It was becoming an eventful day, Vanser thought.

To be fair, ever since Tau Ceti, every day was an eventful day. But even as eventful days went, this one was notable. Carva Lagvul had pulled him into his office about two hours before, and asked him if he would be interested in succeeding him as Imperii. Not today, or tomorrow – though Vanser knew that Carva had been eying the door for about a year, he also knew the Praetor Imperii couldn’t leave right now, and what’s more, wouldn’t leave before he was sure they were ready to move on without him.

But the Praetor Imperii was 66 Imperial years old, and had been ready to retire back in 2124, when Solis had pulled his stunt on Titan. Instead, he’d accepted promotion, knowing it would mean committing to at least a few years more. He’d eventually figured out an order of succession that worked – Kremor Fasobi had been even more ready to retire back in ’24, and he had been planning to bow out on the first of 2128, with Aerti Bass moving into his position as head of the Exploration Corps, and then, in 2129, Bass would have moved to Navarchos Imperii. Carva, Kremor, and Vanser had all been happy with it, and though Aerti would have grumbled, he would have done a frakking amazing job.

And because Aerti deserved that billet, he didn’t live to take it. He had sacrificed himself at Tau Ceti, and now they were staring down a war they had just begun to figure out, and the simple succession plan was out the window. And Lagvul was seriously considering whether to turn the Imperii position over to an Imperator for the first time in 127 years – in the middle of a war.

Vanser knew why Imperators didn’t end up Imperiis. He had spent his career fighting crime, bringing people to justice who had violated the laws. He knew troop movements and fleet formations because he’d studied it back in the academy, not because he’d been doing the job for decades. The job of the Imperator was about law enforcement, not war.

Well…that was half of an Imperator’s job. The other half, the less advertised half, was to gather intelligence from a myriad of sources, to try to figure out what was going on both inside and outside the Empire. Space was huge and complex, even the tiny sliver of the Milky Way that they occupied. His job – all of their jobs – was to make sense of it. Vanser understood intelligence, but it was not his job to put troops in place to act on it.

(There were other parts of that half of the job that were even less-well-known, and which occupied a very gray area in the law; Vanser had avoided that service, though he knew Rixie had been engaged in it at least once, back when she was in the corps. He didn’t envy her. She’d told him about it, what she could, and he’d looked up the mission when he got high enough up in rank to do so. She had done the job with amazing precision and effectiveness, so much so that he wished she’d stuck around – they could use someone with that skill set. But he didn’t blame her. No matter how justified, wetwork took a toll on the spirit.)

At any rate, it was the second half of the job that had him in his office, waiting on two more people. The first arrived at near a sprint, despite the fact that he was in no shape for it. Vanser didn’t blame him, not at all.

“Ambassador, sit down,” he said, as the corpulent man entered the office. “I’ll get you a drink.”

Joseu Kronu took a couple quick gulps of air, before asking, “Is it Mpola?”

Vanser poured a glass of Royal Berry juice, and handed it to the Ambassador to the Hive. “43-Mu,” he said, with a smile.

Kronu let out a big sigh of relief. “Thank the Emperor,” he said, sitting down. “I’d begun to wonder…it’s been months….”

Vanser walked behind the desk and sat down. “Trust me, Ambassador…every single one of us wants Krator-Imperator Vidol back home.”

“Krator-Imperator. You promoted her?”

“Gorram right I did,” Vanser said. “Not that we’ve had a chance to tell her, or Johkanan and Embassy-Guard. All three of them are okay. Holed up in the bunker at the embassy, according to the limited data they’ve sent.”

There was a buzz on Vanser’s pad. “Sir, we are being contacted by the Aertimus Bass, signal lock Gimmel.”

“Right on time. Send it to the viewscreen,” Vanser said. “Captain Gwenn, good to see you. How’s the Aerti Bass treating you?”

Lauryna leaned back in the chair of her ready room. “It’s a helluva ship, sir. Not that it doesn’t have a mind of its own sometimes, but I expected it would. Also, hello, Ambassador Kronu. It’s good to see you.”

“I didn’t know you knew the Ambassador,” Vanser said.

“I met him back when the Gyfjon was on a diplomatic mission to the Hive. Doubt you remember me, I was a two-square.”

“I do. I’m more surprised you remember me,” Kronu said. “I was a junior diplomat at the time.”

“You spoke Mantid. I respected that,” Lauryna said. “And I’m sorry about your wife, Ambassador. Far too much loss all around, but leaving her behind…that must have been awful.”

“It was…but not for the reasons you might think,” the Ambassador said.

“Oh?”

“Krator-Imperator Vidol and the others remained on Hive Prime on my orders,” Vanser said. “Mpola was the head of our intelligence organization on Hive Prime, coordinating closely with the Ambassador.”

