed, and a set of projectors activated, displaying a map of Tezas-3 on the globe in the center of the table.
“Our forces are currently concentrated here,” said Groves as several pale dots appeared on the map. “Our forces have pressed inward in several areas. Major Roan’s spies” ---he nodded at Roan--- “are currently routing out underground cells in the other major cities. Our major concern at this point is preventing the rebellion from spreading off-planet.” He glanced at Robert Le.
“My information corps is currently doing its best to paint the rebels as people embracing all of the values that our people disdain and condemn,” Le said. “We have the full support of the Neobaptist Church in this. That gives us a massive advantage over the rebels when the common people are involved.”
“And what of the well-educated?” asked the Lord Governor.
“Fear keeps them in line for the moment.”
“Good. I will continue to operate under the assumption that the rebels continue to pose a minimal threat.
“This brings us to our other order of business,” said the Lord Governor, casting a look around the table. Most of the others looked down at the table rather than meet his gaze. “I am informed that the war with the socialist Ren colony of Lao goes badly.”
General Groves cleared his throat. “The Lao forces can request far more assistance from their confederates than we. I personally suspect that the nearby provinces of the Honhon confederacy are sending aid to them, but I have no way of confirming this.” He glanced at Roan.
Roan did not flinch. “I have brought along three of my agents for the purpose of explaining their tasks in the next phase of our plan. We have here today Agent Lieutenant Houston, Agent Captain Talhar, and Cyberintelligence Corporal Ewell. These three gentlemen are some of my finest men, and, along with their supervisors, I have, by your leave, given them roles in our next great plan.”
“What are their credentials?” asked Admiral Brag. Brag commanded the fleets of Alam in the war against Lao. Brag was not at the meeting in person, but his image was projected on a small screen.
“Lieutenant Houston has participated in four mid-level missions so far. He is one of our most promising recruits and has made a name for himself in the single year he has spent in the Services. Captain Talhar is a five-year veteran of the services and led the recent infiltration mission of the Tezas rebels. Corporal Ewell, although coming out of a family of … questionable loyalty, has proven his devotion to the wellbeing of the fief, cracking several codes used by the rebels.
Roan cleared his throat. “These three will be deployed into Lao. Lieutenant Houston will play the role of the traitor. He will demand audiences with the highest commands in the sector to detail our plans in full. At the beginning, these will be true, to gain their trust; they’d be fools to unconditionally believe a former agent. Once they begin to see some limited success, they will place more trust upon him. He will then give false accounts of our long-term attempts. Finally he will lead their forces into a trap.
“Captain Talhar, meanwhile, will disappear into the underground of society there. He will gather the lowest of the low in a revolutionary movement. Once he is ready, he will signal Agent Houston. As the forces of Lao are crushed in the jaws of our trap, Captain Talhar will launch an attack on the Lao command center, located on the planet Ruhan Prime. The entirety of Lao will fall swiftly after.
“Corporal Ewell’s role will be to ensure that the agents can communicate with one another, and with home base.”
There was silence for a while as everyone tried to process this information. Finally Xam said, “Sir, pardon me, but when will we leave for this assignment?”
“Right now,” said Roan. “You’ll be given two standard hours to inform any relatives, landlords, etc. that you’re leaving. You may not divulge any information of your mission to these people. You will meet another agent in four standard hours’ time”---he gestured to the chronometer--- “at the primary spaceport, Terminal A. You will receive your travel information there. Mission details will be available on your implants when you arrive. Gentlemen, at the end of the day you will be sitting in Ruhan!”

After walking back to his apartment and telling the apartment manager that he would be gone for a while (“Lick those commies good!” the landlord had said), Xam took his hoverbike to the spaceport. Port wasn’t really the right word for it, he thought, watching the five massive space elevators ferry people up into orbit from the massive complex below. He saw the massive sign for Terminal A, parked his hoverbike in the massive underground lot, and took the escalator up into the massive terminal. He scanned the area and saw almost immediately his man: an agent in full Intelligence Services uniform lounged near the security checks. Another glance and he spotted George Ewell moving purposefully through the crowd, a duffel bag slung over his shoulder. Xam hauled his suitcase over to the two men.
“Xam Houston?” the agent asked?
“Yes,” replied Xam.
“You’ll have your ID checked when we go through the lines. As you’re an agent of the fief you don’t need to go through the standard checks.”
“Of course. When will we head through security?”
“When Captain Talhar arrives. Ah- here he comes.”
They glanced over. Max Talhar was weaving through the crowd, a backpack resting on his shoulders. Within seconds he had seen them and made his way over.
“All right, you’re all here,” the agent said, nodding at Talhar. “Let’s go.”
The four men strolled over to the military line. The agent who had been escorting them disappeared through a door. A soldier with a taser rifle stood behind a counter.
“All right, gentlemen, just step over here with your implants ready for scanning. You’ll get your destination on your implant after it scans.”
Talhar scanned his code in first. The soldier glanced at a monitor. “All good, Captain. Who’s next?”
Xam stepped over to the scanner and placed his implant under the beam. A second later the implant began displaying several lines of text. “You’re fine, Lieutenant.”
As Ewell scanned in, Xam hissed to Talhar, “Why are we going to Saolia? Isn’t our destination the Lao capital?”
“Yes,” Talhar murmured. “But we can’t fly straight there. No flight service. Anyway, it’d look suspicious.”
“Ah,” Xam replied quietly.
Ewell walked over to the other two. “Our flight leaves from Platform 3 in an hour and a half. We should catch the next elevator up.”
“All right,” Talhar said. “Let’s go.”

The elevator ride into orbit took about 30 minutes. The views during the ascent were fantastic, Xam had to admit, even though Birmus-2 was nearing a state of ruin. Garbage heaps were piled any old place. Trees were a rare sight, favored these days only for their source of wood. The rivers ran grey with chemical sludge and not a fish lived in them. Open-pit mines were scattered along mineral veins. Cities belched black smoke.
All of these things slowly disappeared, however, as the elevator rose. Xam could see the other four elevators, and marveled at the amount of work that had gone into their production. Generally the Neobaptist Church discouraged interest in Scythe ideas like mathematics and science, on the grounds that it led people astray from their devotion to Divinism. Clearly, though, several Scythar engineers had put work into the design of this, and it could not have been a generic design; Xam had heard from someone that because of each planet’s gravitational and magnetic fluctuations, unique changes had to be made to each space elevator to make it work properly.
Several other people rode the elevator with the three men. A husband and wife rode with their young son. An older man sat alone. A group of students chattered excitedly. The elevator guards exchanged quiet conversation without taking their eyes off the group of people.
Finally, the massive pneumatic doors opened, revealing a long hallway that stretched almost a quarter mile. The left side of the hallway opened up to gates. A massive set of reinforced acrylic windows dominated the right, looking out onto the other platforms, each connected to the planet Birmus-2 by a space elevator. Each elevator, Xam knew, had several pods that could transport people from ground to space and back.
“Come on,” Ewell said, checking the chrono on his implant. “Our flight leaves in an hour from Gate 14.”
The three men walked down the hallway. Groups of people moved past and around them, heading for different terminals or to the elevator pod.
“This is it,” Xam said, glancing up at the screen displaying the gate number. “We’ve got about forty minutes to go. Do you want me to grab us some food? I saw a restaurant back there.”
Talhar shrugged. “I don’t really care.”
Ewell nodded vigorously. “Could you? That’d be great.”
Xam went off and ordered some stew for the three of them. He grabbed the cups and returned to the other two on the bench. He passed it over and the three of them began talking about the government and culture of the Ren colonies.

