1

"I thought you searched him," said Bag.

"You said you searched him," replied Tink.

"Well, yeah, but I was counting on you to catch anything I missed."

"Like the blade in his boot? Or the grenade in his..."

"Don’t," Bag said with a grimace.

These two were new to the peacekeeping force. They’d been brought on as part of a right-sizing initiative. The cost of training, housing, feeding and, most of all, insuring peacekeepers kept going up. Older members of the force, who got injured more easily and took longer to recover, and whose health care coverage extended to their families, were putting too much of a strain on the defense budget. In the interest of galactic security, which is to say galactic solvency, veterans were let go and replaced by young, single recruits like Bag and Tink. And because there was a war going on, the training module was dramatically simplified and shortened. That this too saved the IP money further demonstrated the wisdom of the plan.

Bag and Tink were jogging down a corridor, headed for one of the final sections of Regulator that hadn’t been searched. The ominous words of the President still echoing in their earpieces.

"So we know what you missed," Tink said. "Was there anything you found?"

"His holster was empty. Who knew he’d be hiding stuff?"

"Right, who knew?"

"Don’t get pissy," Bag said. He unclipped a small electronic device from his belt and held it up for Tink to see. "I got his wallet, anyway."

"How much?" Tink said, perking up.

Bag tapped the device and a number appeared on the screen.

"Wow!" Tink said.

"Decent little spoil of war, huh?"

Tink couldn’t stop staring at the number.

"So we split it fifty-fifty?" Bag said. "And all’s forgiven?"

Tink blinked and looked away from the device. "I’ll take my share, sure. But none of that’s worth a damn if we don’t find--"

Bag stopped jogging and motioned for Tink to be quiet. With a quizzical look Tink did as he was bade.

Up ahead of them the corridor bent at a right angle. Pointing and gesturing, Bag indicated to Tink that whomever or whatever he’d seen had just slipped around the corner.

Moving slowly and quietly the peacekeepers flattened themselves against the wall and made their way to the corner. Bag looked at Tink and then they drew their weapons. Bag looked at Tink again and then each of them checked his weapon to be sure it was set to stun.

Bag gestured that they would go on the count of three.

He held up one finger.

He held up two fingers.

He checked his weapon again and this time it was definitely set to stun.

Tink gave Bag a look. Bag ignored it.

He held up three fingers.

The two of them sprang around the corner, weapons drawn.

"FREEZE!" Bag cried.

(That hadn’t been part of his training. He’d seen someone do it in a vid on the network.)

There in front of them stood a woman clad in gray. She appeared to be younger than Bag and Tink, perhaps still a teenager, but she exuded confidence and authority. She was staring at them quite calmly. Smiling.

"Wow," Tink said.

She was holding a rifle almost as big as herself.

"Are you the Princess?" Bag asked.

"Frakk yeah," Kia said, and then she blew them both to gooey particles.

2

Bag made a lot of noise when he yelled "FREEZE!" Kia’s weapon made even more noise as it turned Bag and Tink into chunky confetti. A squadron of peacekeepers redirected itself toward the commotion.

It was a veteran squad, battle-hardened by back-to-back-to-back rotations. Each of its dozen members had seen and done and survived terrible things in fulfillment of his or her contractual obligation to the Incorporated Planets.

It was a heavy-weapons unit, brought aboard Regulator just in case the Activists were better armed and/or more heavily armored than was expected. With its complement of wide-bore laser cannons and shoulder-launched anti-aircraft projectiles, of long-range ion mortars and tank-destroying plasma burners -- not to mention the laser rifles and ion grenades that were standard-issue for peacekeepers -- the squad was ready for whatever destructive technologies the opposition might bring to bear.

When the twelve of them caught up to the Princess, who had taken a wrong turn as she fled and had trapped herself in a dead-end corridor, it was a comically exaggerated mismatch.

She killed eleven of them before her weapon misfired and the recoil knocked her unconscious.

