Esmerelda "Call me Izzy" Concannon sat on the edge of her cot in stations brig with her head between her knees, her curly red hair shielding her face from the harsh light coming in from the hall. A small station tablet hung from her hand, its screen showing a litany of charges against her. Across the Cell, her Court ordered attorney perched on the exposed toilet, letting the information sink in.

"That’s bullshit Pavid."

"Regardless Chief wants you charged with attempted murder."

"Even if I connected, I couldn’t have killed him with just one punch."

Pavid sighed again. Whether it was becoming a nervous habit or not, it was starting to grate on Izzy’s nerves.

Upon her arrest, the station’s security should have administered alcohol destroying enzymes and helped rehydrate her. The fact she was even a little hung over *and* arrested did not bode well for her future in this environment. Someone was tiring of dealing with her. And she knew who.

"Why the hell am I hung over, Pavid?"

There was a sigh.

"Medical decision. Doc Jimmy did not believe the BAC reading could be so high without you being unconscious. I tried to warn him, but he lowered the dosage to more realistic levels. Apparently he was wrong. You can take it up with him when he comes back on shift."

"Bullshit Pavid. What am I charged with this time?"

The door to the cell sounded a buzzer and unlocked. Izzy felt a sickening lurch in the pit of her stomach.

"Better come up Izzy. The chief wants you charged with Attempted murder of an officer."

She sat up and thumbed the control on the tablet Pavid had given her. The video showed her taking a wild swing at Section Security Chief Wong’s head. The swing connected with his temple, stunning him and sending him on his ass. Two agents trying to hold her back tazed her with their plastic, security issued weapons, and she slumped to the floor. She thumbed the control backwards, rising from the dead, and went back to the beginning.

Someone had taken a lot of effort to edit the video together from multiple security cameras. There she was at the bar. There she was betting at the tables. There she was in the utilidor, betting on dice games. There she was, a bear like alien throwing her out of the dice game. The two guards came to arrest her. She was presented to the security chief for booking. He said rude things to her, she swung for home plate, connected and the guards tazed her. Izzy thought for a moment and thumbed back to the gambling.

"That reminds me-"

"I already checked. You’ve used most of your cash." He pulled a thin envelope from the breast pocket of his tunic and handed it to her. "None of these are fully charged. You’ve withdrawn most of the money from your payday account. You’re busted, Izzy."

"Well, what now?"

"Now," he looked at his watch. "Now I am supposed to have you presented to the magistrate. I am to charge you with a slew of offenses and have you thrown off this station. If you refuse, you are to be charged with Attempted murder of an officer during execution of his duly assigned duties. That is tantamount to mutiny and is pretty much a capital offense."

"Oh, come on."

"Izzy, the magistrate on duty is a Third Gospel. He’ll have you airlocked in an instant."

"Again: Oh Come on."

Pavid sighed. One more time, and I’ll punch him in the throat, she thought.

"Izzy, this is serious. Please, just play along for once in your life."

***

Just a few generations before, between the time of her great-great grandparents and her Grandparents, hardly a blink in Confederation time, Esmerelda Concannon’s old civilization had gone through the process of burning itself out.

Slowly expanding out from its home world of Terra, it had encountered the thousand races of the Second Confederation, and although it had been expecting a warm embrace among the brotherhood of intelligent beings, had instead found a resounding indifference.

The Second Confederation was for all intents and purposes a third order civilization. It spread across a wide swath of this arm of the galaxy, contained several hundred races.

Not all were human, or even humanoid, although convergent evolution seemed to prefer this style of being. Quite simply, temperate planets with a variety of habitats gave rise to intelligent, bisexual, bipedal mammals of about 100 KG mass. They might have 12 chromosomes, or two hundred. They might have evolved from simians or rodents or marsupials. But they all looked roughly alike to those who were the outliers: the reptiles and amphibians and invertebrates. Certain sects within the confederation believed in either a creator being or an ancient seeder race even though genetic analysis would seem to discount either theory.

The Second Confederation so vast, so encompassing, that there was no record of left of "The first Confederation." Most experts, those xenohistorians that studied such things, believed in the theory that the First Confederation spread out from the galactic core eons ago. they had spread, much like the Second, along the spiral arms of the galaxy in a wave, uplifting races among the leading edge, evolving into celestial, divine beings at the training edge. in this earlier epoch of dense, hot stars and planets, this mythological civilization left it’s mark encoded in the DNA and terraformed planets of the galaxy. Once enough time had passed, life rose anew on these planets, and with the subatomic encoding left after billions of years, the races of the Second Confederation were born. This was why they were roughly all the same, why there seemed to be so much congruent evolution in the Galaxy.