Li Wei glanced up from his holotablet and smiled faintly. The three men were even less subtle than he had hoped for. He had taken great pains to assure the Lao government that his teams could detect any enemy agent leaving the fief. They had assumed it would be difficult and for good reason. Why the Alamo government had decided it would be wise to send these buffoons was beyond him. Of course, they were Xenophari, so it made at least a little sense, but still. Everyone knew that the people of Xenophar, despite being descended from citizens of one of the greatest powers of the pre-galactic era, were among the most conservative and backward in the quadrant. Even as he had waited for his flight (which he had, naturally, intentionally arrived early for), he had overheard a little girl ask her mother, “Mommy, why is a communist in the spaceport?” Ahhhh, racism at its finest. Despite the fact that he had the insignia of Honhon prominently displayed upon his impeccable suit, to match his cover story, people still did the occasional double take upon seeing him.
His cover story. The carefully laid false identity the Lao government had given him. He had been disguised as a wealthy businessman from the Okini prefecture of Honhon and given an identity to match. He had been sent to, supposedly, make a deal with a major company in Alam involving the sale of weapons blueprints. The deal, of course, was a sham. Li hadn’t had to told to deliberately ensure that the deal would fail, because there was no Okini weapon shipment waiting for the Alamo. If anything, most of Honhon was in support of Lao. The prefecture of Okini had even, upon polite request, provided most of the identity information for Li’s infiltration mission. Upon the failure to reach a deal, Li would then return to Lao via Honhonese ports.
The real mission had been to check in with his team at the main spaceport. They had taken low-position jobs running maintenance on the spaceport’s electronics, which they had cracked easily, giving them the ability to access camera footage and look out for suspicious characters.
Like the fools sitting on the other side of the gate, Li thought happily. They’re actually discussing the state of the Lao military. Ve-e-ery inconspicuous. He opened a writing program and began typing his report. Can’t be sent here, of course. They’d spot it. Any transmission moving from Alam to Lao would be intercepted and traced back to me. I’ll send it in Okini.
I wonder how these spies will get around that?

The spacecraft shuddered as the engines activated. Xam looked out the window and watched the docking gate fall away as the craft maneuvered into the spaceway.
He glanced around at his fellow passengers. The spaceship was a fairly small one, capable of carrying about a hundred passengers a few dozen light-years. Most of the people on board already had their headset displays on and were lost in a virtual world. Ewell was seated next to him, reading a novel on his headset. Talhar was dozing across the aisle. A few Scythar scribes sat behind Xam, talking in low voices about technical things that they knew no one else on the spaceship could begin to understand. Behind them was their parole officer. The Neobaptist Church insisted on watching all the Scythari closely, on the grounds that they were too devious to be trusted. Why, though? he wondered. They’re the ones that keep our technology running because, let’s be honest, no one else really knows how to do it. If we were to alienate them enough, they’d bring us down in a second.
Across the aisle and a row or two back was a Honhonese businessman. This was an odd sight for Alam, but Xam tried to treat him as if he were just another person, giving him a friendly nod when they made eye contact. He was currently scribbling with a stylus on a holotablet.
There was a whining sound, steadily increasing in volume, then a sudden lurch as the ship activated its warp systems. Xam could hear the Scythari talking behind him.
“---so how does a warp drive work, anyway?”
“Come on, Arl!”
“No, seriously!”
There was a sigh. “One of the best in all of Xenophar at theoretical physics, and you can’t figure out the basic concepts of a warp drive?”
“I just never really thought about it before.”
Another exasperated sigh. “Look, a warp drive works by creating a bubble of space-time around its immediate area, then dragging that bubble forward in space with less motion in time.”
“Oh. So it probably works by means of the Kringle Theory of Bullaerelativity, and probably Nurson’s antimatter fusion laws are at the heart of it---”
“Could you just shut your mouth, Arl? We get a bit bored with your lectures on subjects we already are rather knowledgeable about, as you should damn well know since we’ve been in the same class since we were ten.”
“Sorry.”
Hm, Xam thought, you learn something new every day. He checked his implant, which told him that at their current relative speed they would reach Saolia in an hour or so. He set the melatonin suppressor to wake him when they arrived there, then reclined in his seat and fell asleep.

Xam awoke just as the spaceship pulled up to the gate at Saolia. Talhar was now awake, and Ewell was gathering his belongings from the pull-down tray on the seat in front of him. A clunk reverberated throughout the cabin as the craft bumped up against the gate. People began to stand and get their bags down from various overhead compartments.
“Where’s our next flight leave from, George?” Xam asked.
Ewell glanced at his implant, tapping it in a pattern. “Let’s see… Saolia Prime Spaceport, Platform 2, Gate 25, in about a standard hour. We just came in at Platform 2, so we won’t have to cross over to another platform or make a trip down to the planet’s surface.”
“Good,” Xam yawned. Spaceflight always messed with his sleep schedule. “And we have all our baggage with us? I know I’ve got mine, and Max had just a backpack---” Talhar nodded in confirmation--- “so is that all?”
“Yes,” said Ewell. “I’ve just got my duffel bag. Let’s go.”

Saolia was a small colony of the Aina Confederacy. It was a backwater, right on the border of Aina space, with only a few star systems under its sway, and had remained steadfastly neutral throughout the entirety of the Lao-Alam War. Even Okini, a Honhonese prefecture, and Silicar, an Ioniar state, had ideologically sided with the Lao. But Saolia retained its neutrality.
Saolia Prime, the capital planet of the province, was a lush jungle planet. Many of the species currently residing on it had been transplanted from Sol-3, and the planet had been terraformed in the early days of colonization from a barren desert to a humid rainforest. Most of the cities had been built carefully, so as to avoid unnecessary pollution, but they were still visible from orbit, and Xam gazed upon them from his vantage point in the spaceport, far above the planet.
“Wow,” he breathed. He had never really had the opportunity to look at Saolia Prime like this before. He had been there once before, but his connecting flight had been on a different platform and he’d had to take the high-speed bullet tube across the stellar complex to catch it. This was his first real look at the planet.
“Quite breathtaking, isn’t it?” said Ewell, who had come up beside him. “Probably my fourth visit or so, but I never get tired of it.”
“Gentlemen,” Talhar said in a clipped voice that dripped with impatience. “We do not have time for distraction. Our flight leaves in forty-five standard minutes and we will be crossing the combat zone. Now is not the time for sightseeing.”
“Oh, all right,” said Xam wearily. “Let’s go find our gate.”
None of them noticed the Honhonese businessman who sat down on the bench next to the window and pulled out his holotablet and stylus.

