PrincessColumbia

  From: Cmd. D. Somni’els, Matron’s Aerie

  To: Miss Atri’el’s Junior Fliers css

  Hello girls!

  It’s been very busy on the station, but Katrina has been keeping me on task so I don’t forget to write to you.

  Which brings me to Shofa’s question from the st batch of letters; no, I don’t personally direct all the things that happen on my station. It’s the size of a small city, I’d be one busy woman if I was personally in charge of all that! I have friends and crew to help me run things. I’ve mentioned Russe and Norma, the two human friends I made when I first took ownership of the station, they help me with the big decisions and Norma is great with people. If you don’t remember who they are, I attached a video of them pying a prank on me...which I knew they were doing because of my sense of smell. Humans can’t smell as well as we can, so they didn’t know I could scent them before they even got close to me, not to mention the bucket they were carrying. That’s two more humans that won’t be underestimating a Daughter of Mortan. ? But we can py around like that because we’re good friends that have each other’s back when it’s important.

  And Kymni, because you all consider me an honorary member of your css, I’ll be honest with you about your question, but you all need to keep this secret, because there’s mean people that like to pretend that private things are public. But we’re all sisters, right? And sisters keep an eye out for each other and share secrets because they know they can trust each other. I am dating the human woman the news reports are talking about. And she’s a good example of a human that shouldn’t be underestimated. She’s always catching me off guard and pying games and teasing me, but she does it in a way that makes me feel special and appreciated. When you’re old enough, and don’t be in too much of a hurry to be old enough, you’ll find someone who makes you feel special like Caitlynn makes me feel special, then you can py games and tease each other like Caitlynn and I do.

  I’ve added everyone’s art to the walls of the Ops building on my station and attached pictures of it hanging where everyone can see my honorary cssmate’s artwork. A few members of my crew decided to photobomb the pictures; in your next letters I want you to tell me who thought was the funniest photobomber on the station.

  I have to get going, so I’m sorry that I have to wrap this up. Please keep sending me your letters and art and gifts. Don’t tell the others on Mortan, but your care packages are always my favorite to open.

  Hearts and Hugs,

  Diane

  “‘Hearts and hugs’?” inquired Caitlynn. While Diane couldn’t see her girlfriend’s face owing to the other pyer reading the message over her shoulder, she could tell from the tone of Caitlynn’s voice she had the slightly knowing smirk she always got when she thought Diane was being particurly cute.

  Not that Diane was ever ‘cute,’ it was impossible for her to be such.

  “It’s how the girls in the css sign their letters. It’s cute, no reason not to reciprocate.” Diane refused to turn her head to look at Caitlynn because she could feel her cheeks turning red. She’d never hear the end of it if she let on that she was letting the conversation get to her. Even if it was making her feel good and tingly in all the right ways.

  Caitlynn leaned forward enough to kiss Diane on the cheek, and she felt her cheeks heat up even more because there was no way her blush had been missed. “Oh, it is adorable, just like my sweet dragon-girl.”

  Diane whined, “I’m vicious and scary and not to be underestimated!”

  Caitlynn gave that chuckle that could start Diane’s engine all on its own, “Your tongue is not to be underestimated, I don’t think I’ve ever cum quite so hard as I do when you’re inside me with that thing.”

  Diane actually said, “Meep!” and felt everything from her shoulders get hot from the blood rushing to her face. What was I doing? Tongue? No, words! I was writing words! “Ah-buh...uh...um...words!” She did her best to tune out her mean-meanie girlfriend’s giggling and turned her attention back to the holographic screen. She reviewed the text four times before her brain registered something other than the memories of the things the pair of them had gotten up to. Once she was satisfied with what she’d written, she tapped the ‘send’ button on the holographic controls and swiped the screen away.

  “Do you really have to go?” asked Diane as she turned her chair to face her still-standing girlfriend, “You could just send the Arachne’s Web out. You said yourself that Joslyne is doing pretty well as a captain...”

  “She’s doing well for milk runs, not for contract negotiations and logistical challenges,” expined Caitlynn as she straddled Diane’s p in the chair, “The job is to help kick-start a colony, and that’s never a fast or easy thing.”

