ShipCore

USD: A few days after leaving M3 Shipworks

Location: Meltisar, MIL-1A, Concourse 32B

The bag of food threatened to collapse as Alex turned the corner. She’d snuck out to grab some kebabs and skewers, which the food stall owner had helpfully piled into soft foam containers for her. Unfortunately, the paper bags didn’t seem stable under all the weight. Worse, she thought she had seen one paparazzo staring at her while she waited in the food court.

She’d gone on her own, without telling anyone, which was a breach of protocol worse than going and getting food at what amounted to 3am in the morning on the station.

She had at least worn her civvies and kept her hood up… actually, maybe that had made her more conspicuous? As she headed around the corridor toward her and Elis’ apartment in the academy, she looked back behind her feeling a bit of relief at zero sign of pursuit.

[Warning: Unknown elements are setting up ambush at the next intersection.]

Alex felt her alarm levels shoot through the roof; they were right outside of her room, then! She did an about face and started to retreat the way she had come when her HUD lit up and displayed multiple incoming personnel.

[Warning: Unknown elements have cut off all available escape routes. Please wait while authorities and sub-cores are alerted to an ongoing situation.]

“Nameless! Why are you suddenly stupid!” Alex cursed under her breath. She pivoted, looking toward both ends of the hallway, trying to decide which way to go when men in tactical gear and equipment appeared.

She suppressed her first instinct to pull up her weapons on seeing the badges on their uniforms: Meltisar Security and International Forum of Ruling Body badges. That didn’t stop her from activating her comm and direct lining to Tia. Or for her defense field to flare up, nanites springing to life to fill the surrounding area with a buzzing blue screen.

“Tia, what is going on?” Alex hissed. The two teams didn’t seem to hesitate at the eruption of her nanite field, and that was a very bad sign to Alex, even if they were only in tactical gear and not power armor. She pulled up her feed from the station and located two exterior mounted defense turrets and hijacked them.

The station defenses wanted to resist her assertion of control, but they surrendered when she put an emphasis on command, usurping them via her NAI authority override. Her comm buzzed back and Tia’s concerned face appeared in her peripheral vision.

“What are you doing?” Tia asked.

Alex frowned. Was she blind? “There are two swat teams cornering me, Concourse 32B, around the corner from the entrance to my apartment wing at the academy.”

Tia raised an eyebrow, clearly confused. “What are you… no, you’re right, the atmospheric draw levels are too high.” Comprehension appeared on the other girl’s face and suddenly the lighting in the hallway flashed from the standard fluorescent white to flashing red.

Alex’s HUD suddenly sprang to vivid life, plastering the equipment of the tactical squads’ equipment with threat analysis and color coding them by danger levels.

[Notice: Stun weaponry is detected, however previous immunity protocols to this type of weapon’s frequency have already been integrated into Avatar defense suite.]

“Why didn’t you do this earlier?” Alex complained again.

[Informative: MainComputer-Avatar divergence metrics has increased to a high level. This unit could not detect incoming hostiles. Avatar threat level was designated low, and a low-priority lookback was assigned.]

Alex turned sideways and held up her palms toward the two groups of men. “That’s far enough.”

The hallway suddenly went silent in a standoff as they came to a halt.

“This is a pretty high priority to me,” Alex hissed at Nameless.

[Informative: A power-plant fault in infra-sector 383B of New Brisbane would have resulted in a power loss for 32 million housing units and a full loss of heating and water that could not be restored before fatalities occurred. This was a critical infrastructure priority.]

That did seem pretty important, but…

“How could you not detect them? I can literally see them through my eyeballs.”

[Notice: Avatar divergence—]

A man separated from the front group, wearing a charcoal uniform with a comical hat with a golden spike sticking out. His handlebar mustache made him look like he was from an old holovid flic. Heck, he looked like the government villain from her favorite anime holovid series.

He came to a stop at the edge of her nanite field and pulled out a datapad and cleared his throat.