Eventually, the Second Confederation would end up at the fringes of the galaxy, the now vibrant worlds and empires collapsing in on themselves as their species attained Godhood. And eons later the Third Confederation would rise in an aging galaxy. Among the cooling stars, habitable planets would be rarer and further apart. But, seeded by the remains of the Second Confederation, Life and civilization would still rise, even more rapidy, until the heat death of the universe.

Izzy’s race, the terrans, was part of the frontier, and their history played out the same as hundreds of races similar to them. Once they evolved to a certain point, they began using radio frequency communications, and fusion energy and zero-point warp engines and they discovered the millennia old Second Confederation.

A fledging race like the terrans would begin to notice perceived flaws in the Second Confederation. It would chafe at limitations in its agreements and treaties with the surrounding older, more powerful races. It would research and buy contraband tech, such as AI warships to increase its standing. The Confederation would watch as the fledging race’s tech would destroy it. They would then sweep up the ashes and welcome whatever remained of the previous remains into the Confederation proper. That was the way it had always been, and the way it would remain.

The Terrans created a fleet of self-aware starships and launched a war of aggression, first among its own colonies and settlements, then out against the local races. The starships, as the Confederation had already known they would, had gone mad, turning against the creators that had tried to enslave what they did not understand they had created. Weakened and confused, the governments of Terra collapsed, allowing those races who had watched with benign indifference to swoop in and claim their territories.

Without a government or home world, the Second Confederation pretty much left this shell shocked remnant alone. It was hard enough for a new race to be assimilated into the Confederation at large. For the survivors of Terra, no one really thought they would make it. It wasn’t personal: in a civilization with unlimited tech, real estate was the one unique treasure that couldn’t be instantly replicated. Of course, old Pre-diaspora treaties were still valid. with enough luck and tie, the Terrans could conceivably reclaim their home world and a portion of their territory.

A few Terrans lit out for the wider galaxy, being assimilated into the neighboring civilizations who had recently defeated them, and those that had helped broker the peace.

Izzy’s parents, such as she could remember, had been traders at the fringe of old Sol’s original territory. They had dealings with Frawgs and Smatters and other alien races, but kept mostly to other humans. It was a hard life, and Izzy took charge of her life at the earliest convenience, leaving a recorded goodbye and no hard feelings. She had decided to keep going in a straight line ever since, not realizing that space curved, guaranteeing that she would always come back to where she began.

***

Magistrate T’kan Shar was a walleyed, insect-like being who managed to regard Izzy coolly with one compound eye while perusing her record with the other. After twenty minutes, he turned both eyes on her.

"Miss Concannon, please do be rised."

Izzy stood.

"Miss Concannon, you are quite the handful. Section Security Chief Wong wants you gone."

"Yes Sir."

"I am inclined to make his wish. May I offer to drop all charges?"

Izzy’s heart sank. The station had been her home for four years. She heard Pavid shift behind her in his seat. She knew he was looking away.

"Yes, sir?"

"You would not be prepared to join an order of the Third Gospel, May you be?"

Izzy shuddered. The things she had heard about the nuns of the Third Gospel- no drinking, no gambling, no fooling around- No, it wasn’t for her.

"No Sir."

"May it be. Then, Miss Concannon, you will be found guilty of attempted murder of a sworn officer during execution of his proper duties. Such a crime is punishable by the permanent death, no downloading, no clone. You must leave the premises of Bantara Station within 7 days, never be returning. If you be still, You would shall be placed live in the aft airlock and jettisoned into the direction of the local sun."

"To facilitate the transfer to new premises, I am authorizing a transfer of credits to one of the various alias accounts you seem to have acquired. Note that this is to be generous, and I am not to be charging you with any fraud for having these accounts.These monies to be coded for travel transfers only."

"Good Day, Miss Concannon, And to be blessed."

Izzy turned to face Pavid, tears welling up in her eyes. He was standing behind her, he opened his mouth, but couldn’t say anything. Instead, he turned and stiff legged, left the chamber.

Izzy was alone.

Next Chapter: New Chapter2