The spacecraft this time was larger, more thickly armored. Everything about its appearance indicated that it was built to fly through combat zones and bring its passengers out on the other side unworried. The ship glittered gold, and Xam wondered aloud at this.
“Well, you see,” said one of the Scythar scribes from the previous flight, who had shown up at the gate a minute or two after they had, “it’s because gold leaf repels infrared light, including the laser beams used by combat ships. They must really be expecting trouble to send one of these on a routine commercial flight.”
“Isn’t that rather expensive?”
“Quite. But corporations and the military can always gather enough money to finance it.”
Xam nodded and returned his gaze to the gilded ship. It was reassuringly sturdy in appearance, but something about it radiated harmlessness. The insignia of Saolia and of the spaceline were displayed prominently.
“Let’s find seats,” he decided.

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” the pilot said over the intercom. “Our destination today is the planet Rukyu, in Okini.
“This means,” he continued, “that we will, briefly, be traveling through the Alam-Lao combat zone. The window of danger is only about 90 seconds, but I advise everyone to double-check their safety procedures before we leave the gate, just in case.
“Have a good flight, everyone.”
As the intercom cut out, a rush of nervous conversation spread throughout the passenger cabin.
“Do you think we’ll end up in a battle?” asked Xam nervously.
“Not likely,” said Ewell. “Like he said, we’ll be in the danger zone for less than two minutes, and---” he stopped short at a gesture from Talhar, and continued hesitantly--- “um, the latest news reports from the front indicated that the Lao have been pushing past our current travel path. We’ll be moving behind their lines, and as long as we’re broadcasting a neutrality signal, they probably won’t even stop us.”
“I wish I could be certain that you’re right,” said Xam with feeling as the spacecraft pulled away from the gate.

“Xam! Wake up, wake up!”
“Mmmpf. What is it?”
“We’ve been stopped!”
Xam was awake in an instant. No caffeine or norepinephrine could have had a more sudden affect. “By who? The pilot said we were in Lao territory, so---”
“I’m not sure. I was looking out the porthole. The ship lurched and we exited warp mode. But it didn’t seem like a controlled, lever-in-the-cockpit-was-thrown kind of exit. It was more like we got yanked out, almost. And then I saw this massive warship bearing down on us. The ship shuddered again. Then I tried to wake you up. It took me a few seconds to do that.”
Xam glanced over at Talhar. The captain displayed a sense of calm, but Xam could see the tenseness in his posture. His right hand rested on his lower ribs, where, Xam knew, all intelligence agents carried their last-ditch equipment: a tiny, spring-loaded poison dart launcher with a range of a few yards, several miniscule smoke grenades, and two potassium cyanide capsules. If Talhar was fingering that package, he was expecting the worst, and Xam knew it. This scared him. This is bad. This is really bad.
The pilot’s voice came over the intercom. “Ah… Ladies and gentlemen… this ship has been temporarily halted by the armed forces of…”
Xam, Ewell, and Talhar held their breath.
“ … the Xenophari Fief of Alam.”
Xam, Ewell, and Talhar released their breath silently.

Li Wei, seated in the back row of the cabin, slipped quietly through a door labeled “AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY”. He carefully removed his suit jacket to reveal a plain grey shirt. He glanced around. This was the engine room. He edged around the massive warp drive system and antimatter fusion reactor and concealed himself behind an ion engine refuel valve.
An alert light blinked on the pilot’s console, but he ignored it. The soldiers were occupying his attention.

The Alamo troops walked slowly down the aisle, scanning people’s implants and checking their identifications to their faces. Xam, Ewell, and Talhar were all cleared quickly--- the soldier that checked them gave them a big wink when he saw that they were intelligence services.
When they reached the back row, only one person was seated there. He was overweight, and his bulk easily concealed Li Wei’s personal belongings.

The Alamo warship detached from the commercial starliner. Within seconds it was a rapidly receding fleck of light in the darkness.
As the pilot turned back to the console to get the spaceship’s warp drive active again, he noticed the warning light. One of the soldiers must have gone back there to check the engine room.
He shrugged and turned the warp drive on.

Li Wei stood in the restroom, putting his suit jacket back on. It had been an easy matter to slip out of the engine room and into the restroom. The lone technician on duty in the engine room had been completely distracted.
It bodes ill, he thought. The last report I read before setting out for Birmus said that we had secured most of the route between Saolia and Rukyu. And now the Alamo can stop neutral starliners with impunity.
The State Council must be informed immediately.

The rest of the trip to Rukyu was uneventful, though Xam and the others were worried. What if that had been a Lao patrol ship checking for spies? They couldn’t stop worrying. When they finally arrived at the Rukyu Galactic Spaceport, all three men were tense.
“Switch IDs,” Talhar muttered as they walked through the gate to the platform. “Any Alamo at all would be suspicious in Lao.”
“No, really?” Xam snapped. His temper was running short.
“Shut up, you two,” Ewell grumbled. “We don’t have time for this.” He jabbed his implant with a finger and it switched to the identity of a Saolian student. “Come on.”
The other two wordlessly did the same to their own implants, then followed Ewell to the bullet tube that would take them over to one of the other platforms, where they would start the final leg of their journey.

Li Wei glanced up from his typical back row seat on the spacecraft as the three men boarded. Again? Why are these fools flying into Lao from Honhon? It makes a bit more sense, I suppose--- Saolia’s more neutral than Ioniar, and they’d be checked a bit more carefully if they flew in from there, but if I have them investigated upon arrival, all sorts of holes will surface. This will be interesting.

The spaceship docked at the Ruhan Spaceport. As the three men disembarked, they unconsciously drew a little closer together. This did not seem like the sort of place they were normally comfortable.
The elevator ride down to Ruhan Beta was silent. The elevator guard had demanded a check of their identifications, and grudgingly let them in when they had checked out. When they reached the surface, the three men walked out into the warm night together, acutely aware of the fact that they might very well never see one another again.
“Well, I suppose this is it,” said Ewell, breaking the silence.
“Yes,” said Talhar.
“You all know where you’re going?” asked Xam.
“Yes,” said Ewell, “it’s all on the implant if you need it.”
“All right,” said Xam. “Well, um, see you.”
“Good luck,” said Ewell, and it was exactly the right thing to say.

“Lao Internal Security Agency. To whom am I speaking?” asked the dispatch.
“Commander Li of the Intelligence Services,” Li responded over the com. “I need to speak with your superior immediately.”
“What is the situation?” the dispatch asked.
“Three spies have just arrived from off-planet. Alamo. I need them tailed immediately.”
“Can you provide me with identification?”
“I have images I can provide.”
There was a short pause. Then: “Commander Fao wishes to meet with you. One hour. Main conference center at the ISA.”
“Tell Commander Fao I’ll be there,” said Li, hanging up.