  Diane returned a deliberate pout, “But what if Morvucks go into heat or something?” She found herself struggling to not giggle along with Caitlynn at this btantly made-up reason to ignore Caitlynn’s in-game responsibilities, “I have needs, you don’t want to unleash a dangerous, biologically unhinged dragon-woman on an unsuspecting station, do you?”

  Caitlynn kissed Diane on the forehead, “Didn’t we have the conversation about being exclusive? As in, we’re not?” The words were said with a smile, but the meaning was serious. “I know Norma is in a simir arrangement with Russe and she’s told us both she’s interested in you like that.”

  Diane grimaced, “I mean, sure, they’re computer programs, I might as well be using a sex toy, but I still don’t get how you’re not...you know, jealous or something.”

  In the wake of dealing with Hardy Coxand, the conversation about their retionship status had opened up an unexpected line of inquiry for Diane. After an extremely aerobic marathon session of lovemaking in Diane’s cabin on the way back to her station, Diane had finally broached the question, “Are we girlfriends?” Caitlynn had giggled and expined she did, indeed, want Diane to be one of her girlfriends.

  Plural.

  This completely failed to compute for Diane, nearly causing her to have a panic attack when she tried to figure out how such a nice, sweet woman like Caitlynn could be so awful as to cheat on anyone, and then nearly had a meltdown at the thought of being “the other woman.” She sure hoped that, on logging out in...however many IRL days was left, she would be able to look back on the incident and ugh at the notion that a guy was worried about being “the other woman.” As it was, recalling that moment was absolutely embarrassing.

  Caitlynn had sat Diane down and patiently (almost superhumanly so) expined what polyamory was and why it was not, in fact, cheating. More than once during the conversation Diane had almost blurted out, rather akin to a toddler, “But that’s a sin!” before reminding herself that, no, Caitlynn wasn’t a member of the church, she was queer anyway, and Diane was part and parcel to the same grade of sin and didn’t feel at all sinful about her retionship and activities with her girlfriend.

  “Diane, I like you a lot, enough to care if my seeing other women hurts you. I cannot and will not hurt them by leaving them just to be your girlfriend, so please don’t insult me or them by asking me to,” Caitlynn said in what Diane was learning to recognize as her ‘teacher’ voice.

  Diane decided the teacher voice was warranted given how much like a confused child she sounded, “...but, isn’t it cheating? Like, you’re sleeping around on them...”

  “No, darling girl,” Diane blushed at the feminine appeltion and reddened further when Caitlynn gently brushed Diane’s cheek, “They’re all aware I’m in an open retionship with them and some of them have even met each other and become friends. Some haven’t and a couple don’t even get along. Some of them have boyfriends and girlfriends in their own polycule. It’s only cheating if everyone involved doesn’t know it’s happening. I’m gd you brought up the question yourself, because I was going to have to talk to you before I logged out next anyway.”

  Diane took a deep breath, “...why? I mean, I guess I’m gd, but why would you talk to me about this at all? I’m just someone you slept with in a game, I’m not...well, I wasn’t actually your girlfriend. If I hadn’t asked about it you could have just slept with me and left and I’d never have known better.” A hurt she wasn’t sure how to deal with was leaching into her voice as she spoke she hadn’t realized she was feeling.

  Caitlynn took Diane’s hands in her own and smiled sadly, “Because of what you’re feeling, darling girl. A fling? A quick hop in the sheets after a nice dinner? That’s one thing, but once feelings start happening? Once someone does something like giving someone a ship? Just because? That’s when things have gotten serious.” Diane blushed and realized that it had been her who had escated their retionship without realizing it. Caitlynn continued, “So, yes, I’d love to be your girlfriend if you’ll have me. If you’re willing to at least try out being a part of my polycule, then we’ll be girlfriends and we can update our social media.”

  “I...don’t have social media accounts,” Diane confessed, “Too easy to hack and too much misinformation.”

  Caitlynn chuckled, “And the church speaks out against their use, right?”

  Diane nodded, the feeling like she was practically a child next to Caitlynn persisting in spite of them being about the same age IRL.

