Tales From the Terran Republic

Chapter 130: Interview With a Sheloran and Sometimes Better Isn't Better

"Now go to your room and think about what you did!" Sheila shouted down the hallway at Jessie.

Muttering obscenities under her breath, Sheila walked back to the table where Sheloran was sitting.

Sheloran cowered behind Eno and clutched his arm.

"Ok, I can maybe buy learning tech from video games… maybe," she said. "But don't tell me that you learned how to fight from them."

"But I did!" Sheloran squeaked.

"Keep bullshitting me, and you go right out of the airlock," Sheila growled. "I don't have time for this shit. Where did you get your training? You a Fed?"

"No!" Sheloran squealed. "I just play video games! I swear! Great Prophet, you have to believe me!"

"Froggy, a LOT of people play video games. They have for over a thousand years. In all of that time, NOBODY suddenly became a badass because of it."

"Actually, that's incorrect," Bunny's voice said over the intercom. "There have been multiple cases where people learned combat skills using commercial entertainment media as their primary training source. In fact, a lot of Moray pilots during the great war were able to qualify using-"

"And how many of those actually survived?"

"… Not many..." Bunny replied, "But that doesn't mean that it's completely impossible."

"Ok, Miss hands-out-weapons-manuals," Sheila replied, "Review the footage we have on Sheloran here and tell me that our little blue friend got that from Princess Kiwi's Grand Adventure."

"I LOVE that game!" Sheloran enthused, forgetting herself for a moment.

"Me too!" Lorna exclaimed. "Who's your favorite character?"

"Kitty-Kitty!" Sheloran replied with a big smile.

"Really?" Lorna asked, "But she's so-"

"Seriously?" Sheila said as she glared at Lorna, who fell silent.

***

Gloria silently slid into real space without the fake engine signature she had been emitting and tuned her gravitic receiver to a band reserved for the system's mining industry.

Among the various digital signals coordinating semi-automated mining platforms and drone ships was an encrypted data stream detailing real-time positions of all ships in the system.

You had to love Bunny's friends.

She smiled. After chasing her across the system, the Navy was strung across half the system with a sizeable force searching the vicinity of a large Red Phoenix refueling and repair center that was completely legit and of no interest to her.

Among the list of ships moving through the system, there were several that had their names highlighted in red, targets.

She glanced over at the timer she had projected inside her helmet and smirked. They would have shown up by now if they detected her.

Gloria got out of her chair and stretched, took a pee, and grabbed a cup of instant noodles, the good real-wheat Martian ones from Hab-23.

As she sat at a small fold-out table, she pulled out a tablet and examined the ships in detail.

On one of them was Bloodlord Luk, "The Cleaver", a lovely fellow and one of Hu's original cadre.

"Let's see what your baby-eating ass is up to," she muttered as she set down her chopsticks and pulled up the latest intel.

"Oh, you naughty boy," she smiled. Bunny was bad enough. Twenty Bunnys meant that Patricia couldn't pee without her getting a soundtrack. If the intercepted communications were correct, Luk was to deliver a significant amount of money to a contact on Terra, where it would be used as "gifts" for a number of conspirators.

"Trouble in paradise?" she asked herself.

Using chopsticks, she grabbed another mouthful of spicy goodness as she noted his current position, Red Phoenix Holdings Data Center 3.

It wasn't on the list. Now, why would he be there? Cash withdrawal?

She pulled up the data center.

"Records archive..." she muttered. Yep. Cash withdrawal from a hidden cache, no doubt. Only four employees on-site?

That was acceptable collateral damage if she was wrong.

She didn't plan on taking down any stations on this sortee, but she did have those slam-loaded thirty kiloton missiles...

She started planning the jumps. First, she would make a stealthy one back into where the Navy thought she was. Then, she would make another one from the fake signature out so they don't catch on to the gag. Then there would be another noisy one away from the data center, and then two more where she is "trying to lose them". Finally, a nice big (and very slow) interstellar one so she could catch some zzz's during the trip. She decided to make that one noisy too to let the poor guys hunting her take a break.

While the numbers were crunching, Gloria went to the small fridge and retrieved a cold, unwrapped bixburger and a can of Steel Fizz, Mars's favorite non-alcoholic beverage.