Xam looked out the window of his hotel room at the city. It wasn’t what most people in Alam would have expected of Lao. Surprisingly developed. Most people in the Xenophar Confederacy would have thought Lao to be wracked with destitution and under complete control of the ruthless government. Xam wasn’t entirely sure about that, now that he was on the ground.
He glanced at his implant. The file had manifested itself in his cloud drive as soon as he had reached his room. He had read through his orders carefully. Twice.
In the morning, he was to report to the local intelligence center, declaring himself to be a traitor and claiming that he was armed with the plans for the next month of Alamo operations. The plans for the first week were accurate, but the rest were carefully twisted to falsehood.
Ewell, he knew, had rented an apartment in the upper reaches of one of the superscrapers, one of the ones that reached over a mile up. From there, he would transmit progress reports back to the command center on Birmus-2, and organize communication between Xam and Talhar.
Talhar had already disappeared into the lowest-income areas of the city. If he can even find them. Income equality, it would seem, is a lot more emphasized than we expected, and people certainly have more money than we anticipated.

“Ah! Commander Li! Take a seat,” boomed Commander Fao. He was not a particularly small man, not obese, but nowhere near as slightly built as Li. “I hear that you have rooted out three agents?”
“Yes,” said Li. “I have already sent a few of your reconnaissance drones to track them, by your leave.”
“Of course, of course,” replied Fao. “But you need more information?”
“Yes. I can give you their locations. I need you to find their identities, though, and see what else we can find on them.”
Commander Fao produced a holotablet. “Plug it in here, and I’ll see what my database can dig up.”
Li spent several minutes typing in all of the information, then frowned. “Something’s wrong. These names are Saolian.”
“Well, you can’t expect them to keep their same identities, can you?” asked Fao. “What else do you need to track them down?”
“Hm. I’d like spaceport footage to link them together. Certainly from ours, and if possible from Okini as well. Can that be arranged?”
“I’ll call up Okini and see what I can do,” Fao said. “No promises, of course.” He left the room. Li turned his attention back to the tablet.
Thirty minutes later, Fao returned. “Find the footage you need?”
“Yes,” said Li, looking tired, “and I saved the clips I need into a folder. I’ll need you to send it to my cloud drive. Were you able to get the data from Okini?”
“Yes,” said Fao happily. “All of the spaceport footage from the past 24 standard hours. I just have to dispose of it once you have the clips you need.”
“Wonderful,” said Li. “Can you put it on here?” He gestured to the holotablet.
“Yes. Would you like some norepinephrine?”
“Yes,” Li said immediately.
I’ll have everything I need soon. My report to the Council will be much more interesting than I expected.

Xam walked into the Intelligence Building. The two guards at the door gave him a suspicious look before screening him and grudgingly allowing him to enter.
The lobby was sparsely decorated. The walls were forbidding titanium, the desks imposing tungsten. Xam walked up to the nearest one.
“I need to see the director of external intelligence as soon as possible,” Xam said in fluent Ren. “I have vital information.”
“How important is it?” asked the receptionist, a young woman with short-cropped hair.
“Vital, I said.”
The receptionist glanced at her holotablet. “His next opening is this afternoon at 1430. I’ll need your identification code before I can make an appointment, though.”
Xam proffered his implant, displaying the false ID code. The receptionist scanned it, then glanced at the holotablet.
“Well, you seem to--- wait. You’re not an agency member. What’s your occupation?”
“Um… student,” Xam replied hesitantly.
“Why would a student have vital information?”
Xam glanced around. The privacy shield between desks seemed to be soundproofed, as he couldn’t hear activity at the other desks. He leaned in a little closer. “It’s a cover. I’m afraid it’s classified information.”
The receptionist gave him an odd look before reaching under the desk. There was an audible click. “I’ll let the men upstairs deal with you, then.”
Xam became suddenly aware of footsteps growing closer. He whirled to see a burly guard advancing on him.
“Floor 431,” the receptionist said. “Tai here will escort you.” The guard stopped right behind Xam. “Take him up,” said the receptionist, then gestured with her hand toward the lift tube. Tai nudged Xam.
“Move. Lai has sent a signal and if you are late now they will be displeased.”
“Of course,” replied Xam distractedly, as they walked toward the lift tube.

Damn! thought Xam as the lift pod rose. This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. I was told to get in, tell the people in charge what’s up, and then return to the hotel, ready to return when they needed me. Now they’ve put themselves in control of what happens next.

The State Council meeting was in session in Government Center.
“…and Commander Li Wei of External Intelligence Services has informed me that three spies have gained entry to the city,” the Director of Intelligence said.
“Is Commander Li present?” asked the Director of Military Operations.
“He is in the next room awaiting our summons,” replied the Director of Intelligence.
“Bring him in,” the Chair said.
The Director of Intelligence tapped his holotablet. A second later, Li Wei entered the room. He bowed.
“Welcome, Commander,” said the Chair. “Can you present to us evidence that we have been infiltrated by the forces of Alam?”
“Yes, Chairman Mao,” replied Li. He was familiar with the rumors that the chairman was a descendent of the original Mao Zedong. One of the most direct descendants currently held power over the entire Ren Confederacy.
“Display it, then,” ordered Mao.
Li pressed a few buttons on a holotablet. “Three men boarded a spaceliner at the Birmus-2 spaceport. They flew together to Saolia, then Okini, then to here. The flight records provided by my team---” he held up a nanocourier packet--- “indicated that those three men flew only to Okini. Three men, supposedly Saolian students, then flew out from Okini to here. Interestingly, however, the presumed Saolian students did not fly into Okini--- yet they did not pass through the security lines or main terminals there. Instead, they took the bullet tube from platform to platform. All security footage from Okini at the relevant time period has been reviewed. The men switched their identity anywhere in between boarding the flight to Okini and boarding the flight to Lao.
“In addition, upon leaving the spaceport, the three split up almost immediately. This is highly suspicious. Students traveling together almost certainly would have stuck together. Nothing about this is routine. I am certain that they are spies. What they intend to achieve I’ve no idea.”
“Where are they now?” asked the Head of the Internal Security Agency.
“One of them is currently renting an apartment in the high-rise district of town. Another has found residence in one of the lower income areas. The third is staying in a hotel not far from here. Commander Fao of the ISA has already posted three of his drones to watch them.”
“Is there anything else we should know about them?” asked the Chair.
“Like I said, what they have planned is---” Li stopped as his tablet chimed. “Do you mind?” he asked quickly.
The Chair waved dismissively.
Li nodded gratefully and pressed a button. An image of Commander Fao was broadcasted onto the screen. “Commander Li. One of the spies has entered the intelligence building.”
“Thank you for the update,” Li replied, cutting the message. He looked back up at the rest of the room. “Hopefully we’ll get a better idea of what they’re planning. If necessary we could detain this one.”
“We’ll see,” said the Chair, his face unreadable. He gestured and a technician entered. “You. Can you hook up a live camera feed from the intelligence building lobby?”
The technician nodded and fiddled with a control tablet. A clip of Xam walking into the lift tube lit the screen.
“Keep the feed tracking that man,” the Chair ordered.