Alex blinked as her eyes dropped to his IFRB badge on his chest. Maybe he was a government villain?

“Chi Alex Myers, as pursuant to government code IX#3283, I hereby serve you this warrant for your arrest for your association in the events on Dedia IV in the Nu Crateris System on the herewith contained dates, and potentially ongoing genocide of an alien species pursuant to the Octanis Accords. Furthermore, your testimony is required and compelled by the same IFRB court in conjunction with a related and ongoing case against the Corporate Systems.”

It felt like the rug had been pulled out from underneath her; for a moment she was once again back in orbit above Dedia IV, in a room full of upset leaders telling them that she was no longer offering her services on nuking their problems away. The giant mess that had been created by her single AMCN nuke on the Rexxor nest was brought forth vividly to her mind.

“Alex, I have military security teams en route. Those are real IFRB teams, updating your HUD now.” Tia chimed in her ear.

The warrant officer took another step forward but stopped to wince as he touched the nanite barrier. She hadn’t commanded it to harm him, but he pulled back his hand as if it had been stung. The officers all raised their stun rifles as he pulled out a handkerchief to wipe away the blood mixed with blue specs.

“Add resisting arrest as a secondary offense to genocide.” The man said, staring her in the eyes.

“You realize that ambushing me like this has put everyone in this section in danger? There are four PDC-K mounts highlighting your teams right now if you’d like to tell them to stand down.” Alex said flatly.

She felt her stomach sink as a slight grin appeared on the man’s face and he took a single sidestep that allowed her to see past him. Embedded inside the group of officers was a single newsie with one of their ridiculous oversized cameras pointing directly at them.

[Notice: A public broadcast has been detected, currently live to nearly ten billion receivers for the last ten minutes.]

Alex gritted her teeth. They had definitely been planning this the entire time she’d been getting her food. She wasn’t sure who she needed to strangle. Or how they had managed to bypass security with what amounted to two armed paramilitary teams, but she need to yell at them.

“If you’re holding the civilians and personnel on MIL-1A hostage, we’ll retreat, but everyone is going to know about your illegal actions and tyrann—”

Alex stepped forward, causing the man to cut off and take an involuntary step backwards. She pulled her defense field back to her, coating her back in a cloak of shimmering blue nanites, still ready to lash out at a moment’s notice. She closed the distance in a second, snatching the datapad displaying the warrant out of his hand.

Instead of looking at him, she stared into the camera. If he wanted to play the public outcry game, she’d at least do her part. “You’re the only ones who put anyone on the station at risk. By bypassing the security systems, there was no way I knew who your assault squads were; the reason there isn’t collateral damage is that I held back out of concern for everyone’s safety. You all look just like a bunch of Corpo goons who tried to kidnap me before.”

[Notice: The public broadcast has surged to nearly one-hundred billion receivers. Should this unit interrupt the video-stream?]

Alex shook her head, an expression of disappointment filling her face that warred with the anxiety of being viewed by so many people, even if the number had stopped meaning anything to her the first time. There were a lot of people watching the exchange.

The man bristled before his expression went still. He pulled out a pair of handcuffs and held them out. “Then now that you know who we are and are acting in an official capacity, you’ll have no problem putting these on.”

Alex held up her paper bag of kebabs. “I’m going back to my apartment and eating before this gets cold. Ambushing girls going out for a late-night snack should be illegal. Does your office do this often, trying to abduct young women walking home alone?”

The man sputtered at her before a glower appeared on his face. He still held the handcuffs up and out when she took another step towards the group. His hand lashed out and smacked her bag of kebabs, ripping the bag and sending the containers plummeting to scatter their contents all over the floor.

Alex’s eyes glittered with restrained menace. “Ah yes, let’s just ruin the wonderful food from Best-Kebab World out of pettiness.”

The man, perhaps realizing he was losing his narrative, backtracked, “It was a sudden reaction to you menacing me.”