***

"No, really!" Sheloran squeaked, "I have no idea how I took out the Harkeen, and I have no clue about the guns I made! All I know is that I got really mad, and my eyes started hurting, and the next thing I clearly remember is being on the shuttle to Tartarus. I mean, I know what I did but… I… I..." Sheloran said miserably as she looked down.

"Something came over you," Sheila said with a faint sneer, "Riiiiiight."

"I know it sounds strange," Sheloran said, still looking down, "but weird stuff has been happening to me. I can't explain it. It's just… weird."

Sheloran seemed to crumple a little. Eno put his arm around her supportively. She looked up and smiled a little.

"It all started when I started playing Submerged."

Everyone in the room looked at each other.

"Did you just say Submerged?" Bunny asked.

Sheloran nodded. "It makes me feel funny, but I can't stop playing it."

"Are you talking about 'Submerged, Nautical Survival', or are you talking about 'Submerged, Hidden Treasures'?" Bunny asked with an odd tone of voice.

"Hidden Treasures," Sheloran said quietly.

"Ohhhhhh shit," Bunny said.

"That's impossible!" Sheila exclaimed. "That game is gone!"

"The only thing ever censored by the Republic," Jacob added.

"(Snerk) You mean the only thing you know about," Jessie giggled.

"Well, that might explain a few things," Sheila said. "Where the fuck did you get ahold of that poison, and please don't tell me that you are distributing it."

"Someone at the Grey Spire invited me to play, said that 'it was made for me'. It's weird.", she added thoughtfully, "I kind of think it was… And I'm not distributing it! If I do they-"

"The Grey Spire?!?" Jessie squealed. "You can get to the Grey Spire?!?"

"I'm going to regret this," Sheila said, "but what the fuck is The Grey Spire," she said, mimicking Jessie's gushing voice.

"Only hacker nirvana!" Jessie exclaimed, beside herself, "It's a secret old school bulletin board, chat room, and FTP site hidden somewhere in the dark web. Even we can't find it! It's where the Leets play! It's supposed to be the motherload!"

"And you can get there while Jessie and Bunny can't," Sheila said, narrowing her eyes suspiciously at Sheloran, who hid behind Eno to get away from Sheila's gaze. "Now THAT you definitely did NOT get from a video game. Spill. Now."

"I have a database," Sheloran squeaked. "It had its location key in there."

"Location key?" Sheila asked.

"The really good sites don't have a permanent location," Jessie bubbled over the speaker, "they skitter and crawl around, their addresses always changing. Even if you find them once, without that key, you will get booted in a nano-second and never find them again! You have to have a crawler script, not only a crawler script but the right crawler set the exact right way, and even with all that, you still have to have a current location key, and those keys are copied from Imperial credits! Even we can't crack that! The only, and I mean only way to get in is to have a key!"

"Hmm," Sheila said after a few seconds. "And you just happen to have a database with that key? Now how did you get that?"

"I'm not supposed to say," Sheloran replied, still hiding behind Eno. "I promised."

"She got it from Republic Intelligence," Bunny announced. "probably right around the time she got out of jail the last time. They were involved in her case, and her little business mysteriously took off after that. She started showing up on all sorts of boards around that time, setting up her little' completely legal' media business, undermining all of the honest, hard-working media pirates out there."

"Why the Hell would Republic Intelligence be interested in that little squeak if she is as 'innocent' as she makes herself out to be?"

"She moves a hell of a lot more than games and movies," Bunny replied.

"Really, now?" Sheila asked.

"Yep, she also does a brisk trade in banned books, censored documentaries, and subversive media of all types. It comprises over twenty-five percent of her business. You get them from The Grey Spire, don't you?"

"Sometimes," Sheloran replied. "I get them from all sorts of places."

"Oh, so you ARE a criminal," Sheila smiled.

"No!" Sheloran squeaked, "most of that stuff is public domain, or any copyrights are Federation only. It's completely legit! Besides, the creators WANT their stuff getting out there! I am NOT a criminal… not exactly..." she added in a small voice.

"Mmm-hmm," Sheila replied in a dubious tone of voice. "So you have a Republic Intel connection."

"Not really," Sheloran replied, "I haven't even talked to them since they gave me the database."

"Which they gave you out of the goodness of their hearts, I suppose."