“I see,” Lauryna said. “So her having to stay behind in a rear-guard action….”

“It wasn’t quite as romantic as they make it sound on the news,” Kronu said. “Though that doesn’t mean it wasn’t amazing. She’s as brave as they come. And while she wasn’t staying just to make sure I got out alive…she made sure we all got out alive.”

“We’ve been radio-silence since the battle,” Vanser said. “You saw the outcome of the Battle of GJ 666. Things in the Hive are chaotic at best. It has been difficult for our people on Hive Prime to get a message out; they’ve been trying not to become a target and they lost their primary signal antenna – and repairing it would draw attention. We hadn’t given up hope, but we were starting to worry. Fortunately, this morning, they got a data packet out to us.”

“All safe?” Lauryna asked.

“All safe.”

“Good. What intel do they have?”

Vanser smiled. “They can’t send most of it – they have to send in status codes. What we’ve received so far indicates that Hive Prime is stabilizing somewhat after a period of conflict. However, that is not in the interests of our detachment there. If Hive Prime is becoming more organized, they will inevitably spend more time pulling the Embassy apart. Krator-Imperator Vidol signals that they have rations for another month, but she doubts they can hold out if the bunker is located and the bugs decide to try to open it.”

Lauryna nodded. “The Aerti Bass is at your disposal, sir. If you’re telling me this, I assume you want us to run the evac.”

“Prescient as always. The Bass has the best cloak in the fleet, at least in theory, and while it’s a big ship…well, if hostilities break out, I want a captain who knows how to shoot her way out of trouble. I know, you’re still in shakedown….”

“We’ve done enough shakedown,” Lauryna said. “We’ll shake it down on the way.”

“I bet you will. However, I don’t want you just flying into orbit and dropping a shuttle,” Vanser said. “We need to know what we’re looking at before we try a smash and grab. Stealth is the watchword here.”

Lauryna smiled. “Well, well. Are we finally getting our Acolytes?”

“Half a wing, to start, but the good news is that will include six, nine, and twelve. You’ll be rendezvousing with them at Titan Station, then continuing on to Hive Prime. Once the mission is complete, the Bass will be formally commissioned and assigned to Gama Fleet under Navarchos Tam’s command.”

“Excellent,” Lauryna said. “I see you’ve sent through the formal orders, thank you, sir. And Ambassador, we’ll get your wife home, and just as important, I suspect…we’ll get the intel home, too.”

“With all due respect to the Ambassador, that’s more important,” Vanser said. “We need to know how bad the fracture in the Hive is. The information that Krator-Imperator Vidol has….”

“It could save thousands of lives. Maybe millions. Personally, I want my wife home, but Mpola would agree with Praetor-Imperator Nix here. We’re fighting a war. I’ve studied Insectoids my entire career, Captain Gwenn. You speak Mantid, so you have some understanding of how they think, and what’s more, you’ve seen what kind of depravity they’re capable of.”

“I have. Tau Ceti was awful.”

“It was, but you’ve seen more than that. I was thinking of the incident with the Dunnermac roe, back in, what, ’05 or thereabouts. And don’t look surprised, believe me, that got us looking at them with the right perspective. I’m impressed you remember me, Captain, but you should know that I made a point of meeting you. Someone who could bluff warriors into thinking they were on their side…I wanted to meet you in person.”

“I’m…I was just doing what I could, Ambassador. Without the help of Captain Ibanez, Navarchos Bass, Navarchos Tam…I never could have succeeded alone.”

“None of us succeed alone, but none of them would have succeeded without you, and they knew it. You understood the Insectoids at a deep level, even before excellent officers like Navarchos Bass and Navarchos Tam figured it out. And I’ve followed your work since; you understand them almost as well as I do.”

“Ambassador,” Lauryna said, with just the hint of a smile, “I doubt anyone understands them as well as you do.”

“My wife does. And she knows, and I know, and you know – the Insectoids can do great things, and they are not the mindless automatons of the popular imagination. There is something deeper there, something that I have hoped, in my role, to reach – to deal with, directly, in a way that actually managed to get them to understand us, and help us understand them. But whatever their merits, when they decide to take something, they will leave oceans of blood in their wake. They must be stopped.”

“Gorram right,” Lauryna said.

“So say we all,” Vanser said.

* * *

“She’s a beauty, Captain. No question.”

“Thank you, General. But I’m not sure about calling the Aerti Bass a ‘she.’”

“I’m one of the few left,” Ted said with a grin. “Most of the younger officers have gone along with you guys, and I get it, but still…this ship isn’t an it. Maybe a he. But there’s a soul here. Of course, that comes from command.”

“You can give Lauryna your compliments in a little bit, sir,” Izzy said. “As for the facilities….”