  Upon return to the station, they had docked Coxand’s ship opposite the new Eclipse css ship that Diane had gifted to Caitlynn, who had wasted no time in naming it Arachne’s Web and promoting her first officer to captain the ship. Since the Sappho’s Voyage was still a few days out, Caitlynn rode aboard her new ship in her capacity as commodore to finish the delivery that had been hijacked. Arachne’s Web was back in less than a week, and the Sappho’s Voyage was docked and nearly repaired. They had spent the next week or so settling in as cohabitating girlfriends. Diane had finally gotten to spend some time aboard the Sappho’s Voyage, being given a guided tour by Caitlynn ending in the captain’s quarters where they properly ‘blessed’ the bed. Diane’s quarters on the station were by far the more spacious of the two, so Caitlynn usually slept in Diane’s bed while she was on the station. Caitlynn had even gone so far as to update her fleet’s registration (and she was so excited to be able to say she was now a fleet commander that it made Diane smile just watching her girlfriend gush about it) to be homed at Matron’s Aerie. This had the knock-on effect of setting her fallback spawn point to the station, as well. If Caitlynn’s fleet was ever destroyed, she’d respawn in Diane’s quarters.

  Diane’s sense of timeless joy, the feeling of everything being just right and that the gaxy was in a holding pattern that seemed to be custom designed to keep her in a state of contentment, couldn’t st of course. Even in a game designed around enjoyment, things still happened that pulled people in different directions. The evening prior, Caitlynn received a message that was the opening overtures to a contract that promised to be very lucrative via the Merchant Marine’s private message boards. Caitlynn really had no reason to turn it down and every reason to take it, so Diane knew it would be the height of selfishness to want her girlfriend to stay on her station forever and ignore any jobs that came down the pipe.

  It didn’t stop her from fantasizing about it, but she at least acknowledged it was selfish.

  Diane reached up and grabbed Caitlynn’s jacket pels and tugged her fully human girlfriend down, ciming her mouth with a kiss, sneaking her tongue a couple inches deeper than usual, earning a pleased moan. She sighed as they parted, “I just don’t want this to end.”

  Caitlynn brushed a strand of hair out of Diane’s face, “‘This’?”

  “The...‘domestic’ thing we’ve been doing. It’s been...” She suddenly felt like she ran out of words.

  Caitlynn kissed the center of Diane’s forehead tenderly, “You’ve been happy the st few weeks, something I almost didn’t expect was possible when we met.” Diane flinched back a little in the chair, her eyes widening in surprise. Caitlynn nodded, “Even your Katrina has noticed you’ve got some demons hidden up here,” she tapped Diane’s forehead, “Please take care of yourself, even if all that means is you talk to someone, even one of the NPCs in the game.”

  Diane sighed, her eyes dropping to stare at a point in space somewhere between both of their navels.

  “And if you don’t,” threatened Caitlynn with a smile, “I’m telling Norma you called her a sex toy.”

  Diane’s eye went wide, “Don’t you dare!”

  Coxand’s dead body netted her twice as much as the rest of the pirate crew combined. She was quite sure that even if she hadn’t come riding in to rescue Caitlynn that the bounty would have guaranteed his reign of terror would have been extremely short no matter what.

  The construction of the scrapyard turned out to be a surprising boon to ship construction.

  Completed four days after Caitlynn left on the Sappho’s Voyage, Diane immediately tasked the scrapyard with getting rid of the abomination of construction she’d hauled back from the battle. There was a surprising amount of supplies, materials, resources, and tech that was pulled from the thing. While it would be a while before they had the necessary bs to really make use of a lot of it, just the raw materials harvested meant the wait time for the next ship was reduced to just a few days.

  Located adjacent to the shipyard, the scrapyard was intended for responsibly recycling ships that were constructed by the station but no longer needed as research and development (and the occasional act of diplomacy and/or espionage) allowed the station to construct bigger, faster, and more powerful ships. With the massive bulk of the eyesore that was Coxand’s ship, Diane prioritized and sped up the construction of the new facility using yet more bounty credits she was able to score.

  Shipyards produced a lot of scrap, and the scrapyard pulled double-duty with re-purposing and recycling whatever the shipyard cast off, further tightening construction schedules. As soon as the Interceptor css ship (Diane named it the Joan of Arc) was unched, work on a lightweight Explorer css ship began and was projected to be finished within two weeks.

  In the meantime, they had an interceptor ship to shake down.

