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Leona was not happy when she found out that Miracle was going to stay in
Romana’s original body. She argued that this naturally placed her on the
team’s pattern, and gave her other temporal abilities that she was not
really supposed to have. The problem was that it wasn’t really their choice.
Body swap laws were complicated, but not too complicated. Basically,
the only way they could force Miracle out of Romana’s body would be if
Romana wanted it back. But even if Romana expressed such interest, she
couldn’t then turn around and upgrade to her new substrate right away, just
as a means to keep Miracle from the original. It would have to be a sincere
wish. Since Miracle did not ask to be cast into the wrong body, her
rights to that body were assumed unless someone else were to have a stronger
claim to it, and a legitimate one at that. Since this was now simply where
Miracle’s mind lived, it fell under my body, my choice laws, which
predated even the most nascent consciousness transference technologies by
decades.
After Ramses completed Romana’s upgrade, she immediately took herself off
the pattern, so she could spend the next year helping Miracle control her
own relationship to that pattern, and stay in real time semi-permanently.
She could always decide to start time-skipping like the rest of them, but
what would be the purpose of that? They didn’t know her; they weren’t
friends. She didn’t seem to want to be part of the team, and they kind of
had a full roster at this point. Ramses programmed his AI to look for ways
to clear Miracle of her temporal manipulation properties altogether, but
again, she would have to consent to any procedure that might make such
changes.
During the interim year, an old frenemy reached out. Korali was aware of the
team’s schedule, but timekeeping was different in the Goldilocks Corridor.
It was hard to keep track of precisely when the team was available, and when
they weren’t. So they spoke with Team Kadiar at first. “She wants a
meeting?” Leona questioned.
“She and the other claimants, which is what they are calling each
other, all want a meeting with us.”
“They haven’t killed each other yet?” Marie asked.
“They can’t really die,” Romana reasoned. “There have been a ton of loss on
all sides, which the crew of the Vellani Ambassador have been trying to put
a stop to, but...they don’t have any support.”
“They don’t have support from who?”
Dubravka stepped forward. “Let’s break this down. You got three claimants,
which are the two versions of the Oaksent, and Korali. On the other side,
you have the internal resistance, headed by the inhabitants of the penal
colony, Ex-666, which they now call Revolumus. I know, not very clever, but
they’re trying to tie themselves to the Extremus mission. That brings me to
the fifth opposing faction, which is composed of allies from Verdemus,
headed by the Anatol Klugman warship. The sixth and final faction are the
refugees, and us on the Ambassador who try to rescue them. Revolumus and
Verdemus don’t really support our efforts. They don’t exactly
want war, but they don’t think there’s any choice.”
“That sounds like a lot,” Mateo admitted, “but what does it have to do with
us? The whole reason I had you transport the old Bronach there was so he
could deal with it, and we could wipe our hands clean. The situation is far
too complicated for a small group of people who only exist one day out of
the year to make any meaningful impact.”
“You are the only people they all like,” Kivi explained.
“Why would they like us?” Mateo questioned. “I mean, Korali, I guess.
But we’ve grown apart. And the other guys? Sure, I saved one Oaksent from
death, but he doesn’t seem like the grateful type. The other version of him
definitely isn’t. He keeps trying to kill us, and we keep almost killing
him.”
“He respects you,” Dubra clarified. “You never stop fighting to fix things,
which speaks to him. Apparently, that’s how this whole thing started. That’s
why he founded the Exin Empire in the first place, to fight for his rights.”
“We don’t fight for our rights,” Olimpia contended. “We fight for
others. He doesn’t see the difference?”
“I don’t think he understands the concept of helping people,” Kivi replied.
“Look, if you don’t do this,” Dubra went on, “we’ll go back and let ‘em know
to take care of their own shit. We’re just the messengers. Hrockas is
already aware that the location of Castlebourne is out there, and is working
on his own arrangements. Our refugees will be safe, and we will keep
gathering more as long as there are more to gather. But. I would love it if
the violence stopped. It would make my job easier.”