“Better than I’d expected. Of course, on a ship this size, you’ve got room.”

“True,” Izzy said. “Incidentally, has the Empire shared the specs on the new carrier class they want to build?”

Ted laughed out loud. “Always gotta be bigger, don’t you? This ship is ludicrous. 24 clicks long for a dreadnought, even factoring scale, is insanity. But 120 clicks bow-to-stern? I mean, I’d think you guys were compensating for something, but you really, really don’t need to.”

“I am human, you know,” Izzy said.

“Yeah, and you’re an Imperial officer. And you know I’m right.”

Izzy shot Ted a sly smile. “Didn’t say you weren’t. But then…the Faederon VI class carrier is designed to be a deep-space-attack hub. It’s not so much a ship as a mobile space station. We’ve taken one star system, and they rolled over for us, they won’t keep doing that. If we have to blockade them….”

“No, I get it. I’m just impressed that they think they can get ‘em up and running in an Imperial year. And depressed that we’ll still just be ramping up attacks in an Imperial year.”

“Amen to that, General.”

A young officer nodded to Izzy. “Captain Ibanez, Titan Station reports the wing is en route.”

Ted checked his gool chronometer. “Right on time,” he said. “Not that I’d expect anything less.”

“All right,” Izzy said, rising and looking over the control room. “We’ve drilled this enough, kids, it’s showtime. Crewmate Zopaal?”

“Aye, ma’am. Acolyte Nine, this is the Aertimus Bass. We have you on our scanners, prepare to follow the beacon in, single-file.”

The comms crackled to life. “Aertimus Bass, this is Acolyte Nine. We are coming in single-file in this order: Nine, Twelve, Twenty-Six, Twenty-Two, Twenty-Four, Six. Ten-second separation.”

“Affirm, Acolyte Nine. Ten-second separation. Flight crew, stand by, landing sequence begins in sixty seconds on my mark…mark.”

The six Acolytes – three battle-scarred, three pristine – entered the landing bay at precise ten-second intervals, and each slowed and followed markers to their berths. Within moments of touching down, ground crews surrounded each, securing landing gear,

“A well-oiled machine, Izzy,” Ted said, with a nod, watching the operation via monitor. “Titan Station wouldn’t run it any smoother.”

“Don’t say it too loud, they’ll get cocky,” Izzy said with a broad smile.

“Nah, they’ve got you to rein them in. So, ready to meet your CAG?”

“Aye, General. I’ve heard nothing but good.”

“She’s phenomenal, though she has her quirks,” Ted said.

“Don’t we all,” Izzy replied.

* * *

She was a long way from home. Not the farthest she had ever been, but still, a long, long way.

She tried to ignore it, but she felt it in her bones.

The call back to the rock.

The Anoɉa creation myth says that the people were born from the rock. That the rock was afraid of the people who coveted its bounty. And so the rock created its own people, formed from its clay, to defend it. And they had, for as long as memory existed. They had chased off maculate creatures in boats, who sought the fish that lived off the sandy beach. They had chased off great flying beasts that hovered in the sky. They had kept the rock safe, and secure. And the rock had provided. The rock was a part of them, and they were a part of it, and so it would always be.

She knew intellectually that it was superstition that made her feel this. She had studied science and mathematics; she had walked on four different worlds. She knew that humans had been crafted by evolution from apes, that the forbearers of the Anoɉa had likely reached North Sentinel Island from the Andaman Islands, which had been colonized by people from the Indian subcontinent. Some of them had stayed in the Andamans, some had gone on to Australia and Oceania; her ancestors had sailed to the west, and found the rock – found it maybe 3,000 years ago, or perhaps 30,000, nobody was sure. What was sure was that they had clung to their rock fiercely, keeping to their ways long after the rest of the peoples of the world had joined together.

The day had come when they had chosen to do the same, and it had not been easy, and their ways were changing, despite every attempt to hold them still. A daughter of the rock flew above the sky, commanded a metal beast far more advanced than the helicopters her ancestors had brandished spears at. She was good at it, and she was proud of her skill, and she was proud that her actions had allowed her to defend humans on Tau Ceti, and humans on Earth, and her family on North Sentinel Island.

But still…she was a long, long way from home.

“Engines to zero, we are clear, ma’am.”

Ahek Uɉa blinked, and focused on where she was now, and what she was doing. Focus on the task at hand, and dream when the time for dreaming comes…and not before.

“Roger that, Major Ranatunga. Bass Flight, Acolyte Nine clear.”

“Affirm, Acolyte Nine. You’re clear to disembark.”

“Sachi, Aram, we are clear, open hatches and disembark,” Ahek said by rote. The only thing different than usual was that the crew fixing ladders were wearing Imperial deck coveralls, rather than Terran or Avalonian ones; that said, she recognized at least two members of the ground crew from Tau Ceti, and nodded to both. She straightened her flight suit, and saluted as the door to the shuttlebay opened.