3

Thirty minutes later Kia came to. She was on the ship’s bridge. She was being held up, gently but firmly, by a pair of burly peacekeepers. Four other ’keepers and an IP officer had their weapons trained on her. And standing directly in front of her, gazing at her intently with his strikingly blue eyes, was Brace Pulsar.

Unintimidated, Kia stared back at him with her own, um, strikingly blue eyes.

"Mister President," she snarled. "Overstepping your authority once again. The rest of the Board will not be happy when they hear about this."

"Your outrage is as unconvincing as your cover story, Your Highness. We know you’re an Activist double agent, and we know you stole proprietary data. If you tell me where the data are--"

"I am a member of the Board of Directors," Kia said, struggling to pull free of her captors’ grips, "on a routine business trip--"

"If you won’t tell me where the data are I have no choice but to detain you. It’s a matter of galactic security."

Kia glared and squirmed and said nothing.

"Fine," Brace said. He turned to the officer and ordered, "Take her to the Presidential Suite on my ship and see to her every need."

"Yes, Mister President. You have your orders," the officer told the peacekeepers holding Kia. "You four go with them," she commanded the ’keepers with their weapons drawn.

Glaring defiantly at the President, Kia was whisked off the bridge. She kept looking at him until her neck started to hurt from being twisted so far around. "Ow!" she complained. "I’m going to need a massage!" she called as the party disappeared around a corner.

"You’ll get one!" Brace responded sternly.

Kia shouted something else but it was too faint to be heard.

"Detaining her is risky," the commander pointed out. Some people say the Board already has Activist leanings."

"I have to follow the facts, Commander, and the facts tell me she’s working against the Incorporated Planets. I’m going to discuss things with her calmly and hope she’ll tell me where to find the stolen data and the Activist base."

"With all due respect, Mister President, she’s a fanatic. She’d rather be martyred for the cause than tell you anything."

"There’s no chance of that," Brace said, but his hand went instinctively to the hilt of his laser sword, which the commander noticed, and which Brace noticed her noticing.

Yeah, it was an awkward moment.

4

The tension eased when another officer approached. He was very young, and his uniform was a little too big for him.

"Mister President, the data are nowhere to be found. If you ask me they were never on the ship."

Those blue eyes could be seen to narrow. "They absolutely were, Captain."

"Well I’m just saying I disagree."

The Commander gaped at the young officer.

"You’ve searched everywhere?" Brace asked.

"Yes."

"No uploads were made?"

"None," the captain said, very pleased with himself.

"No escape vehicles were launched?"

"No." The captain’s arrogant demeanor slipped for a fraction of a second. "Well, one. But there was nothing on it."

"Nothing?"

"A couple of first-generation androids," the young officer said dismissively. "They wouldn’t even have network access, so no upload would have been possible."

"What about manual transfer?" Brace asked.

"Manual tr-- What?"

The Commander averted her eyes.

"Back in the old days, Captain," Brace said witheringly, "before everything was networked, we sometimes transferred data between devices manually. It was slow and inefficient compared to using the network, but it had one advantage: It was undetectable over the network. So if someone on this ship, let’s say, had been in possession of stolen data, data that are absolutely vital to the security of this galaxy, and if she’d wanted to get the data off this ship without using the network, which is constantly monitored and easily configured to prevent uploads, do you think it’s possible that she might have sought out a first-generation android and transferred the data onto that and instructed it to use an escape vehicle? Do you think she might have been counting on the fact that some of us are too narrow-minded to understand that not every old technology is a useless technology? That not every transaction must be conducted over the goddamned network?"

"Um," the captain squeaked, "yes?"

"Commander," Brace said, turning away from the captain. "Send a squadron to Tanix immediately. Find those androids at all costs."

"Yes, Mister President." She was about to give the order when the President interrupted her.

"And Commander."

"Sir?"

"I want you to arrange for the captain..."

The commander steeled herself. The captain held his breath.

"...an off-site training."

"No!" the young officer pleaded. "Please, no!"

The President whirled and strode from the bridge as the captain crumpled in despair.

Next Chapter: Chapter Nine