“Debatable,” Mirage interjected. She was noncorporeal, but visible to them
via holographic projection. She was pretending to be sitting on the counter,
one of her legs propped up on the backrest of an empty chair.
“What’s that?” Leona asked.
“Ignore her,” Dubra requested.
“Go on with what you were saying,” Leona encouraged Mirage.
“There’s no such thing as a peacetime refugee. They ask us to save them
because there’s something to save them from. If you negotiate a
ceasefire—which, let’s face it, is as close as you’re gonna get to
peace—people won’t feel any impulse to escape anymore.”
“And that’s a bad thing?” Dubra spat.
“Yes,” Mirage said, raising her voice a little, and hopping off the counter.
“The Exin Empire is corrupt. The body can’t be saved. You can’t even save
the limbs. The best you can do is save the individual cells, and bring them
here.”
“That metaphor doesn’t make any sense,” Dubra argued. “Shut up.”
“What does Alt!Ramses say about this?” Mateo asked. “Is he still in control
of what Old!Bronach does?”
“He goes by Tok’ra now,” Kivi divulges.
“Like as a first name? It’s a person’s name?” Mateo asked.
“It’s his only name. It’s a mononym.”
“He does love that franchise,” Leona admitted. “He said that he appreciated
how much Egyptian culture and history played into it.”
“Where is the other Ramses?” Marie asked, looking around.
“He’s working on what he calls the Miracle Cure,” Leona answered
cryptically. It wasn’t really their place to tell the crew of the VA about
the Miracle Brighton issue.
There was a pause in the conversation.
“So, what do you say? Will you come back with us?” Dubra offered. Mirage was
technically the captain of the ship, but Dubravka had full decision-making
power over the missions, and she was apparently really adamant about that.
“Does it have to be today?” Leona asked her.
“If you go today, you’ll be waiting until tomorrow,” Mirage jumped back in.
“They’ll all wanna make you sweat.”
Leona looked back to Dubra, who closed her eyes, nodded slightly, and
shrugged even slightlier. “That tactic is not really gonna work on us. My
problem is that we don’t have enough information. We’ve received piecemeal
updates from you, but if we go back there, we need a more comprehensive
report.”
“I can write one up for you in minutes,” Mirage volunteered.
“No, you won’t, Dubra insisted. “You’ll add too much bias. We already have
reports,” she said to Leona. “The resistance fighters have their own form of
central archives, and the AK tracks everything it does, and everything it
sees. I can have an unbiased AI compile the information into something more
digestible.”
“I can do that.” Ramses was standing in the doorway. “I’ve been listening
this whole time. I trust Thistle. Feed him all your information, and he’ll
take it from there.”
“So are you all coming today, or waiting?” Dubra asked again.
“We’ll catch up with you,” Ramses told her.
“That’s a complication,” Dubra began. “You’re not allowed to come. Well, you
are allowed to be nearby, but they won’t talk to anyone on Team Matic if
you’re involved. They see it as an unfair advantage, since an alternate
version of you is on Old!Bronach’s side.”
“I don’t talk to that guy,” Ramses explained. “Tok’ra, you say?”
“It doesn’t matter what the truth is,” Mirage said. “It’s what they think.”
“How’s your work coming along?” Leona asked Ramses.
“It can wait,” Ramses claimed.
“Why don’t you stay and keep working on it?” Leona suggested. It was
probably the smart move anyway, to keep someone on the outside, protected.
They couldn’t do it all the time, since they were supposed to be a team, but
they would still have him there, just in a different form. They wondered
what he was like now. Tok’ra had been without them for years now, but he
surely wouldn’t have changed too terribly much.
“I’ll stay here too,” Olimpia proposed. “I don’t care to be around any
version of the Oaksent. I tried to kill him once, so...”
“So did Ram,” Mateo reminded them. “This is the right call. ‘Kay, buddy?”