  With no crisis happening, with nothing demanding they take action or scramble crew or speed up production, setting out with the Joan of Arc was a pleasantly rexed affair. Diane had selected one Jase Torray to captain the ship. Recently an ex-pat from the Terran fleet, he’d come rather highly recommended by Trephor Camran. Neither Jase nor Trephor seemed willing to discuss why Mr. Torray was no longer in the fleet, nor how the head of the Chroma Syndicate would know him, no matter how obliquely or directly Diane asked. Even Russe was reluctant to dig into it and only told Diane to trust that if Trephor recommended someone, it was as good as a signed note from God.

  They were presently two systems out from the station, having traversed the distance via FTL tunnel using their much improved drives over what had been provided with Katrina’s, ‘Welcome to the Gaxy,’ package from Earthgov. What chapped Diane’s hide was the improved drive schematics and whitepapers had also come from Earth, and the tech was, in fact, at least fifty years old based on the references in the whitepapers. The Terran Federation simply hadn’t bothered to include the more up-to-date tech in the station’s initial update pack. Katrina’s estimates for the new FTL drive speeds put the round-trip for Mortan at less than the time it’d taken the Dragon’s Daughter to reach the pnet one way.

  ‘Hate’ was a rather strong word for how Diane was feeling toward the in-game Terran Federation government, but ‘loathing’ wouldn’t be too far from the mark.

  “So, Mr. Torray,” inquired Diane from her observer’s station, “What do we think of your nice new ship?”

  The captain turned his chair to face her directly. The observer’s station was Katrina’s suggestion, added to the pns at the st minute after getting feedback from the Athena’s crew. It had dispys and readouts of all the major systems and was specifically designed for Diane’s use while she was aboard a ship she wasn’t captaining directly. While command functions would fall back to her if anything should happen to the captain or if Diane wanted to exercise command authority for whatever reasons (rank hath its privileges, after all), she did recognize that it was tailored rather well for the purpose of keeping her busy and not much else while there was a seated captain. In theory, if she was out on a ship that was part of a rger deployment of other ships she’d commissioned, then the console would operate as the fleet commander’s station, but with only three ships, one of which had become pretty much her private yacht by this point, there simply wasn’t a fleet to command. “Ma’am, I’d say it’s a pretty solid interceptor for its weight css. Pretty much the only thing we haven’t given a proper shake-down at this point is the weapons systems...”

  As though the universe were waiting for a perfect cue, an urgent beeping could be heard from the communications console. “Sir,” interjected the comms officer, “We’re picking up an emergency signal, it’s on a non-standard frequency and it’s encoded with some form of encryption. Computer is identifying the codex as a bck-suit protocol.”

  Jase frowned, “Bck-suit? What are they doing out here? We’re not even in Terran space!”

  Diane leaned forward in her seat, “You know what that means?”

  He turned back to Diane and nodded, concern etched on his face, “Bck-suit is a...generic term for bck ops things that got semi-formalized in the 23rd century, basically the only people using it were the TLA agents who traditionally wore...”

  Diane hid her flinch, “Bck suits, right. Do we have the cypher for this one?” she asked the comms officer.

  The young woman was about to speak as she started to shake her head when Jase stood from the captain’s chair and strode over to her station, “She won’t, but I happen to have access to most of the current codes and cyphers from Earthgov.”

  Diane snorted as he worked at the comms console to bring up a bunch of screens with scary bck, white, and red lettering and icons bring warnings of the dubious legality of even knowing about the codes in question that she could see across the bridge, “Let me guess; you have this as part of that reason that Camran recommended you?”

  Jase just gave her a smile that might have caused her problems if she was interested in guys. “I just happened to pick up a few things over the years, I’m sure it would bore you to tears.”

  Diane didn’t bother hiding her knowing grin as she nodded her head with a, “Mm-hm.”

  Jase maniputed the computer a bit more before the cabin speakers carried a now decoded message. “...ederation has found me! To anyone in the family, please use caution, the Terran fleet could be anywhere and may have means of tracking us. That they managed to find and ambush me could only indicate some form of subterfuge. We have no...” a rumble that sounded far too much like an explosion muted by yers of building interrupted whoever was speaking, “...we have no spies among us, and yet the Terran Federation tracked us to a pnet in Independent Space!”