The pod reached Floor 431 and the doors opened. Xam stepped out into a hallway, followed by Tai.
“Where to now?” Xam asked.
“Office of Second-in-Command of the Intelligence Services. Twelfth door on left.”
Xam walked down the hall, lost in thought. Finally he saw a door labeled
INTELLIGENCE SERVICES
SECOND IN COMMAND
XIAO CHIEN
and stopped.
“This it?”
“Knock first.”
Xam tapped the knocker. An electronic tone could be heard inside the room. The door opened to reveal a tired-looking man sitting at a desk.
“Ah, you’re here. Take a seat,” the man said.
“Are you Xiao Chien?” Xam asked, sitting down. Tai left the room behind him.
“No,” said the man, “I’m just sitting in his office, at his desk, sneaking his private stash of pseudosalsa. That was sarcasm, by the way. You would be well advised to get used to it.
“So I hear from Lieutenant Lai downstairs that you’ve classified information. Since you appear to be Xenophari, I assume you’re a double agent?” Xiao continued.
Xam nodded. “Wait, Lieutenant? That twenty-some year old girl downstairs was a lieutenant?”
“All of our receptionists are members of the Intelligence Service themselves,” said Xiao. “That way, we can order them to keep their mouths closed from time to time. We have policies in place for whistleblowing, of course, if there’s ever a serious breach, but we have legislative oversight and this prevents the more vital wartime data from being released. Anyway, you were about to say something about your double agency?”
Xam nodded again. All right, now the voice. Pitch it perfectly. Play the role of the disturbed whistleblower. “Yes. The system back home is too corrupt. As a member of the intelligence agencies, I was privy to the knowledge of what the government was doing. But the worst part of it was knowing that the people went along with it. The society is rotten to the core.”
Xiao nodded. “Indeed, indeed.”
Something chimed behind the desk. Xiao glanced at his holotablet, lying right on the edge. He tapped it once and read:

XIAO CHIEN: URGENT
FROM: COMMAND

XIAO:
THE MAN SITTING ACROSS FROM YOU IS A SPY. ACT NORMALLY. WE HAVE THE SHARPSHOOTER BOTS READY TO ATTACK AT YOUR SIGNAL IF NECESSARY (YOUR USUAL SIGNAL WILL SUFFICE). DO NOT PANIC.

Xiao reread it once, then typed back UNDERSTOOD and looked back up at Xam, who stared back. “Do you have any useful information for us?”
“Before I left, I was able to gain entry to the major intelligence bank and gather battle plans. They should hold for the next month or or so unless a drastic shift is made.”
“Do you have them here?” Xiao asked impatiently. “I’m not necessarily privy to that data, but if you don’t have them here then we have a small logistical problem.”
“Yes,” said Xam, “it’s all in the implant.” He gestured to the plastometallic protrusion on his right arm. Xiao stared at it with a certain amount of discomfort before looking back up.
“You’re in luck,” Xiao said finally. “The State Council is meeting today.”
Xam nodded calmly, being careful not to betray his inner emotion. Yes!

The State Council, plus one (the technician had been dismissed once Xam had entered Xiao’s office) watched the screen in fascination. Finally the Chair chuckled.
“So that is their gambit. No doubt the first week’s worth of data is entirely accurate and the rest is skewed.”
A chime sounded and a small green light lit up in the bottom right corner of the screen. “Oh, look,” the Chair said in a bored voice dripping with sarcasm, “Xiao Chien is contacting us. I wonder what he has to say. Put it through.”

“Chairman,” Xiao said, bowing to the screen in his office along the left wall.
“Xiao Chien,” replied the Chair.
“I have a self-professed Alamo double agent here with me. Shall I bring him up to your conference room?”
“By all means,” the Chair replied. “Bring a guard with you.”
“Of course,” said Xiao. The screen went dark and retracted into the ceiling. Xiao turned and looked at Xam. “Let’s go. Chairman Mao loves punctuality.”

The door to the conference room opened with a hiss. Xam stepped in and looked around. The room was sparsely decorated. The walls were metallic grey, the table shiny black. The men in chairs seated around the table were dressed identically in black suits. Only the lapel pin each wore gave an impression of difference.
Xiao glanced around the room. Commander Li had disappeared. Interesting, and sensible.
“So you are a double agent,” said the Chair after a pause.
“Yes,” said Xam uncomfortably.
“And you have important information?”
“Yes.”
“May we see it?”
“Yes.” Xam handed a thumbnail drive to the Chair, who inserted it into the main data reader. The projector turned on, showing a series of folders with various operational labels. Finally the Chair looked over at another man. “Take the data down to your department. Analyze it. I want counter-operations ready in 24 standard hours.”
The man bowed, removed the thumbnail drive, and left.
“In the meantime,” said the Chair, turning back to Xam, “we cannot have an important person such as yourself to remain in public areas. You will be given quarters in one of our housing units for special guests.”
Xam’s expression turned unhappy.
“Your possessions will be brought to you,” the Chair reassured him, but Xam’s expression did not improve.
This wasn’t supposed to happen! I was supposed to stay outside of their grasp! Who knows what they’ll do now!

“So what will we do now?” asked the Director of Intelligence, once Xam had been escorted out.
“Find something we can exploit him with,” replied the Chair. “Carefully control his diet. I want him on low-sodium, saccharin-free foodstuffs. Most Xenophari can be broken on a diet like that.”
“Aren’t agents supposed to maintain good health?”
“Saccharin doesn’t do much to hurt it.”
“Fair point.”
“What of his companions?” asked the Director of Internal Security.
“Keep them under surveillance,” the Chair replied. “Monitor but do not interfere with their communications.”

Xam’s new quarters were admittedly much nicer than those back at the hotel, but there were no windows, and the doors to the outside world were locked unless someone wanted to see him.
He paced, deliberating. He had intended to communicate with Ewell via lasercomm, but that was only effective with line of sight. Nanocouriers might be able to drill through a wall, but he only had so many. His only remaining option was the archaic radio communicators they had brought along for emergencies.
Xam hesitated. Radio communications were notorious for being ridiculously easy to intercept, even in the old days when humanity was limited to a sole planet. Modern military and police used lasercomm or warp courier in space and nanocouriers or ground-to-space on the surface. He didn’t want to make it obvious that he was communicating- even if his computer could calculate a cipher that would withstand the resources of the encryption experts employed by the Lao government, the fact that he had sent out a message would speak volumes.
Wait…
Neutrons!