“Yeah, that makes sense.” Ramses didn’t like being sidelined, but he
understood.
Marie hung back too. It was prudent to not leave one or two people stranded
somewhere without a full tandem sling drive array. The rest of them accepted
the Vellani Ambassador’s invitation to transport them to the Corridor, since
it left their tandem slingdrives at full capacity. The VA had to go
back there anyway.
They were now orbiting an Earth-like planet. From this viewpoint, there
appeared to be more land and less water on the surface, but that was
otherwise unremarkable. What they focused mostly on was the atmosphere,
which shone brighter. An aurora wrapped itself all around the world, dancing
with brilliant shades of turquoise and magenta.
“Don’t try to teleport down there,” Dubra warned. “This world is a fortress,
which is why it’s a perfect neutral planet. Argon is extremely rich in the
crust, and makes up about 60% of the atmosphere. It’s safe to breathe,
especially you with your advanced substrates. The locals use breathing
apparatuses to pull in oxygen, and raise the pitch of their voice to normal
standards, but they don’t require them, so you will meet people who move
slowly, and talk deeply.
“I don’t understand,” Mateo said.
“Argon is what we use in plasma shields,” Leona said. “They got domes down
there?”
“They got domes,” Dubra confirmed. “Transparent ones, though, unlike
Castlebourne. They have a real sky, so they never felt the need to fake it
with holograms.”
“As it turns out, they’ve been in revolt and independent for a long time,”
Kivi went on. “They never fought back, or tried to recruit. They just said,
leave us alone, and we’ll leave you alone. Let us develop and advance
however we see fit, and we’ll continue to ship refined plasma to you, but
at our discretion. Since the war began, they stopped shipping anything
at all, but they did agree to not provide plasma to their enemies either, so
there’s that.”
Leona chuckles quietly. “Argon is not a rare element. Sure, I bet it was
convenient to have a single, highly concentrated source of the stuff, but
they never needed this particular planet to satisfy their needs. I bet they
harvest it from lots of other worlds, and that they weren’t too butthurt to
let this one go.”
“How do we get down there?” Mateo asked.
“We’ll take The Puff!” Kivi replied excitedly. She ran off.
Dubra ran after her. “You’re not flying it!”
“Oh, yes, I am!” Kivi insisted.
The team followed them to the shuttle bay. They obviously knew this was here
the whole time, but as teleporters, never had any use for it. The Puff
looked mostly like a smaller version of the Vellani Ambassador. It was
purple, sleek, and pretty. “Wait, where’s The Tammy?” Leona asked when she
noticed the empty second docking bay.
“It’s...being borrowed,” Dubra asked, uncomfortably like it was a lie. Had
it been stolen, or something?
Leona decided not to press for more answers. They climbed into the shuttle,
and flew off down to the surface while Mirage stayed alone in orbit. Where
was Tertius? They also decided to ask probing questions about that either.
After receiving permission, they flew through the entry barrier of the
visitor dome, and landed on the pad. The welcome party consisted of only one
person. It was presumably this planet’s variation of Vitalie Crawville.
“She’s why they revolted,” Dubra explained without prompting. “They found
her stasis pod, managed to break her out, and kind of elected her as their
leader. Some may even worship her. I forgot to tell you,” she added in a
more hushed voice, “they call this planet Vitalemus.”
“Will she see us as friends?” Angela asked. “I’m getting the impression that
this secession happened quite a long time ago.”
“Oh, yes, it was centuries ago,” Dubra responded. “She is a little bit
different than the other World Caretakers. A little bit more jaded, maybe?
Serious. Hard to read. You should be fine, though.”
They stepped out of the shuttle, and approached Vitalie. She did look quite
serious. Her face wasn’t sporting a frown, but it was still a little jarring
when it suddenly turned into a smile. She reached out and took Leona in an
embrace. “Oh, how I’ve missed you, old friend. Come quick, come quick.” She
turned, and started walking away. “Let’s fuck some shit up.”
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