  “Sir,” the nav officer said, “There’s a ship in orbit of the fourth pnet in this system that’s firing on the pnet’s surface. The st impact corresponds with the sound of the explosion on the transmission!”

  The transmission continued, “I will escape this attempt on my life, brothers and sisters, do not attempt to rescue me! You will only put yourselves at risk! I will seek you out once I’ve determined how my location was compromised. Benjamin out.”

  Jase slipped into full ‘captain’ mode, “Navigation, can we get that ship on screen?”

  The young man at navigation (Diane couldn’t remember his name) was tapping on controls as he said, “Already on it, sir,” and with a flourish the view on the main dispy was repced with a Terran fleet ship, a cruiser if Diane was guessing correctly, appeared on the screen. As they watched, a charged particle burst unched from the ship’s forward weapons array toward the surface.

  Captain Torray turned to Diane, “This is normally where we’d put a call in to the station to see what we should do about this, but...well, you’re here, so...”

  Diane nodded, “Contact the ship, we need more information. Can I guess that this isn’t standard protocol for Terran ships?”

  Jase shook his head as he took his seat and straightened his uniform, “No, ma’am. Comms, hail the Terran ship.”

  “Aye, sir,” chirped the ensign, “Hailing now...and we have a response.”

  “On screen, ensign.”

  A comms window appeared on the main viewer, picture-in-picture style, occupying about 20% of the screen with a callout pointing to the attacking ship. “This is Captain Bartlett of the USS Roadrunner, we’re rather busy, Independent, state your business or...YOU!” The man whose face occupied the comms window, the apparent Captain Bartlett, had been all business until he identified the person sitting in the captain’s chair, “Torray, I’m pcing you under arrest for aiding and abetting a fugitive!”

  Diane’s eyebrows went up, surprised at the apparent history between her captain and the captain of the Roadrunner. Jase turned to wink at her over his shoulder, a clear signal that he felt like he had this handled. “Craig, good to see you, still acting as Admiral Marcus’ attack dog?”

  Captain Bartlett grew even angrier than he already was, “Torray, you are personally responsible for ending the careers of a dozen captains and have half the admiralty being dragged through an oversight committee! Your treason will NOT go unpunished!”

  “Craig, come on, now, you came out clean from all that business. Just because half your academy css was dirty doesn’t mean you were...”

  “Fuck you, Torrey! Once I’m done with this fugitive I’m coming after you!”

  Diane cleared her throat, “Whatever your history with Mr. Torrey, you do need to expin what you’re doing in Independent space committing what amounts to an interstelr war crime.”

  “Who the fuck are you?!”

  She exchanged a look with Jase and smirked, “Independent Commander Diane Somni’els, First Found of Mortan.”

  “Oh, you,” sneered the Terran captain, “We’ve heard about you. Jumped up Lost kid thinks she runs the sector.” Even as he spoke, his ship fired on the surface again, “As far as I’m concerned, you’re commander of nothing. If you hand over Torrey, I’ll let you take your toy and go back to your station.”

  Diane set her jaw and stood, gring at the screen where Bartlett’s face hung next to his ship, “Captain Bartlett, you are firing on a pnetary surface with at least one sentient being on it, presumably targeting them. You are not in Terran space and you are committing a human rights viotion,” she was taking a guess that the human rights and rules of war that existed IRL would be adapted to the game for the setting, “If you do not desist and return to Terran space, we’ll be forced to take action.”

  Captain Bartlett simply sneered at her and cut the feed. As they watched, his ship started turning to face the Joan of Arc.

  Jase raised a bemused eyebrow at Diane, “Do we have enough information now?”

  Diane snorted lightly, “Enough to recognize a tool in a captain’s uniform. You have clearance from me to remove the obstacle and investigate. If this turns out to be a genuine threat, we’ll deal with it then, humanely,” she emphasized the word enough that nobody could question her intent, “Otherwise, sounds like we’ve got a search and rescue on our hands.”

  “You heard the dy, people,” said Jase to the bridge crew as he turned to face forward, “Tactical, get me what you can on their ship and give me an overhead of the system. We can’t take ‘em in a head to head, but we’re faster in sub-light, so let’s use it!”

  PrincessColumbia