"They mentioned 'helping each other out'," Sheloran replied. "Yeah, I'm still waiting for that particular fly to land in my teacup," she grumbled. "It's not like I had a choice! You wind up sitting in a locked car with an agent, and let's see you pooping say no… Besides… they had my money."

"Well, a girl has gotta get paid," Sheila smirked. "How much?"

"One hundred thousand," Sheloran squeaked, "plus all of the seized media."

"Damn, froggy," Sheila smiled. "So, it was piss off Republic Intel and not get paid or play ball, huh?"

Sheloran nodded.

***

Gloria took a dose of shatter just before she eased back into real space.

Passive sensors showed a shitload of corvettes prowling about. They were still looking for her.

She cracked her fingers before returning them to the controls.

Once she made a noisy jump to the data center, they would be on her ass like chili oil on noodles.

A flashing icon indicated that her capacitor banks were fully charged, and her drive was still in the green.

"Ok, here we go," she whispered as she selected Sheloran's special missiles, weakened her cloak, and hit jump.

***

"So what was the big deal about 'Submerged' anyway?" Lorna asked. "All I know was that it made people crazy."

"It was the last game created by Garith Thornton, one of the greatest game designers ever," Jessie said over the speaker. "He kept saying that it was designed to 'unlock latent abilities that are deeply buried within us all' or something like that. Everyone thought that it was just marketing hype to prop up what was, according to reviewers, a disappointing MMO. Garith kept saying that was because it wasn't 'fully online' during beta. Nobody believed him until release day. People completely lost their shit. They would refuse to log off, even dying right where they sat. Others went completely bugshit. A lot of them are still in the loony bin today. Some people died when they jumped off of buildings claiming that they could fly or drowned because they tried to breathe water. Others went berserk and went on killing sprees. It was pretty bad. Thousands were affected."

Oh, poop.

"He wasn't arrested because he didn't break any laws," Jessie continued, "but he was grilled during the emergency Parliament session where they passed the amendment to censor the game. He was accused of making it overly addictive, and he insisted that he was trying to 'help' humanity achieve what it was capable of'. Well, the amendment passed by a landslide, and when it did, he freaked out and screamed that we were condemning not only ourselves but the entire galaxy. They had to stun him because he charged the Prime Minister with a tablet stylus. He went down in a hail of stunner bolts, and it took all of them to bring him down."

"Then what happened?" Sheloran asked, her eyes wide with horror. What had she been playing?

"He went straight from the hospital to a nice little residential facility," Jessie laughed. "He got out after a few months and then just disappeared. Nobody knows for sure where he went. A lot of people think he was assassinated."

"Was he?" Sheila asked Sheloran.

"I'm… I'm not-"

"You're not supposed to say?"

Sheloran nodded.

"Well, it seems that he set up a hidden server somewhere," Sheila said with a smirk. "So, did it? Did it unlock something?"

"I don't know," Sheloran replied, looking down, "All I know is that it's amazing, and I miss it so much. It… It helps me. I can't get a bunch of herbs and stuff that I can only get on my homeworld, and it is the only thing that makes things feel better. Craxi hates the game, though. She said that it was making me weird. All I know is that was about when the dreams started happening."

"Dreams?" Sheila asked.

"Yeah, pooping weird ones," Sheloran replied. "Stuff like Plath on starships, real starships, that we made, or grew, or something and Plath that could… do magic and had really scary glowing eyes."

Everyone looked at each other again.

"So Plath don't have glowing eyes?"

"Oh no!" Sheloran replied. "And we don't grow starships. We're just the Plath. We farm. That's it. We barely even use technology at all."

"And your eyes never go all funny and glowy and shit?" Sheila asked.

"Prophet, no!" Sheloran exclaimed. "In fact, it looked blasphemous… what I saw in my dream."

"Bunny, would you please play the footage we have of the Harkeen incident."

"No!" Sheloran squealed, clamping her eyes shut. "Don't make me watch! Please!"

"Don't worry," Eno said, glaring at Sheila, "we aren't going to do that to you," he said, pulling her a little closer.

Sheloran clung to him, burying her face in his gigantic torso.

"Fine," Sheila said with an exasperated sigh. "Pull up the song then. Her eyes are glowing then."

"You got it, boss."

