I looked down on the planet from the bridge of the Orphan of Earth, one of the last things he managed to save from the pirates four years ago, the family battleship, bought fresh from Kassadari shipyards on my graduation. I made a satisfied sigh, six years, six bloody years since that day which left me an orphan and the CEO of Livesey Industries, with only a small fleet and a planet whose colonisation wasn't even completed, and look now, I not only reconstructed the company, but I also made it even bigger than it was before.
"Hope you're seeing this from Heaven, dad, maybe you can take some time off from the choir of saints to see this" I said as I poured wine I brought from Byzantium, the Imperium can make some fine wine whenever they aren't trying to emulate the worst excesses of the Domain, well, them and Tri Tachyon. A hiss from the door behind me prevented me from drinking further, I smiled as a blond little girl and a brown-haired boy came out, with an apologetic Aurorian officer entering with a bit of shame.
"Sorry, admiral, they came running and the crew just wouldn't listen to me".
"It's okay, Phobos, I was gonna see them anyways" I left my glass of wine in the table and crouched down to give the two running kids a hug.
"Big brother!" exclaimed the little girl.
"Therese, Mikey, I'm glad to see you too, how did school go?" I asked them.
"It was great, Miss Shanon gave us all good grades and we attended the end of year party, Mikey was first in the karate class, and Mister Johnson made mass at the fields".
"Mmh, good to know, but here comes the important question, you haven't made any trouble for mister Jove while I was out, did you?" my siblings shook their heads, I hope they were telling the truth, Jove is usually too focussed on managing New Eire to even notice the rascals of my siblings pulling pranks on his staff, but right now I wouldn't worry about that, I just wanna go back home, spend time with Mikey and Therese and my officers and take a nap before going through the mountains of paperwork and executive orders that Jove and the other admins didn't have the authority to execute.
"Martin?" asked Therese, with some hopeful eyes, "they just made Explorator 2, can we go and see it?" Mikey nodded too, ever the shy guy, that kid is, yes, just what I was looking for, a reason to spend time with them.
"Phoebe, tell my officers I accept going to the bar with them, but it will be at 9pm standard time at the usual place, you know the drill by now, organize the guard rotation, activate the defence systems of my estate, all that stuff, when all of that is done, consider the next two weeks as shore leave, I'll expect you back her when those two weeks pass" the blue haired Aurorian made her people's salute, putting her right fist on her left pectoral.
"Yes, sir, thank you, sir".
And so began the rest of the day, to give some context, I landed on New Eire's capital, New Derrey, with New Eire being itself the capital of the Rim Combine, formerly Livesey Industries, proudly claiming about five planets and three stations in the galactic south, some five light years away from Opuntia. New Eire was famous for being essentially the breadbasket of the southern Persean Sector, not only having enough food for the rest of the Combine but also enough to export to the Aurorians, the Hegemony and the Luddic Church, this made the Combine, that is, me, a third party between the Aurorians and the rest of the Persean Sector, a position which I used to broker an alliance between myself and the pact between the Luddic Church and the Hegemony, this in turn had the unfortunate effect of bringing the Diktat and the Imperium closer, with Tri Tachyon forming a third pact with the Persean League and the Star Federation.
Beginnings of an interstellar cold war aside, this made my world open to investment from all over the sector, as I was the only one whom the Aurorians trusted enough to invest on, being a good friend to many of their government figures. That and the fact that my world was open to any outside investment, with certain regulations, made it so all kinds of companies could set up shop here, trying to escape competition from the well established megacorps in the Core Worlds, hence the new movie I'm going to watch, which was made by a Diktat media company formed by a guy that used to be a former minister of Propaganda in Sindria, his movies, detailing the adventures of a Sindrian explorer in the Rim, was surprisingly good, even Aurorians liked it enough to allow it to retransmit in their worlds. The sequel was just as good, I don't regret spending the measly 500 credits for the tickets, I especially liked how the explorer crashed the AI battle station into a nearby moon, it was a bit of nonsense, an AI battle station doesn't have an interior that big, only a few rooms to house the AI core and what it needs, but the rest was solid.