Several hours later, a tired but exhilarated Xam looked at the lasercomm set. It had been modified to a significant degree with some strange items to produce, instead of beams of ultraviolet light, focused bursts of neutrons. On the other end, the neutrons would be registered by a neutron counter, which would translate the pulses into binary code. The implant computer would take that code and transform it back into the original message.
Before a message could be sent via the improvised communication system, however, Ewell would have to build one of his own. Xam had worked his way around that, too. When the evening meal had been sent up, just after the work had been completed, Xam had slipped a nanocourier with blueprints for the modifications into a bowl of rice after he’d finished eating. The dumbwaiter had brought the plate back down to the kitchen, where the rice (most of it uneaten) would doubtlessly be scraped into a compost sack and taken to one of the city’s composting facilities.
However, as soon as the sack was brought out of the building, Xam would activate the nanocourier. It would use its drill to pierce the weak, easily degraded sacking, then hover away to the heights of Ewell’s rented apartment.
Wait…wait…
Xam leaned forward in anticipation, a headset delivering him an instantaneous video feed from the nanocourier. His view had gone dark a few minutes ago, presumably when the plate had been scraped off into the dark compost. Now it became light again, as a robot opened the panel and removed the sack. Soon, the robot exited the building, and things became darker; night was falling.
Now!
Xam pushed a button on the headset. The nanocourier lurched forward, navigating and tunneling through and between the food that had been dumped in. It quickly cut through the compost sack and flew away.
With the touch of a sensor, the feed cut out. Xam lifted the headset off and sighed in relief.
It had worked perfectly.

Ewell looked out over the balcony at the bustling city around him. He experienced a sudden rush of perspective- a single Alamo ship attacking from could tear this to pieces, devastate the city’s vital infrastructure beyond repair, even before it could be damaged to an appreciable extent. And of course, if the command crew decided to deliberately crash-land instead of fleeing back into space, the destruction would be far, far worse.
Such an outcome would be best prevented.
Something zipped past his ear. Ewell ducked on instinct. Generally in any Xenophari-allegiant system, things zipping past your ear were either taser darts or railgun bullets, and in either case it was best to get to cover.
When nothing else came flying at him, he looked around cautiously. Then he saw the nanocourier hovering in midair, slowly moving toward his arm. Ewell let out a breath and gingerly inserted the nanocourier into his arm implant.
He read:
EWELL
CIRCUMSTANCES HAVE CHANGED RAPIDLY- I HAVE BEEN TEMPORARILY DETAINED BY LAO INTELLIGENCE AUTHORITIES- SUSPECT THEY HAVE BOUGHT THE STORY- NANOCOURIERS NO LONGER A RELIABLE FORM OF COMMUNICATION- SEE BLUEPRINTS INCLUDED AT BOTTOM OF TEXT FOR LASERCOMM MODIFICATIONS
HOUSTON

Ewell found the blueprints and yawned. He was tired. But he needed to be able to communicate with Xam. It was vital.
He got to work.

“Hm,” said Li, pouring over the footage the pinhole cameras in Xam’s quarters had provided. “So he’s been modifying a lasercomm. But what are its new capabilities? Does it work in an enclosed space? And, most importantly, why does he need it?”
“Well,” said Commander Fao, “we’ve been making a few guesses. His main goal in modifying the system is most likely to get a message through the walls. That I suspect he has done. Of course, any modification that drastic would require modification on the other end, so some kind of initial contact must have been necessary.”
“Is there anything to suggest that he did that?
“Yes. We registered about ten to fifteen minutes of radio contact. Interestingly, not with anything that far outside the building. What does that indicate?”
“Nanocourier,” Li breathed. “He slipped a nanocourier right under our noses.”
“It would seem so,” Fao agreed. “Clearly, however, it’s not an efficient way of doing things, or he wouldn’t be diddling with the lasercomm.”
“Can you find someone to go through and see where he slipped it out?”
“Of course, of course.”
“Thank you, Commander.”
“It’s a pleasure working with you on this.”
Commander Fao left the room. Li remained, lost in thought.

It was one of Those days again. The sky was perfectly clear, and the sun was shining an infectiously bright, brilliant, blinding light. It was also -5° out, with the two feet of snow blanketing the ground reflecting the bright brilliant blindingness of the sun with annoying clarity. Some writers would say the air was crisp and clear, but you would rather put it as getting sliced by a knife tipped with liquid nitrogen the moment the air hits you. In one of life's cruelest dichotomies, it feels like you are simultaneously getting heat stroke and hypothermia at the same time. It's the perfect day to stay inside and write for copious amounts of the day, like any day regardless of weather. All is going well, your fingers flying on the keyboard as fast as the wind outside, when suddenly you stop. Not voluntarily, you would never do that to yourself. A tree has just fallen down on your house and the power has gone out. After the initial Kübler-Ross cycle for your lost work subsides, you frantically ransack the house for a notepad to salvage the most you can of your train of thought. And you can't find one. You grab the keys and head out to the car, but upon entering and turning the keys, it sputters up to life only to sputter back down to the underworld again. You're out of gas. If the novelist stereotype is anything to go by, it would be good for you to just walk to the store. But as you head out the door, the aeons-old air raid siren sitting atop the lightpole not that far away goes off. After an initial moment of wonder that the old thing still works passes, you look up and see a startling amount of indistinguishable dots against the perfectly clear sky, almost to the point of blotting out the bright, brilliant, blinding sun. Tiny mosquito-size dots are growing bigger, and before you know it an explosion throws you off your feet. Unfazed and with a clear goal in mind, you get up and continue to the store. As you walk through the explosions to the approval of Michael Bay, you now realise that you forgot to put on a coat, however you lose your thoughts as a piece of shrapnel lodges itself into your exposed upper arm, and you can feel it twist with the impact. That doesn't change anything. But you reach the store, and a look of absolute horror comes over your face. "Closed the week of Jan. 17-23". You sigh a deep, long exasperated sigh. It was one of Those days again.

First we have something a little Christmassy to take us out of the winter season. Every year we, as a city, celebrate beloved british 1970's kids show Rainbow by erecting a giant Christmassy effigy to our lord and saviour Zippy in recognition of bringing the first Big Red Twanger to the city, thus beginning the 1990's Britpop scene. The effigy is always set to face off with this statue of Sir Benjamin Johnson, the Liverpool-born musician and inventor of the Banjo whose statue was stolen during a mancunian sneak attack during the great Scousechester war of 1964.



Next we have the Vimto memorial dedicated to Elwood von Vimto, a temperance activist who, in an attempt to undermine the local hostelries that held an iron grip on victorian Manchester, invented an aphrodisiac of such potency that the city's population boomed in the subsequent year, allowing it to finally grow into a county. The bottle itself is Elwood's resting place, his body preserved within.



Heaton park, a modest stately home turned local "activities" area. Bit of a personal one for me as my sister actually was raised by Squirrels inhabiting the park. The Squirrels subsequently convinced her they were actually very small nut-eating wolves who utilise the tower on the right to steal Wi-Fi.