An image of Sheloran sitting in the cab appeared, holding her flayers on the mess hall holo-screen.

Sheloran gasped in shock and total and complete horror at herself.

When the clip started to play, she stiffened. She never liked her voice, especially her singing voice. Plath weren't known for their singing. They liked doing it, but only Plath could really stand it. It was normally compared to having to sit through a dozen small amphibians getting into a fight (the specific genus changed depending on the planet whatever critic was from). But what she heard…

It was beautiful!

Everyone stood in silence, some coming to attention, as she sang.

It was amazing.

"I… I don't… Oh, Prophet..." she stammered once the clip ended.

"So that's not normal for your species?" Sheila asked.

"I've… I've never… Only in my dreams… How?..." Sheloran squeaked.

"Her brain just did something funny," Bunny announced. "I've been scanning her trying to see if she was lying like you asked, and her brain just did some freaky freaky shit once 'Other Sheloran' started to sing. Wait..."

"What?" Sheila and Sheloran asked in unison.

"When we did her medical exam after we busted her out of jail, we focused on her internal organs, especially her lungs, not her brain or endocrine system, or whatever those little gland thingies are. You guys are weird. When I said that there were no changes from what was normal for a Plath, I was incorrect. I should have said that there was no damage, not no changes. Sheloran, you got some weird shit going on in you."

"Eeeep!" Sheloran squealed, "What's happening?"

"I have no idea. I'm a hacker bot, not a fucking doctor, and certainly not a xenologist. I need a LOT more info before I can say anything else. All I can say is that it's probably not cancer or anything malignant. It seems 'natural', if you can call it that, but my stolen medical programs fall a little short on this one. A bullet wound or a blaster bolt I have covered, this? Nope. Jessie?"

"What?" Jessie replied over the speaker.

"I think we need to dig up 'Dr. Jessie' again. Feel like hacking Starshield?"

"Bleh," Jessie replied, "I wouldn't call that a hack but sure. Sheila, can I please come out?"

"You're grounded, missy," Sheila replied. "You can come out after you complete all of the infosec training we have on file… all of it. You can hack from your room."

"Aww..."

"Well, this explains Cerberus's interest in you," Sheila said as she turned once again to Sheloran.

What's happening to me? Sheloran thought as she swallowed hard and clamped her gill slits. What the poop is going on?

***

Gloria's ship slammed into real space, leaking just enough drive noise to be detectable. She checked her sensors.

Perfect. The data center was only ten kilometers away, and her target was still there!

She grinned as she gunned the thrusters, her ship instantly accelerating at over fifty G's.

She launched a thirty kiloton missile which slowly advanced in front of her vessel, its thruster not much more powerful than her ship's.

That was what was supposed to happen.

What actually happened was that the missile took off entirely too quickly and streaked towards the target.

Gloria had time to think, What the Fu- before the missile ripped through the station's shield and pierced the hull.

As Gloria desperately triggered an emergency jump outside of the pre-planned window, there was a blinding flash.

"Shields down" appeared in glowing red letters inside her helmet's visor as she jumped.

Gloria blinked in surprise.

That wasn't supposed to happen.

Fortunately, the cockpit shield, which she had strenuously objected to, held and kept her from taking a bath in hyperspace, which was definitely not good for the complexion.

She had a few seconds before she popped back into real space. She took advantage of them and checked the status of her ship.

Shields were down, and the lovely stealth coating was either completely burned away or cooked to the point of uselessness.

On the bright side, its ablation had spared the hull the worst of the flash. However, it was warped and dimpled in several places. It was intact, mostly, but its essential perfect geometry was ruined.

When she popped back into real space, she would shine like a fucking beacon.

She had just enough time to try to engage the cloak before she popped back in. At least that worked, but she was trailing ions. The Fairbairns would be able to "smell" those like the sharks that they were.

Just great.

The craft twisted and spun violently as Gloria reentered real space.

Gloria heard a loud grinding noise, and "Gyroscope offline" flashed shortly thereafter.

"Chief, I am going to fucking kill you," Gloria growled quietly as her ship tumbled helplessly through space.

***

"Captain!" Commander Shen shouted into the intercom. "Blood is in the water! Repeat. Blood is in the fucking water! Get your ass up here!… um… sir…."