On the way out of the Holotheater in the center of the city a Luddic procession was taking place, apparently it was the patron saint of one of the cathedrals in the city, not for my my church though, so with my siblings grabbing my hand, after seeing the icons and statues of the saints and that of Ludd Himself, we took a detour through the Aurorian quarters, stopping for an ice cream treat for me and my siblings and sitting in a bank to eat it as we watched the city life in the quarters of blue spires, constrasting with the blocky and industrial arcologies of the Hegemony and Sindrian quarters and the rustic look of Luddite buildings, despite implying that New Eire is multicultural, I never really took any effort into integrating the different ethnicities and ideological elements it had, the Luddites had their quarters, the Sindrians theirs, the Hegs theirs, everyone preferred it that way, including myself and Jove. Speaking off, just as I was enjoying my treat I received a call from him in my Tri pad, I accepted it and saw the shaved, bronze-coloured face and professional expression of a middle aged Sindrian.
"Sir? I just received the news from Madam Phobos that you arrived".
"Good afternoon to you too, Jen" I replied with a grin "I hope you haven't had a lot of work since I was out doing errands for the Academy, or had any problems with Therese and Mikey" the man shook his head.
"Not at all your siblings simply wanted to visit me in work, I had them play with some of the guards. As for the gates, while the news of the gates having been reopened are the talk of the dock and the schematics of the Janus Device are being copied by everyone from the poorest captain to Andrada himself, nobody had made use of them as of yet, I have however made several proposals on how to prepare for this, as we have a gate in our inner system, but they need reviewing" I sighed.
"Yeah, yeah, you need me there to review them, I also need to be in the next meeting" I then remembered, and put my hand on my face "the meeting between the admins, that's gonna take five days at the least, all those orders, proposals and paperwork, plus all the audiences from all the ambassadors from Aurorians to Perseans and Feds, ooooh man, that's gonna be a headache and a half at the very least, at least tell me they are all arriving, last time we had to wait days for everyone to arrive"
"I sent the message five days in advance, the courier ships should be arriving tomorrow, pirate raids and pather 'tithe' fleets notwithstanding" I sighed for the nth time, this time relieved.
"Good, because if I have to wait five more days, they will receive more than just an earful of my screaming".
"Sir, its not their fault that obstacles can happen on their way to New Eire" complained Jove in his monotone voice
"I know, I know, but it wasn't just bad luck, they ran straight into a storm, anyone in the Combine knows that wherever you are going isn't worth the days you will have to spend repairing all the ships, ugh, screw it, whatever happens, happens. Anything else you wanna say?" I asked the man with the eternal poker face.
"Yes, I have a list of pather terorrists, Sindrian spies, Persean and Tri tachyon operatives and many other operatives from all over the Sector" I frowned, I have a policy of shoot on sight for pathers and pirates, but not just me, everyone else has that policy, even the Luddic Church does public executions for pathers for their callous radicalism and for the pirates because across the sector they are seen as subhuman garbage full of hate that take what they cant make, nobody sheds a tear when they are vented, as for the operatives, generally.
"Kill the pathers, visit the rest on their homes, if they are Sindrian, TT or Perseans, lock them up and confiscate everything they have, if they are from allied polities give them the option to either be sent back to their home polities or be locked up for subversive activities, but remember, there has to be a trial for the operatives, don't want Phillip to complain about executing innocent Diktat citizens, the gall of that old hypocrite"
"Yes sir"
"I will come to the office tomorrow first thing in the morning, be sure to have everything prepared by then, Jen"
"Yes sir, good afternoon"
"Later"
With the orders to arrest subversives done, I proceeded to continue my way to my house, we got out of the Aurorian quarters and took a taxi out of New Derry, straight to my estate, the driver was rather surprised at seeing the Prefect of the Combine in his taxi, I gave the good lad a generous tip and stood out to look at my estate, a three story house built in the venerable neoclassical fashion, a well maintained garden, guards in powered combat armour wielding gauss guns or even pulse lasers, security drones patrolling the perimeter around the estate, I could even see a few of the butlers and maids, formerly contracted by my parents, entering and exiting the house, we were welcomed by a silver haired thirty nine year old maid, Dorothy, the head maid, to be exact, my dad liked to live as an aristocrat and after having getting not only the old company back on track but also developing New Eire I decided it was time to go back to Kassadar and contract all the old maids and butlers of my family, plus a few new ones, Therese and Mikey absolutely adored Dorothy, proved by the fact that when they saw her the ran straight to her arms, the maid though, didn't let the professionalism slide, even while being hugged in the waist by two kids.