Finally we come to the Egregious Vile, this gigantic mutated Sea Urchin was first seen roaming the river Irwell after coming down from the Nuclear Plant up the coast at Sellafield back in 2001. After a year rampaging across the city the beast was eventually defeated by Jeff Lynn, the Prog Rock Sorceror and Lead Singer of ELO, who used his Phenomenal Cosmic Powers to tur the beast to stone. It's said by many that, should ELO ever reform with their original lineup the Egregious Vile would be freed and defeated once and for all by the actor Kevin Eldon.

And there you have it, I hope you've enjoyed this mini-tour of Manchester!

Admiral Brag’s battlefleet lurched out of warp speed. Alarms blared throughout the bridge of the command vessel, the battleship Domination.
“Captain! What’s going on?”
“Interdictor field, sir. Preliminary scans indicate a sizable Lao presence here, although it doesn’t appear to be the primary fleet. We’re on the outskirts of the Shenzhi system- the outermost planet appears to be the center of their formation.”
“Battle stations,” Brag ordered, walking out to the observation deck. His starships, long and bladelike, glittered gold from the pale light of Shenzhi as they moved into attack position.
“The Lao fleet is holding position around the planet, Admiral. Your orders?”
Brag hesitated. Something seemed out of place. “Does this planet have a moon?”
“Yes, sir. It’s currently located-” the captain glanced at a holographic display- “about 0.1 megameters behind us, or about as far away from us as the planet right now.”
“I have a bad feeling about this,” Brag muttered. He’d learned to trust his hunches in his years as admiral. “Maneuver the rear flank to cover an attack from that moon. Keep the rest of the ships moving slowly towards the planet.”
The fleet continued its slow advance towards the planet. A dozen cruisers in the rear split off and slowly rotated toward the dark moon.
“Deploy fighters,” ordered Brag.
Hangar doors opened on six of the larger starships, and hordes of manned starfighters zipped out. Unmanned starfighters could in theory be used, and communications with the human pilot fast enough to allow for instantaneous control, but all of those controls could be middlemanned by hackers. The Alamo forces had suffered one of their greatest defeats of the war when a massive drone assault had been disrupted by hackers and turned against the cruisers. It had taken months to replace the lost vessels.
The communications system pinged. “Admiral Brag, this is the rearguard. We’re picking up ten large enemy warships coming in from the moon. We won’t be able to hold them for long without reinforcements. Requesting assistance.”
“Send in another six ships,” Brag ordered. Half a dozen cruisers peeled off and turned to reinforce the rearguard.
“Sir! Attack ships closing from the planet!”
Brag peered through the thick window at the tiny approaching specks. “What sort?” he snapped.
“Heavy bombers, sir. They’ve got an escort with ‘em. Our fighters are engaging them now.”
Tiny flashes of light indicated fighters being destroyed in combat. The Lao bombers were holding back.
“Open fire on those cruisers,” Brag ordered.
The captain shook his head. “We’re too far away. A railgun shot or a laser beam might make it there, but our targeting systems just can’t pick out anything more than fifty thousand kilometers away. It’s not worth it.”

Behind the planet, a Lao space station orbited. It looked like a gyroscope, but its golden sheen was difficult to see in the dark.
“How long until we round the planet?” the commander asked.
“Six minutes, sir.”
“I want the projectile loaded and ready to go as soon as we round it.”
“It has been done, sir.”
“In that case activate our gyro control.”
“Gyro systems are activated. Estimated wait time is about 30 seconds.”
“Five minutes until the fleet comes into view.”

“Admiral, we’re within range!”
“Open fire!”
The Alamo ships let loose with long-range weapons. Railguns, lasers, plasma cannons and missiles all fired into the Lao fleet.
The first barrage did significant damage to the Lao vessels. Two of them, trailing smoke and debris, slowly began to fall back toward the planet, damaging a cruiser that had not gotten out of the way in time. Escape pods flew from the sides of the ships as they gained momentum and plummeted through the atmosphere.
The Lao vessels quickly returned fire, targeting and crippling a group of cruisers on the right flank of the main body of the Alamo fleet.
At that moment, the ships in the rear struck. The eighteen slender Alamo cruisers were reasonably evenly matched against the ten bulky Lao battleships, and had even dealt one a crippling hit, when the enemy ships activated warp drives, disappearing.
When they reappeared a fraction of a second later, there weren’t just ten battleships.
Five fresh ships had joined the formation. Seconds later fighters poured out of the hangars. The Alamo cruisers were overwhelmed quickly as surgical strikes destroyed crucial points, leaving them sitting ducks.
The Lao forces poured into the gap, firing at the Alamo ships and catching them by surprise.
“Maneuver the fleet to face the attacking forces!” Brag ordered.
“What about the other ships?” the captain asked.
“The fighters will handle them,” Brag said. “We need to get out now. Tell the fighters to cover our retreat to interstellar space. Once we’re safe, we’ll let them back into the hangars and get out.”
“What about the interdictor field?”
“We’ll worry about that once we’re clear of the enemy vessels.”

“Thirty seconds until we round the planet, sir!”
“Battle stations!”
The Lao commander did little to conceal his nervousness.
“The interdictor field got back on quickly. The surprise attack gave them a bit of a shock. They’re in a full retreat. No more than half of their ships are likely to get to safety, even without our intervention.”
“Fifteen seconds to rounding!”
“Begin fire prep.”

“Sir, we’re detecting something coming out from behind the planet.”
“What is it?” Brag asked.
“Some kind of space station. Really big.”
“Scan it and pick up our speed.”

“We’ve cleared the planet!”
“Lock onto one of the central battleships.”
“Target locked.”
“Final systems check.”
“We are go.”
“Fire.”
Twenty massive nuclear fusion reactors at the core of the station blazed to life. A capacitor the size of an office building held the current back, letting it build up, until-
The current raced through all at once, pouring through a carefully constructed channel. A magnetic field of massive proportions was created, yanking a massive tungsten projectile larger than a bus forward at incredible speeds. The lights of the space station flickered. The projectile sped through space, colliding less than a second later with the battleship next to Domination.

“Holy shit, Admiral, come see this!”
“What is- my God!”
The projectile, traveling at over ten thousand kilometers per hour, had gone straight through the battleship’s shield, leaf, and armor, and then out the other side at a reduced speed, where it smashed the bridge of a cruiser. The cruiser was crippled and the command crew killed instantly.
But the battleship was the bigger concern.
The projectile had completely destroyed the reactors, ion engines, and maneuvering systems of the battleship, not to mention creating two massive hull breaches. As they watched, the ship cracked and began to fall apart.

“A massive success, commander,” a lieutenant said quietly aboard the space station as the crew watched the battleship disintegrate. There was silence for a few seconds.
“Prepare another shot,” the commander said finally. “Let’s hope our gyro-targeting is accurate, because we’ll have to try hard not to hit our own ships.”