“I’m menacing you?” Alex said, putting as much incredulousness into the words as possible. “You have me surrounded by twenty armed soldiers who are pointing rifles at me.”

“As you said earlier—”

She cut him off again before he could redirect to the earlier confrontation. She didn’t know the exact wording off the top of her head, but she knew where to look and began to read from the text that appeared on her HUD.

“Uniform Meltisar Code of Military Justice, UMCMJ:823:S12A: If an International Organization seeks the arrest or to detain any officer of the Meltisar Armed Forces they shall submit a request to the officer’s commanding officer, and only after military permission has been granted shall any warrant be issued pursuant to said Organization’s request. Furthermore, military police shall be present and oversee any such actions on any military facilities, property, or ships owned or operated by the Meltisar Armed Forces.”

The hall was quiet as men shifted uneasily as she recited the statute. A few of them looked at each other, but she couldn’t see their expressions underneath their solid black facemasks.

In contrast, the warrant officer’s face had turned a shade of red from rage or embarrassment. “You’re a NAI that helped with the takeover of Meltisar! You need to answer for your crimes.”

Alex raised her chin and stared at him for a second, before turning to stare into the camera. “I am a commissioned officer in the Meltisar Navy. You are on board MIL-1A, a military facility. I don’t believe you’ve spoken to my commanding officer or the academy commandant.”

Green blips began to populate her HUD as IFFs integrated with her systems and were identified as friendly personnel, all of them quickly converging on their position.

“But I think the military police are going to be here in a few seconds,” she finished.

The warrant officer looked at the cameraman and make a hand motion indicating to kill the video feed.

The newsie looked at him like he was crazy. “Hell no, this is gold!”

The cameraman’s refusal to shut down the live feed was the final note of the officer’s humiliation, which brought a grim sort of satisfaction. The first of the military security personnel rounded the corner, their gray-and-gold power armor contrasting sharply with the charcoal tactical gear of the IFRB officers. Their weapons were holstered, but their hands weren’t far from them.

The warrant officer seemed to shrink slightly, his eyes darting between the camera, the security personnel, and Alex. The smug authority had been drained from his face, leaving a bitter man who’d been outplayed and was now caught in the harsh glare of billions of eyes.

The leading military officer, a gruff man with the insignia of a lieutenant on his uniform, approached Alex first, saluting smartly. “Apologies for the delay, Chi Myers,” he said, glancing over her shoulder at the IFRB squad.

“Your arrival is timely, Lieutenant,” Alex replied, giving the man a nod of respect. She turned to the camera, maintaining the same composed demeanor she had kept throughout the confrontation.

“If you’ve been watching this broadcast, I would like you all to know that I’m cooperating with the proper military authorities. I believe in the rule of law, and I will always stand up for justice, no matter what.” She looked pointedly at the warrant officer. “Even when others try to twist it to fit their agenda.”

Returning her gaze to the camera, she added, “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to figure out what to do with my food scattered all over the ground.”

She sent a mental order to Nameless, and the live feed was cut out suddenly. The station’s emergency lighting finally flickered off and back to normal.

She turned and walked away, leaving the IFRB officers to the arriving military personnel, which began to argue about jurisdiction in earnest.

For a moment, Alex allowed herself to breathe deeply. Nameless was still rattling off statistics and reports on how the video was being received in the background, but she silenced him with a quick mental command. She was tired, hungry, and her kebabs were ruined.

As she stepped into the sanctuary of her apartment, she let out a long sigh. The memories of her first days on Ackman Station came back to her, and instead of an officer candidate, she felt more like an actor who had just left the stage after an exhausting performance.

A notification chimed from her comm. It was a message from Tia, “There is a representative from Best-Kebab World calling wanting to thank you for the advertising and offering to replace your meal.”

A small smile crept up on Alex’s face. Tia knew exactly how to cheer her up. Despite the ambush, the datapad warrant she still hadn’t read, and the ruined dinner, at least she had good friends. And more kebabs on the way.