"Got it. I'll pass that along to the bridge. They might be able to prolong your overheating problem."
"Thanks, Benny. Knew I could count on ya."
"Roger that, Suze. Benny out."
Melissa, send a message to the CO that we're gonna be boarded in a few minutes and that the Blair is gonna be stuck in place about the same time, Benny thought as he looked over his ship through the DTM interface. Even though there was simulated damage, he was still keeping an eye on the real status of his beloved supercarrier. At least, it was still his for now. He hoped he'd have good hands to leave her in.
Roger that, Benny, his AIC replied.
Chapter 3
July 1, 2394 AD
Tau Ceti Planet Four, Moon Alpha, a.k.a. Ares
New Tharsis, Capital City of the United Separatist Republic
Friday, 7:40 AM, Earth Eastern Standard Time
Friday, 3:40 AM Madira Valley Standard Time
"The QMT facility is fully operational, Madam President." Admiral Sterling Maximillian of the United Separatist Republic Navy looked in at Elle Ahmi through the long-range quantum-membrane communication link.
Elle only halfheartedly paid the highest ranking officer in the Separatist military any mind. Just then the brilliant colors of the gas-giant planet's rings were cresting over the horizon and casting a brilliant purple and blue hue over the valley below. She looked through the partially transparent holoview and out the floor-to-ceiling windows on the other side at the beauty of the Jovian system. Moons Beta, Gamma, Epsilon, and Iota were clearly visible, although Iota had never really qualified as a moon in Elle's mind, but astronomers will be astronomers. The sunlight reflected from the gas giant onto Epsilon in just the right way so glimmers from the man-made albedo changes could be noticed. The mining facility there was growing every day, and soon they would be exporting that to the other colonies—all of them but the Sol System, of course.
"President Ahmi, ma'am?" The admiral interrupted the Separatist leader's tranquil moment.
"Max, what does the governor say?" Elle walked barefooted across to her desk and sat in her oversized leather desk chair. Other than her desk, the room held only the Martian oak four-poster bed and a formal sitting area with a modern Ares-style honey leather couch, love seat, and straight chair combination complete with area rug and coffee and end tables. The formal furniture was rarely used, as Elle was always too busy running a brand-new country, world, star system, and multigeneration-long plan to overthrow the Sol System government. Entertaining guests was something that she had little time or use for, unless it suited some part of her ingenious, intricate, and, as history has shown, murderous and bloody plans. Along those lines she had high hopes that soon, very soon, she would be hosting a foreign dignitary from Ross 128.
"He has agreed to your proposal and has promised action today. He is waffling on us a bit, though. I think he is waiting for his one last shot at Moore." Sterling paused for a second and, Elle thought, was discussing something with his AIC. "I'm having the recording of our conversation uplinked to Copernicus now."
"Waffling! Waffling! You tell that weasel slimy shit that if he even thinks about waffling on me, I will personally gut him from asshole to cerebrum while keeping him alive to watch as I eat his fucking insides! You got that?" Elle's hands trembled and her eyes widened with anger. Ross 128 was critical to her plans. She rose from her desk chair, turned, and grabbed the wooden guest's straight chair from beside her desk and beat it into the floor several times while screaming violently. "I will smash that sonofabitch! Do you fucking understand me?"
"Ma'am. Uh, I will—"
"Do you fucking understand me?" she tossed a piece of the chair's leg at the viewscreen, cracking it on one corner.
"Yes, ma'am. I'll take care of it."
"Good, Max." Her mood and personality seemed to change almost instantly to her more calm and calculated persona. "When do you snap back?"
"We are loading personnel now. It was a good R & R for my crew, but we're ready to come home. As soon as we get loaded up and our package arrives, we'll be under way."
"Good. That package is precious cargo, is of the utmost importance to our cause, and will be treated as such. You understand me? You see it to it that no harm comes to it. Personally, Max."
"Yes, ma'am."
"I mean it. Any harm comes to that package and I'll personally kill the person or persons that allowed it—after I torture, dismember, and kill their family and force them to watch. You get me?" Her fists clenched tight as she glared at her top admiral.
"Yes, ma'am. Understood."
"Good. Let me know the instant it arrives and then get it and my ship back here to New Tharsis. I feel . . . vulnerable . . . without it." Elle smiled at Sterling in a very unaffectionate way. The thinness of her lips and the deep, thoughtful stare in her eyes were more than enough to give away that she felt a piece of her plan falling into place. "Admiral, see you soon."
"Good day, ma'am."
Elle shut the holo off and exhaled softly. She pulled the red, white, and blue ski mask off her face and undid her ponytail. The long, dark locks of hair fell loose about her shoulders as she shook her head about from side to side to relieve her stressed shoulders and neck.
"Ah, that's better," she sighed and looked at the broken guest's chair scattered about. "Better get somebody up here to clean up this mess." Her desk chair creaked obtrusively as she leaned back in it. She gave herself a moment to prop her feet up on the light brown Queen Anne–style oak desk and rest her eyes. She had been plotting and scheming for so long behind that mask. And she had been isolated in her penthouse sanctum for so long. Oh, sure, she went out often to run operations or oversee projects or to show her people she was still there in person, which usually meant an execution, but since her longtime friend, co-conspirator, and father of her last child had died, she was lonely. She missed Scotty. She had loved him since the day he, Supreme Court Chief Justice Scotty P. Mueller, swore Sienna Madira into the office of president of the United States of America so many years ago. Scotty had always added a bit of humanity and morality to the plan. And then he had to go and help a damned CIA agent escape. Of course, she had been the one that had killed him. There was no other choice: she had to. So she was solely to blame for her loneliness.
Oh, Sienna Madira had had family, two daughters and a son, a multitude of grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren. Sienna Madira had long since been dead and she would never know that part of her life again. Although a small few of them, a very select few, were in on the Separatist plan and helped her subtly from within the Sol System.
But Elle Ahmi had only had the one daughter, Sehera Ahmi Moore. Sehera grew up in hiding with her mother and father during the early years of the Separatist terrorist movement. She was in her early teens during the so-called "thought police" era. Elle never thought history was fair to her for calling it that. She had only used a modern technology to find people within her fold who were disloyal to her. Of course, she had them thrown out into the Martian desert without an environment suit, but she had to protect the integrity of her terrorist-cell structure.