“Commence attack,” the admiral of the Lao fleet said. “Hit-and-run attacks with rams. Pick off the cruisers and let the station handle the battleships and carriers.”
The smaller Lao cruisers moved forward quickly, attacking the Alamo vessels with their rams. Rams had been an early technology used in space warfare. A hollow concrete sphere about ten meters across and half a meter thick was filled with high explosives. A detonator was placed into the dome, primed to go off upon command from the attacking ship. Dozens of such rams would be mounted on the sides of cruisers, then launched off using powerful rockets during combat. They had no steering, but they were capable of penetrating armor and smashing vulnerable targets. A common tactic was to use them against attacking bombers at point-blank range.
The outer Alamo cruisers were not ready. Most of them were crippled within seconds by the brutal attack. The second layer was able to return fire, damaging a few of the attackers, but by then they were already gone.

“What should we do, Admiral?” asked Brag’s second-in-command.
“Keep the course! We need to get out of here!”
“That’s no longer possible, sir! They’ll just keep picking us off one by one. Maybe one or two cruisers could escape-”
Another shot from the space station devastated a nearby carrier and clipped a battleship.
“-but they’re gunning for the big ships. The interdictor field will stop warp couriers, and light-based communication will take a week to get to our nearest outpost. That’s just too long. They could have destroyed half our ships on this side of the Saolia-Okini route by then.”
“Got any better ideas on how we can survive, then?”
“No,” the commander admitted. “But we need to destroy that space station at some point.”
“Somebody needs to get the word out.”
“We’ll send out a group of cruisers with warp couriers to escape.”
“And then the rest of the fleet will try to destroy the space station.”
“I suppose, although it would be dangerous.”

“Sir, the Alamo fleet is maneuvering to attack us again.”
“Why?” asked the Lao admiral. “It’s suicide.”
“A dozen cruisers appear to be fleeing the battle. They’re spread out, so we’ll have to take them one by one.”
“Destroy all but one of them. Send out bombers. Leave the one that escapes badly damaged.”
The commander nodded. Survivors would spread fear. “Are you sure we shouldn’t try to kill the crew just after they’ve made their testimony? Perhaps let just a warp courier with a garbled message escape?”
“Yes, yes. Sensible.”
“What of the attacking ships?”
“Destroy all of them. Battleships first.”

Domination raced toward the space station. The rest of the fleet, excepting the escape ships, followed.
“Are we in range?” Brag asked.
“Not yet.”
Brag realized with a sinking feeling that the attack was doomed to fail. The ships would never be able to get close enough to use rams, and anything less, with the exception of nuclear arms, wouldn’t be able to destroy the station. And although each warship had nuclear warheads on board, they were designed for use against ground troops. The missiles could not fly in space.
The cruiser on his starboard flank was hit in the bridge by a well-aimed ram, which exploded. The space station rotated, bringing the weapon to bear on Domination.
There was a flash. A projectile tore through Domination’s hull like a bullet through cardboard.
No one survived.

“Captain Lowe, the admiral’s battleship has been destroyed!”
The captain of the Alamo battleship Supreme glanced up in disbelief.
“Pull into defensive formation,” he ordered. “We’ll need to initiate a fighting retreat.”
The retreat turned into a rout. Most of the other ships had followed Captain Lowe’s orders, but not all of them recognized his legitimacy as fleet commander. A few ships continued their attack on the station, but it was hopeless. Each was torn to pieces by the projectiles.
Several other ships tried to flee. These were in turn devastated by bombers. None reached the edge of the interdictor field without being destroyed.
Lowe’s fleet was crushed by the time they reached the moon. Almost every ship had been crippled, and the few remaining cruisers crash-landed on the lunar surface. The survivors built an underground base, where they took shelter from Lao bombers. Completely isolated and without access to supplies, they tried to set up agriculture and communications systems. Although they were able to begin cultivation of crops from the ships’ horticultural stores, communications were completely impossible.
The escape ships that had been sent out earlier had already been destroyed by bombers and long-range missiles. Of two dozen deployed warp couriers (small preprogrammed drones with a powerful warp drive and data storage for messages), only three reached the edge of the interdictor field and successfully fled. They had been intentionally spared by Lao interceptors.

The first warp courier got to the forward command center within seconds, an asteroid base located in the Riolio system. Riolio was a Saolian system, but its position near the front lines made it the ideal location for a space base, and the Saolian insistence on neutrality kept them from militarily intervening.
“Commander Roufe, a warp carrier has arrived with a message.”
“Let’s see it.”
The message typed itself out on the screen.
RIOLIO BASE COMMAND:
THIS IS CRUISER CONFEDERATE FROM ADMIRAL BRAG’S BATTLEFLEET. THE ENTIRETY OF THE ARMADA HAS BEEN DESTROYED OR CRIPPLED. THE LAO HAVE QUICK-SWITCH INTERDICTOR FIELDS AND ADJACENT SPACE WARP DRIVES. NEW TACTICS HAVE LED TO THE DEATH OF ADMIRAL BRAG, COMMANDER SCALES, AND MOST OF OUR CAPTAINS. IT IS UNLIKELY THAT ANY SHIPS WILL ESCAPE THIS DEBACLE.
THE LAO ALSO HAVE A NEW WEAPON- A RAILGUN OF UNPRECEDENTED POWER AND DEADLINESS. IT IS CURRENTLY LOCATED IN ORBIT OF THE FINAL PLANET OF THE SHENZHI SYSTEM.
INFORM ALL COMMANDERS OF THIS INFORMATION IMMEDIATELY.
Silence reigned for several seconds.
“Damn! Brag and Scales both dead?” Commander Roufe swore. “And the entire forward attack fleet destroyed? The front lines moved past Shenzhi?”
“We’ve lost contact with the hidden outpost at Taipo as well, sir. Brag’s fleet was on its way to reinforce the forces we have there so that we could begin our final push to Ruhan.”
“And now they’ve destroyed the reinforcing fleet for Taipo, presumably annihilated our fleet there as well, and retaken Shenzhi,” Roufe said bluntly. “Send out a courier.”

The second courier made it to the Alamo military headquarters, located underground on Birmus-3. A frozen and uninhabitable desert wasteland, Birmus-3 had been deemed optimal for the most important military center in all of Alam.
General Iwar Groves sat in the center of the operations floor, watching the hustle around him. A commander strode up. “General Groves, a warp courier has arrived.”
“Display the message on Screen A,” Groves ordered. The massive screen switched from displaying a combat map of the Lao-Alam War to display the same message that had alarmed Commander Roufe.
“My God!” Groves exclaimed when it was finished. “Cartography, mark that information immediately!”
“Yes, sir,” a lieutenant said, fiddling with a computer. The battle map appeared again, updated with the new information.
Groves stared at it, worried. “Brag dead, all our forces beyond Shenzi destroyed or destroyed, and the situation on Tezas not improving… Promote our base commander at Riolio to admiral. The situation has quickly changed. We’ll need to use all of our leverage, everywhere, to regain the advantage.”

The third courier headed straight to the intelligence building on Birmus-2. Major Roan received it and read the message in his office silently.
After sending off a nanocourier to the office of the Lord Governor, Roan sat in his office and thought about the agents in Ruhan. Their mission had become much more important.