“Uɉa, Ahek, Colonel, reporting arrival of Wing Two, Captain Ibanez,” she said, in crisp Archavian.

“Affirm, Colonel. Welcome aboard,” Izzy replied.

“Sitrep?” Ted asked.

“All Acolytes are in perfect working condition, General,” she said.

“I expect them to remain so, Ahek,” Ted replied with a grin.

“We’ll do our best, sir,” Ahek replied, as the other pilots, gunners, and engineers filed in behind her.

“I’m sure you will,” Ted said. He looked over the men and women on the deck, and nodded his approval. “Attention to orders,” he said. “I am hereby transferring command of the Second Acolyte Wing to Capt. Isabel Ibanez, Human Forces Coordinator, Imperial Starship Aertimus H. Bass. You now represent Earth to the Empire. Do us proud.”

“Sir yes sir!” came the unanimous reply from the deck.

“They’re all yours, captain,” Ted said, with a curt nod to Izzy.

Ibanez took a step forward, and began a slow loop around the new officers, of a kind that soldiers reporting to new billets had been subjected to since roughly the time of the Punic wars. “This ship,” she said, “Is the Aerti Bass. Can anyone tell me who it’s named for? You, there.”

The young gunner from Acolyte Twenty-Two, Hercule Desrochers, swallowed hard; he hadn’t volunteered. But of course, he knew; they all knew.

“Navarchos Bass, ma’am. One of the heroes of the Battle of Tau Ceti, ma’am.”

“That is both correct and incomplete, Mr. Desroches,” Izzy said, continuing her pacing. “Aertimus Bass was a hero, that is certain. But not just for his actions at Tau Ceti. Aertimus Bass was my first commanding officer in the Imperial Fleet, and as fine a man as I have ever had the privilege to serve. This ship bears his name, which means this is the finest gorram ship in the entire gorram universe. You will treat it that way, from now until the day you transfer to your next post. Understood?”

“Ma’am, yes ma’am!” the group shouted in unison.

“Good. General Martínez has spoken highly of this group, and I trust General Martínez. I expect you to be equal to his praise of you, because I would be awfully gorram disappointed if I had to go back to him and tell him he was wrong – and I don’t even want to think about how disappointed he’d be. Understood?”

“Ma’am, yes ma’am!”

Izzy completed her circuit, and walked back to the CAAG. Her strict demeanor washed away, as she looked Ahek Uɉa dead in the eye.

“This is the first time I’m meeting most of you,” she said. “But I know that there are some of you who are my brothers and sisters. Some of you who were there with us at Tau Ceti. And I know what you managed to accomplish.”

She looked the group over, and nodded. “I expect a hell of a lot from you, but you’d best believe it’s because I know what you’re capable of. I’ve seen it. I will demand excellence, as will your CAAG. But that’s only because you have been so much better than excellent; we will not allow you to get by with merely being good enough.

“Welcome aboard the Aertimus Bass. Mr. Zopaal?”

A young officer who’d been standing behind her stepped forward. “Aye, ma’am?”

“Take these officers to their quarters. We’ll give ‘em the tour in one hour.”

The young man saluted. “Aye aye, ma’am. This way, please.”

As the officers filed off the deck, Ted finally gave in and laughed. “Captain Ibanez, if I didn’t know better I’d say you were enjoying command.”

“It’s mostly from having been an ops officer,” Izzy said. “Too hard on ‘em?”

“No such thing,” Ted replied. “Thought you went a bit easy, myself.”

Izzy chuckled. “Getting soft in my old age, sir. Sure you don’t want to stay, take one of these out?”

“Don’t tempt me, Iz; you get a chance to fly one, you take it, it’s…well, it’s not the absolute most fun you can have, but it’s awfully damn close.”

“I’m not a good enough pilot,” Izzy said, shaking her head. “Besides, we both get to do that most fun thing you can do, it works out okay.”

“Fortune favors the bold,” Ted replied with a grin. He then sobered, came to attention, and saluted. “Permission to disembark, Captain.”

“Granted, General,” Izzy said, returning the salute.

Ted started toward his shuttle, but paused. “I’d ask you to promise to bring them back in one piece, but….”

“…but none of us get to make that promise anymore,” Izzy said. “I will promise, General, that if we don’t…it will mean something, gorram it.”

“You don’t have to promise that, Captain. I know Captain Gwenn, and I know you. There is nobody I’d rather have officers serving under, including myself. Good hunting,” he said, reaching out a hand.

Izzy started to grab for his wrist, but stopped herself, and grabbed his hand instead. “Oh, absolutely. We’re looking forward to it, sir.”