"Welcome back, mister Martin" she greeted.
"Good to be back, Dorothy, any trouble while I was out?"
"None that you need to concern yourself with" she replied, pushing her glasses up, "just the odd operative trying to get state secrets" I felt a vein on my forehead get bigger at the mention of the word operative.
"Then I hope you dealt with it nice and quietly".
"Of course, mister Martin"
"Good, then let's get inside".
"Shall I prepare dinner?" I grinned.
"Yes please, I'm tired of eating rations, time for some real meat for once".
I got real meat for once, not the lab grown garbage sold on stations, I had eaten that for months and it was time for me to enjoy real, earth grown food for once, I almost cried when I tasted the rare beef made for me, I had been eating rations for six months and almost forgot the taste of anything besides it, alcohol, cheap coffee and water. In any case I went to sleep in my bedroom/home office, enjoying the feel of bedsheets on my skin and the fresh breeze of Eire's summer night as I slept with the windows open and enjoyed my sleep before facing the farrago waiting for me the next day.
I would have woken up to the sound of birds, gotten prepared to leave for the city, kissed my sibling's goodbye and left for the Prefectural Hall in New Derry to deal with all the backlog of work in my absence, atleast that's what would have happened had it not been due to what I was right now experiencing, it was pitch black at first and then someone spoke.
"It was all my fault".
I beg your pardon?
"My actions, my decisions led up to this".
Sorry, what?
The vision of a silver haired woman poiting a gun at me flashed before my eyes.
"It had to come to this to realize all of you were right all along".
I then saw a bloodstained woman wearing a white suit sitting in a tram in the sunset.
Right about what?
"Forgive me for being bold, but I must ask for your help".
I should have told her no, that I had my own responsibilities to deal with, that I didn't even know her, I simply couldn't, there are far too many people who need me where I am, and yet for some reason all of my instincts were screaming at me not.
"Livesey-sensei, you and everyone else will forget these words but it doesn't matter, even without your memories, I fully believe you would have made the same decisions as before, same goes for Johnson-sensei and everyone else, there are choices only adults can make".
More images of girls I didn't know flashed in my mind, yet despite not knowing who they were, I felt a sense of familiarity.
"I've spoken of responsibility before, I didn't understand it then, but I do now, adulthood, responsibility, obligation… and the choices you make that extend beyond those ideals, I even understand their implications".
Did you really? If you did then you would leave me where I was, the Sector is about to implode in a war bigger than the Second AI war, I must be there, that was what I wanted to say but I couldn't bring myself to say it.
"Therefore Sensei… You are among the only ones I can trust, only you all can free us from this twisted, distorted fate and find the choices that will bring us a new reality. So, Sensei, please"
No, no, no, no, I can't go just yet, I have too many things to do, if I leave now people will think I will die, Jove is my successor until Therese can take care of things, but I can't leave yet, my disappearance can trigger a war! That was what I wanted to say and yet I can't say I would have refused, so all I could do was wait for whatever adventure this lady wanted me to go through when another voice interrupted me.
"Wake up"
The voice was less pleasant, almost sounding like a younger Dorothy berating me for sleeping in, please don't let me be a child again?
"Wake up, Sensei"
Sensei? Is that old Japanese, like how Tri Tach speaks?
"Sensei!"
I suddenly woke up and sat up, if only so that whoever was berating me stopped, light greeted me, coming from what I hoped was Asterion, the star of New Eire, but I didn't have time to confirm it by myself since the Allmighty decided to confirm it for me in the form of a black haired, or blue haired depending on where I looked either in the inside or the outside of her hair, woman with pointy ears, a white suit and a face similar to how Jove would look like if I screwed up a stack of paperwork, exasperated.
"You fell asleep after I asked you to wait for the other Sensei's, please, gather yourself and focus"
I couldn't focus on what she just said because I was taking in a lot of things at once, one, it was immediately clear that I was not anywhere near Auroria, or Eire or anywhere in the Persean Sector, two, my bedroom was nowhere to be found and three, the woman infront of me had a halo like an angel.
"Eeeh?" I replied as dignified as I could.